Fault Vs Responsibility
Responsibility is often misunderstood as fault or blame, leading many to believe they are at fault for what was done to them. Responsibility is not about blame! It is the ability to respond to past circumstances in the present.
Fault is rooted in the past, and responsibility is about what you do now, and it lives in the present and shapes the future. It’s about recognising how past events impact us and taking responsibility for the emotional effects on ourselves and others; it’s about taking ownership of our part in an argument or disagreement and acknowledging the impact of our behaviours and actions.
Fault is rooted in the past, and responsibility is about what you do now.
Responsibility means putting the finger down, turning inward, and asking: How has this shaped me and my life? What am I carrying because of it?
We live in a cause-and-effect world. What happens to us, especially in early life, shapes our behaviour later. That’s the basic principle. Something happens (the cause), and as a result, something else happens (the effect).
Cause = The reason something happens
Effect = The result or outcome of that cause
The actions taken by others towards us when we were children, especially if they involved violence, abuse, neglect, criticism, rejection, or harm, can lead us to develop certain beliefs, habits, or reactions. They can leave us traumatised. They are the result of what we’ve experienced. In this context, the initial act was not certainly your fault, but later in life, the emotions and behaviours become our responsibility.
Most of us are manifesting behaviours that are emotional echoes of our past. Not because we’re broken, but because our nervous systems are wired to protect us, hold on and keep us safe. Understanding the cause helps us stop blaming ourselves for the effect and gives us a chance to change it.
So, when you notice yourself people-pleasing, shutting down, lashing out, or struggling with self-worth, it’s not just who you are. It’s likely the effect of something that happened before. A survival response. A learned adaptation that has now become maladaptive.
As we grow into adulthood, the patterns of survival behaviours can be pretty destructive and undoubtedly impact ourselves and others in harmful ways. But when we are children, we are pretty defenceless against the world, and adults can be pretty fucking cruel. We are easily traumatised and taken advantage of. As children, it is certainly not our fault that we were harmed; when you are a child, you lack agency and control.
As adults, we can emotionally heal. When we acknowledge responsibility for our responses, actions, and feelings about what happened to us, healing occurs. Taking responsibility DOES NOT mean that we are to blame! The fault lies with and will always lie with the perpetrator.
We live in a culture of blame. Just glance at the news or scroll through social media, finger-pointing is everywhere, but genuine responsibility and emotional accountability are rare. It’s a relentless back-and-forth: governments blame protestors, protestors blame politicians; celebrities blame each other, and the public takes sides. Even in war, conflict, and celebrity divorces, the cycle remains the same.
Our social media feeds are filled with blame flying back and forth. The voice of blame is loud and threatening, while accountability is barely heard. No wonder so much stays unresolved, unreconciled, and festering beneath the surface.
This dynamic is very apparent when it comes to abusive parents or perpetrators of harm. The victim is expected to move on or stay silent, even forgive, while the abuser often avoids responsibility entirely. The adult child is usually told that, to heal, they must forgive. Forget and move on. They were your parents, and they did their best. Meanwhile, the parent is quietly let off the hook, absolved of all responsibility or blame. Responsibility dissolves into silence, and blame lands on the wrong shoulders.
Taking responsibility doesn’t let anyone off the hook (no matter how it feels); it gets you out of the emotional prison that you are in. It puts you on a better path to freedom. When you take responsibility for how you are feeling instead of giving that power to someone else, you can begin the path of recovery and healing.
The wound may not be your fault; you may not have put it there, but the responsibility to heal is yours and yours alone. No one can do it for you; no one can heal your wounds. Healing happens when we recognise that, even though it wasn’t our fault, it’s now our job to care for ourselves, because we finally have the power to create a safe environment where healing can occur.
When we break a bone, we don’t argue with the healing process. We strap it up and give it time. We trust that, with the proper care, the bone will naturally fuse and repair itself. Our responsibility in the process is to create the right environment for that healing to happen. But if we keep running on a broken foot, ignoring the damage and pushing through the pain, we risk it healing poorly or not at all.
The wounded child within us needs to heal from past events. But taking responsibility for the emotional pain caused by those experiences can be particularly challenging. There is no easy way out. Over time, we have replayed unresolved traumas or beliefs about ourselves and others, much like a video, rewinding and playing them over and over again, creating self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives.
We weep and wail when it all goes wrong. But we are the ones unconsciously hitting the repeat button! So accepting that we are the ones who need to change it can be tough.
We don’t have control over everything. Life is uncertain, unpredictable, and full of unknowns, and that’s hard. We yearn for guarantees, reassurance that our needs will be met, that we’ll be OK. But part of healing, part of reconciling the past, is learning to live with that uncertainty. Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up; it means facing reality without needing it to be different.
What happened, happened, and we cannot, no matter how hard we try, change the events of the past, even if the mind wants to. When we choose to heal, all we can do is start from exactly where we are; we can reach out to whatever guides us: the universe, God, spirit, or whoever you call upon to guide us through the healing process.
We don’t need to have it all figured out; we just need to begin. This takes time, patience, love, and kindness toward yourself and others. Eventually, for some people, forgiveness will come, in whatever form it takes, to bring more peace.
When we peel back the layers of emotion, strip away thoughts, and break down beliefs, we move toward acknowledging that the cause was certainly not our fault, but the effect is our responsibility.
Only you can heal the wounds left by the traumas of your past. Only you can break free from your past. Only you can let it go.
Please remember that what happened to you was not your fault, but you have a responsibility to yourself and to this big, beautiful world to heal the wounds of the past.