When you read that what came to mind? What type of things or qualities came to mind? Were they bad things or good things? Or did you think “Why don’t you mind your ******* business” (joking). I know for me, any time I think of the word accountability I nearly always think about bad things needing to be fixed; “getting it together” so to speak. Just recently during one of my acting classes my teacher was talking about the only way to live confidently in our truth is to be able to take accountability for everything in our lives. Meaning everything that we’ve done or that has happened to us for us to end up being who and where we are now. That isn’t to say that we need to take accountability for things that have happened that were out of our control, but whatever the circumstance we must take accountability for the healing part, whatever that may look like, because our happiness is no one else’s responsibility but our own.

After that he said something made me stop everything I was doing and thinking because it was something that I have never heard before in my entire life. He mentioned also taking accountability for the good. He said that we must take accountability for all of the good things that we are and have made happen in our lives. When I heard that I thought to myself “why do I always think of bad things when I hear accountability?” Maybe its because my only experience with accountability has been negative, or maybe I’ve only learned about accountability from sources that were just like me in not thinking of the good side of it.

Either way I was so shocked when I heard it that I had to speak up about it, I spoke about my journey with shadow work and how I’ve been working and continue working patiently with myself to peacefully take accountability for the dark decisions that I’ve made both heavy and light. I said that I had never even thought to take accountability for the light so to speak. When I was done he gave me an assignment which was to write down 100 good things that I’m accountable for in my life. I need to mention that this isn’t to take God out of the equation. I believe that we have true God given power and it is our decisions with that power that we must take accountability for. I started working on the list yesterday and I got to a whopping 22 things. I found it difficult to list out good things because that is a muscle that I haven’t flexed much, but I’m glad to have started working it out because better late than never.

Its important to take accountability for our “darkness” because its a necessary step in healing our foundation. It is also crucial to take accountability for our light because that is how we build ourselves up on the aforementioned foundation. So my question to you is the same as it was at the beginning, do you hold yourself accountable?