Taking responsibility for the nature of your experience

Taking responsibility for the nature of your experience

A blog I worte for the ISTA website 31 Oct 2025

A personal reflection on triggers, shadow work & reclaiming inner power

Take responsibility for the nature of your experience.

What does this really mean?

The nature of your experience is what it is. 

If you’re angry, it’s neither good nor bad. The

of your experience is that you’re angry — and this is important information to pay attention to. It’s a signal… Wisdom.

For me, it’s about becoming a witness of myself. Noticing what’s happening inside me.

I need to look in the mirror to see my own face — and in life, the people around me are my mirrors to help me better see my own subconscious programs.

So how does taking responsibility for the nature of your experience empower you?

It means you know thyself. It means you take back power. It means you can form new choices and create a new life…

Here are some reflections on how:

1. Your reactions are clues — track them

Imagine a person in an abusive relationship. When they get hurt, this person just smiles. It’s a kind of fawn response.

Then, as they go through life, they start to notice that others who are hurt push back — they fight. Or they get out of there — they fly.

So for their process, taking responsibility for the nature of their experience means noticing that they smile when they’re hurt. 

They ask themselves, why am I not getting angry? Why do I only smile?

This is an invitation to explore Anger - what is their relation with anger? How does it feel in the body?  

It’s quite probable, when following the thread, they’ll notice that in their childhood, anger wasn’t allowed. It got pushed into the shadow.

So for them, this experience means they can find ways to reclaim anger (which was pushed into the shadow) and make new choices. 

Taking responsibility for the nature of your experience is a counterpart to shadow work.

2. It’s not what they’re doing — it’s what’s alive in you

In relationships, I noticed that whenever my partner got frustrated, I was triggered.

The next step was taking responsibility for it — that I’m having this reaction.

So I looked back and did the work.

I saw that growing up, there was no room for my frustration — my mother’s frustration “took up” all the space in the house, and I subconsciously made mine disappear.

I had space for a range of other emotions… but not frustration.

So I took it to my partner. I told her I was having this reaction. It wasn’t exactly that she was doing anything wrong — but I was extra sensitive about it.

3. Feeling it is part of healing it

Once I witnessed this, and understood that the nature of my experience was that I was triggered — I took responsibility.

I allowed myself to feel it.

I made space to be frustrated.

To do something different.

To emotionally express what was formerly repressed.

I allowed myself to be frustrated.

I stopped trying to solve problems and be the saviour…

And instead I complained about delayed flights.

The food that wasn’t really what I wanted.

I named what doesn’t work for me during love-making…

It was liberating.

4. Responsibility means becoming the witness

The ‘responsibility’ part means witnessing what’s going on inside of you.

What just happened that triggered you so deeply?

What’s underneath that?

What does it remind you of?

Has this happened before in your life?

What is the emotion that’s locked here?

There’s a saying: never waste a good trigger.

Make the most of this triggering moment to know thyself.

Here’s a chance to meet a part of me that wants my attention.

It means you don’t lose life force fighting them — or fighting yourself.

And instead, you drink your own power by opening up the locked emotions or programs that are confronting you right now.

This is a doorway to freedom.

5. Responsibility means the ability to respond

Otherwise, you’re just in reaction.

Responsibility means being able to respond.

Not just react — respond.

Track yourself.

Notice how other people are reacting to the same thing you’re experiencing.

Are you excessively angry or quiet?

Are you smiling or running?

Notice yourself…

Is there a part of you that’s suppressed — or expressed in excess?

6. Your shadows hold your unique super power

There’s a deeper maturity in not telling yourself you’re ‘wrong’ for your reactions or feelings… but instead, to understand there’s something locked inside them.

Inside these shadows are pieces of power that will come back to you and shine as you integrate the shadows.

For example, the one who smiles after getting hurt may one day (after befriending, owning back the emotion and expression of anger) understand their capacity to endure intensity and keep going.

This capacity that was trained and practiced all these years to bypass anger.

Now - no longer an unconscious reaction, but as a choice of response - it can be a powerful support to others in some intense situations.

It’s about having discernment and balance — and not being locked into a program of reaction.

Freedom means you can choose.

* A note about trauma

In some cases, people go into trauma response.

They might say: “I froze”, "I completely disappeared", “I wasn’t there anymore”.

It’s true. The nature of trauma is that the person was there in the body but actually not there in any ability to take responsible action.

Trauma is actually not the “event” but the inability to integrate that event into conscious  recognition.

Whatever situation that will resemble the core event, will ignite the inability, the “split” or disappearance from the body. 

In this case - the nature of your experience is a Trauma reaction.

Taking responsibility for the nature of that experience does not mean that you should have done or be anything different that what has accrued. 

It means witnessing that this Trauma has surfaced (sometimes for the first time), and that this might be an opening-  a first step on a path to recognise the core event and the ability to integrate it back to conscious recognition.

7. Responsibility is not the same as blame

Responsibility is a choice.

People often confuse it with blame — but they’re opposite polarities.

We have freedom of choice at a fundamental level.

It doesn’t mean it will be easy… but we always have choice.

Responsibility doesn’t mean that you’re responsible for what’s happening — for example, an earthquake.

You’re not responsible for the earthquake.

To be responsible for the nature of your experience means:

You’re noticing how you’re feeling and thinking about it.

What inside you is contributing to that.

What meaning you’re making.

What choices you’re making in response to what you experienced.

The nature of your experience is about what’s happening inside you.

8. You’re not just a victim — you’re a creator

The drama triangle helps here.

It helps you see that you’re not just having something done to you — you’re also creating the story of what’s going on.

You are a creator in the situation — not just a helpless victim.

Ask:

Are there parts of me that are winning by being in this narrative?

If I’m angry at you for doing something that offended me — what does that give me?

Do I feel righteous and better because I’m right and you’re wrong?

Which part of me is getting something from this story?

This is what it means to take responsibility for the nature of your experience.

To stop outsourcing your power.

To stop waiting for the outside to change — and turn inward to meet what’s alive.

It’s not always easy. But it’s the path to freedom. And it’s yours.

Have some reflections about this? Feel free to share with us.