Real responsibility compared to inflated responsibility
The first concept to understand regarding taking responsibility is to differentiate between inflated responsibility and real responsibility. No one has responsibility for the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that occur in private experience. Other uncertainties that you don’t have control over include:
● Other people’s thoughts and feelings.
● The thoughts, feelings, and sensations that occur naturally in your experience.
● The life circumstances you were born into.
● Most of what happens to you.
All of these are categories of inflated responsibility. We can think about real responsibility by thinking about the word itself. Do you have the ability to respond to whatever it is that you have anxiety about? In the case of real responsibility, you have the capacity to respond. You might not have control over what happens to show up in your experience, but you do have the capacity to respond to it. Similarly, you don’t have certainty over what other people think and feel, but you do have control over how you respond to what other people convey to you.
It’s helpful to discuss real responsibility with people who experience intolerance of uncertainty because you often feel too much responsibility over that which you cannot control, but are paralyzed with anxiety about taking responsibility for what you can control.
The serenity challenge can help you understand the ideal way of relating to uncertainty: