Podcast Ep. 260: Keeping It Real About What It Means to Take Responsibility

So many of us conflate responsibility with blame. It’s no wonder, then, that we struggle to take responsibility or to even know what responsibility is. In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I explain what responsibility is and isn’t and why it’s good for our well-being and relationships.

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5 key topics in this episode

• Responsibility is when we take ownership of our feelings, thoughts, actions, decisions and choices. We do this to understand not just what truly belongs to us and is within our scope but the impact on ourselves and others of how we think, feel, act, and decide. When it comes to mistakes and wrongdoing, responsibility means to acknowledge that there is a problem: What’s our part in it is even if that makes us uncomfortable?
• What we experienced in childhood isn’t our fault; we don’t need to take responsibility for other people’s behaviour. We’re not responsible for what we’ve inherited and been socialised and conditioned into. That said, managing our emotional baggage, including the impact on ourselves and others, is our responsibility.
• Acknowledging our part in something only really takes shape if we don’t focus too heavily on the size. It’s not about working out the percentages. The more we focus on the size of our part, the more we’re distracting and deflecting from our responsibility.
• It’s easy to assume that dodging responsibility always comes from a place of shadiness. And yes, sometimes it does. Most humans, though, have a complicated relationship with responsibility. Why? Because we’ve been socialised to have a complicated relationship with boundaries. 
• Responsibility is vulnerability; when we dodge one, we dodge the other.

Links mentioned + recommended resources

• Let’s Talk About Overgiving and Overcompensating (ep 259)
• Three Vulnerability Habits to Live By (ep 218)
• Yes Isn’t A ‘Clean’ Word If It’s Not Authentic (ep 199)
• It’s Not That You’re Not ‘Good Enough’ — You’re Over-Responsible (ep 158)
• Roles – “I Want To Break Free” (ep 128)
• What does it mean to have ‘healthy work boundaries’?
• Why you’re still having thoughts about that certain someone or thing (ep 230)
• The Age of Obedience and our fear of ‘getting into trouble’ (ep 242)
• What’s the baggage behind it? (ep 243)
• What’s the problem with saying NO? When you have negative associations with NO
• Are ‘False Negatives’ Causing You to Make Negative Associations?
• The Four Qualities of a Loving Partner/Person (ep 109)
• The Self-Sabotage of Over-giving, Over-responsibility, People Pleasing, Perfectionism and Overthinking (ep 194)
• Gaslighting (ep 185)
• ‘Damaged Goods’ & Relationship Experience (ep 157)

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The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want (Harper Horizon/HarperCollins) is out now and available in bookshops on and offline. Listen to the first chapter.

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