Self-awareness requires us to listen with all our senses, through our subtle energy field, aura and chakras, to what is present for us at any one time. Awareness through the mind-body-spirit system allows us to consciously experience changes in energy in the environment we exist in, locally and globally. It helps us to understand how to hold boundaries for ourselves. It helps us to know when a line has been crossed, and what to do about it.

The College of Healing training addresses the mind-body-spirit system. Our physical health has an impact on what we can do. What we can do has an impact on how we think. What we think has an impact on what we feel. Our physical health and what we think and feel has an overall impact on our sense of wellbeing. Although the relationship between the aspects of the self are often complex, in simple diagrammatic form, they look like this:

We experience. In experiencing, we go out of balance, we learn, we adjust we come back into balance. The more we can know about what is present in all aspects of our being, the more we can be actively involved in creating the best conditions for ourselves in which to flourish. The more responsibility you take for the situation you find yourself in, the more power you have in bringing balance to it.

When we blame others for what we are experiencing, we rob ourselves of the lessons and resources that are available to us in each experience. The more we blame others for our situation, the less power we have to bring the situation into balance.

Instead of ‘why is this happening to me?’ we ask ,‘what is happening in this situation and what can I do to bring more balance to it?’

Self-responsibility allows us to avoid casting blame. When we own responsibility for our part in any situation we find ourselves in, we have more agency in the situation. In any situation, we need to understand what part of it is of our making and what part of it is because of the will and actions of another? We can understand what different choices we can make and actions we can take to lead us towards different outcomes.

Once we have awareness we have choice. Even if we cannot make the choice that improves our circumstances, we can be aware we have choice. We can be aware that we are living in a set of circumstances that are costing us something or taking us out of balance. We can be aware of when we are managing limited resources and we can take responsibility by creating a set of circumstances in which we will be able to be more resourced. Taking responsibility allows us to be actively involved in creating balance and harmony.