Taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life can be an empowering feeling. It can make you feel like you’re in control of your own destiny. You’ll never be able to control everything that happens to you, but you can always control how you react.

Something I learned during one of my first psychedelic experiences was about taking responsibility versus having a victim mentality. A victim mentality is when you feel as if the world is against you and nothing is ever your fault. It’s a dangerous way of thinking because it can lead to feelings of helplessness, decreased well-being, and self-destructive behavior. This mentality also makes it harder to maintain social connections, which I cannot stress the importance of for mental health. 

I wouldn’t say that I necessarily had a victim mentality before taking psychedelics , but psychedelics have helped me to solidify my way of thinking about taking personal responsibility. I’ve only now come to realize that there can be instances where taking responsibility can turn into blaming yourself. This is the opposite of empowering. When you blame yourself, you tend to hold in whatever emotions you’re feeling and never actually let them go. The act of letting go is an essential part of healing and self-love.

During the process of forgiving myself for the shame and guilt I’ve been holding in subconsciously, this concept of taking responsibility came up. Many of the things that I thought I was just taking responsibility for actually turned into self-blame. 

An example of this comes from my childhood when I was maybe about 8 years old. I was with my brother and dad at a train station. My brother and I were sharing a suitcase and, from what I remember, my brother and I agreed that he would be in charge of the suitcase (I could also be wrong here but that’s not the point). We boarded the train and right when we got on my dad realized that neither of us had the suitcase. My dad asked my brother and I who was in charge of the suitcase and I ended up taking the fall for it. How that happened doesn’t really matter as much. It’s also worth nothing that my dad had quite the temper while I was growing up. Once I took the fall, my dad yelled at me like I had just murdered everyone on the train. I don’t remember what he actually said, but I remember being fucking terrified to the point where I started crying. We were then actually able to stop the train from leaving and get the suitcase before leaving. After I came back with the suitcase, my dad gave me a talk about taking responsibility and blah, blah, blah… but the damage had already been done. I felt like a real piece of shit.

I took all of that shame and guilt I felt for leaving the suitcase and internalized it. As a kid who was still learning and figuring out the world, I didn’t know any better. I never actually forgave myself for being human and making an honest mistake. I blamed myself and thought I deserved to feel bad for doing something like that. It’s right to take responsibility for making mistakes, but you need to forgive yourself too. Ayahuasca helped me realize the difference between simply taking responsibility for something rather than internalizing and blaming myself. This was something I never really even thought of before.

For those of you thinking that this very real example is incredibly random, you are correct. I probably haven’t thought about this incident in well over 10 years. This legitimately came up during night 2 of my ayahuasca experience. It’s just one of the many examples of something I still apparently felt shame and guilt about. Ayahuasca is a hell of a medicine. I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sure there are going to be more that continue to come up during my integration process as well. 

Lastly I want to mention that I understand my dad was never trying to actually make me feel that way. He was doing what he thought was best at the time. I didn’t always have the best relationship with him growing up, but we have a great relationship now, which I’m very grateful for. 

I hope this little post about the difference between taking responsibility and blaming yourself can be helpful in some way. Remember that you’re not always going to be perfect and you will make mistakes. True healing happens when you let go and forgive yourself.