Last year I experienced a pretty traumatic back injury. Once I recovered from the initial injury, I still had weeks more in bed to contemplate what had happened.

So I decided to do the spiritual thing; I took responsibility for my injury.

I knew what I'd done wrong. And I knew that "if only" I'd been handling things differently, that wouldn't have happened.

It was when the "if onlys" popped up that I realized that I wasn't really taking responsibility. Instead, I was blaming myself.

And if we just blame ourselves, we don't make any head-way. Change doesn't manifest out of blame.

When we actually take responsibility for where we are, even when someone else has caused us pain and suffering, we see our way forward. Taking responsibility opens us to solutions so that we can work through things, heal, forgive, etc.

I didn't truly take responsibility until I started thinking about what I could do differently, and then DO differently. It was then that things started changing.

Finally.

XOXO Rev. Deanna