Yes, you have to do it alone.
You have to do it all alone.
Everything that has to be done is yours alone to do.
Even if the task seems to belong to a loved one, if you choose to cover and be context for that person, the job is yours alone to do if it is your business at all.
Whatever I can see that needs to be done is either my business, or it is not my business. If it is my business, I am the only one obligated. If it is not my business, I divest from the outcome altogether.
Because ALL of the obligation is mine, I am able to experience profound generosity from others who contribute to me with their time, energy, and attention.
I assign NO obligations to the world or to the others in my life, I attend to my own obligations. I reassess my relationship to the concept of obligation regularly, tuning it to experience more and more freedom and empowerment with the actions I take on my own behalf and on behalf of the life and people I have chosen.
When I attend to my own obligations, I am in my own business.
When I stay firmly within my own business, I will be unattractive to anyone who assigns obligations as a practice of close relationship. I will be incredibly attractive to all those who know how to stay in their own business, who know like I know it is their own business who and how they serve.
My close relationships are with people who are intrinsically motivated to serve others and who trust that others are intrinsically motivated to serve them.
There is nothing wrong with extrinsic motivations, it's a sacred way to live. It is not a match for the style I have chosen, where I personally experience the most empowerment. Extrinsically motivated individuals match very well with one another. The dynamic reveals its sustainability over time. Everything we would call dysfunction is a way of functioning. Every experience is sacred.
For me, taking responsibility for all of the obligations in my life has given me the beautiful experience that those in my life are loving me well. When I am lonely, it is the clean loneliness of existence, not a disappointment wrought upon me by those who merely claim to be loving me.
Taking responsibility for all of the obligations in my life has given me freedom from painful narratives that my darling loved ones are failing me or neglecting me. I am so busy in my own life, I can imagine how busy they are in theirs. We reunite in harmony. When we are apart, we sweetly desire one another.
I am free from the cycles of conflict and repair, because I am at peace with life.
Every war I have ever fought was with life itself, even when it seemed to be with another person. Every war of obligation and expectation someone has brought to me is their own war with reality. It has never been personal.
