84 the rice diet renewal
also created a position where she may prevent her tragedy from
happening to others.
It is a very challenging and exciting game to be alert and recog-
nize your responsibility to be truly aware of your present thoughts
and feelings; you can cultivate the mindfulness to assess whether
you want to continue to create from that paradigm or shift to a
stand that positively supports the outcome you want. My team for
the Legacy Center Journey was called NC73B, and our motto was
“ Shift happens. ” And it does! You can choose to take full respon-
sibility for steering your emotional rudders, or you can waste a lot
of potentially creative time being stuck on events or actions whose
emotions you don ’ t want to feel. This invitation to “ shift from self -
defeating emotional states to empowering ones ” is not meant to
encourage you to minimize your emotional processing of pain or
suffering, which can be powerful teachers, but to remember that
you don ’ t have to camp out there or become frozen with inertia.
When you become an active player in the Responsibility Game,
you develop a habit of consciously choosing to perceive everything
as an opportunity to win your heart ’ s desire and maximize your life ’ s
potential.
The Responsibility Game is a way of looking at the world and
approaching your life as if you can make a difference in how it
evolves. You either think you are responsible for creating the life
goals you have, or you don ’ t and thus are willing to accept the
victim role in your life. You may be saying, “ Yeah, this is true most
of the time, but what about... blah, blah, blah? ” I don ’ t want to
hear your but story; it will not serve you in actualizing your goals or
the life that you want. I am inviting you to enter a paradigm shift
in consciousness, which is nothing more than a shift, or change, in
your way of perceiving the world and your power in co - creating the
world. Those who have made the greatest shifts in their conscious-
ness usually have done so due to a compelling reason or a sense
that it is important for them to do so. This is why it may often seem
easier if you seek change during a life crisis, such as a divorce, a
family death, or a heart attack, but you don ’ t have to wait for a big
Mack truck to hit you!