Fault Isn't Responsibility

Don't conflate the two. When people wrong you, it's their fault. It's your responsibility in how you will deal with that wrong. When a friend backstabs you, a partner cheats you, a boss mistreats you, and/or a system oppresses you, it's their FAULT. It's not their responsibility to create healing within you. It's your responsibility to figure out how you will react, respond, grow, or face that challenge.

Carrying the idea in your heart that others should make everything alright will only disempower you. It's your responsibility to make it right in your heart, your mind, your life, even though the pain wasn't your fault. Like the photo above, you didn't build the bridge. Other people broke the board. But YOU make the choice of whether you cross the bridge and, if you decide to do so, how you will do it.

That peace is yours to figure out how to achieve. No one else can give it to you. When you're carrying the burden of emotional pain, it's your responsibility to put down that weight and let it go. It's on you. No one can reach into your heart and revise the past. People can help with current tasks or future work; however, no one except you can take the baggage off your psychological shoulders. That's why vengeance doesn't work. Justice may or may not be served. Forgiveness lightens the load.

This is something I talk about with coaching clients quite a bit. Coincidentally, a couple years ago, I saw a friend of mine, Donna Kregel, post a Will Smith video about exactly this same topic. Spookily, I had already written this message into my alarm before seeing the video. Apparently, the divine or the universe was trying to teach people this.
​
If you get a chance, look up the Will Smith video, since he probably does a better job than I can. In the meantime, remind yourself that fault isn’t responsibility.