Cracking Open That Door To Responsibility

“See if you can get that door to responsibility to crack open.”

The following is excerpted from a talk on accountability by teacher and activist Fleet Maull. Fleet will be visiting Washington DC March 8-10 to teach a program on Radical Responsibility, presented by the Shambhala Meditation Center of Washington DC and sponsored by BuddhaFest. For program details and registration information, visit http://dc.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=121193

Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are all about accountability, right? In the Radical Responsibility Model, I use CPA as something different. In this model, the “C” stands for Caused it (or created it). Looking into ourselves, and looking deeper into our story, we are able to see if there is someway we caused it, created it or at least contributed to our story occurring.

Sometimes when we have been victimized, either in reality or in our perception, we tell the story again and again. In this way, it becomes our story. And what does that do? Law of attraction; we start attracting that kind of situation to us. We all know that we can find ourselves getting victimized in the same way again and again.  Often we can see how other people get into the same situations again and again. Take, for example, how we can keep getting in the same kind of dysfunctional relationship over and over again. We are unconsciously driven to keep playing out the same scripts, again and again!

However, if we look into our victim story, we can ask ourselves, is there some way we’re setting ourselves up for this? This is where the “P” in CPA comes in. Now we can ask ourselves, “Is there some way we’re promoting this?”

The “A” in this equation stands for Allowed it. At the very least, are we willing to say, “I let it happen” or “I didn’t have good boundaries” or “I could have seen it coming” or “I could have been less naïve,” or “more mindful,” or “more prepared,” or “I didn’t know how to stand up for myself,” or…or…or?

There are many ways we can own our situation, take radical responsibility,
and get ourselves back above the line.

Go ahead, dig deep into your own personal victim story now. See if there’s any way you can find that you may have caused it, promoted it, or at the very least, allowed it. Keep going, even when the defenses come up. See if you can get that door to responsibility to crack open, even just a tiny bit. Try to find that little opening of a place where you caused it, promoted it or allowed something to happen. Start with that little opening and go from there.

You can see this talk, and others, on Fleet Maull’s  YouTube channel

by  Jayne Sutton