Responsibility Troll, Meet the Angel of Responsibility
Responsibility.
Ta-duh.
The word lands with a heavy thump of burden and obligation. It stands hunched-over and stiff-necked with shoulds and expectations. A painfully bristling virtue that leaves us feeling bad about ourselves because its standards are so high, we’re afraid we’ll never be able to live up to them.
A grim Troll of a word with a Calvinist edge to it, its arrival strikes a sting of reproach–our failure to meet its exacting standards seems inevitable, built into its structure.
So what is responsibility, really? Who or what are we responsible for? Do we get to choose? Or do our responsibilities arrive pre-ordained—the mighty Troll who casts a long shadow over family, work, relationships, business, life…
Part of the confusion we feel arises because responsibility is both a body energy, and a spiritual quality—and the two are very different from each other.
As human animals—particularly if we’re female human animals–our bodies are genetically programmed to be responsible. This is Nature’s way of ensuring the propagation of the species, of making sure we’ll take care of our children through the long years it takes for them to grow to maturity and be able to survive in the wilds of the world.
It’s this Responsibility Troll that brings my whole being into a state of instant alert when I hear a child’s panicked voice calling: “Mommy!” at my local grocery store. Even though my sons are grown men, happily living their own lives, that cry of “Mommy!” raises the atavistic hackles of my body. My heart beats a quickstep and adrenalin surges through my arteries. Mommy is ready to leap into action—to protect, shelter, comfort, respond to a child’s distress.
Because the Responsibility Troll is a body energy, you can’t will it away—it has its own purpose, its reason for being. To function effectively, we must understand its nature, honor it, and negotiate a working relationship with it.
When there’s no obvious place for the Responsibility Troll to direct its considerable power, it fixates on work, or on the people around us. It’s convinced it knows what’s best for everyone, and also convinced the world will fall apart without it.
When it’s doing what it’s meant to do, it’s an evolutionary and useful being. Not so helpful when it lumbers in where it doesn’t belong.
You can experience the Responsibility Troll by thinking of something or someone you feel responsible for. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? That heaviness, that sense of overwhelm? Or that punishing self-righteousness—all point to the presence of the Responsibility Troll.
On the upside, it is hard-working and reliable, determined to make things work no matter what.
If the body energy of responsibility is a troll toiling in a coal mine, the spiritual quality of responsibility is a creature of sunlight and wings. Because it emerges from wholeness, as all spiritual qualities do, it understands that you–and the situation and everyone involved in it–are a radiant soul, filled with infinite power and potential. It knows that each of us has everything we need to be whole, healthy and fulfilled. No-one is broken; no-one needs to be fixed.
The Angel of Responsibility knows this. So when you fill yourself with its presence, you naturally respond to people and situations in ways that honor your own sovereignty and that of everyone else as well. You experience yourself and everyone else as already whole.
This doesn’t mean you turn a blind eye to pain and suffering. Suffering exists. You meet it with kindness, honoring your own and other people’s vulnerability and need as aspects of wholeness.
When you become the Angel of Responsibility, you respond with empathy, support, respect, and love–offering what your heart calls you to offer. Knowing that the person you are offering help to is also helping you–that you are in a dance that weaves together call and response, love, support and kindness, giving and receiving.
Both you and the person being helped are Angels of Responsibility, learning the steps to the dance so you can dance it more effortlessly, with greater joy.
Ultimately, our responsibility is to cultivate those qualities within ourselves and in our lives that bring us to our natural state of wholeness. This requires discernment and choices.
We choose what we say yes to, what we say no to. And our yes-es and our no-es shape who we become. They also shape what we offer to the world.
If you work on your business hunched over as the Responsibility Troll, gritting your teeth to make it through that next project, pushing yourself harder, you add to the suffering of the world. Each time you treat yourself unkindly, telling yourself the end justifies the means, you increase the sum of unkindness in the world. You contribute to a lack of empathy and generosity.
How you do what you do determines the quality of your life. So when that Responsibility Troll shows up, give it something to do that lets it fulfill its natural function. Then invite the Angel of Responsibility into your presence. Become its shining, winged self, and see what happens next.
Oh, and listen for the tune that brings the Angel and the Troll onto the dance floor together.
…………………………………………………..
I’d love to hear your stories. How do you feel when the Responsibility Troll shows up in your life? Do you have rituals for welcoming the Angel of Responsibility?
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Hello Hiro,
God I love your blog.
I feel ok at work as far as Responsibility Troll. There is some tug of war with my husband, who I work with, we can definitely make some progress in that area.
I do have this sense of the Troll in ALL OTHER areas of my life though. And it impinges on my working life to a degree. So perhaps that is something that can be dealt with.
Thank you for this. Healing words!
‘Each time you treat yourself unkindly….you increase the sum of unkindness in the world.’ Yes and wow, beautiful. Lack of empathy and compassion to ourself is an act of violence. Here and now engaging with my shoulds and my inner fixer upper.
Thanks for this.
Wonderful as always.
Leila
Leila Lloyd-Evelyn´s last post … Very Personal Ad. When things get a little rough I ask for help to unstick some stucky!
I am much more familiar with the Responsibility Troll than with the Angel of Responsibility.
When the troll visits, I feel a heavy burden that triggers lots of resentment.
But it’s actually through starting and growing my business that I’m starting to recognize the difference between the Troll and the Angel.
Before my business, I really only knew the Troll. But perhaps because I set out to make my business satisfying and enjoyable, I think I’ve been starting to interact with the Angel, even if I wasn’t conscious of it.
Thank you for putting words to the differences, so that I can start noticing who’s visiting. :)
Victoria Brouhard´s last post … Four No-Brainer Questions (and the Unveiling)
Hi Hiro,
Thanks so much for these insights and giving this context. So often I think of the troll side and forget about the angel.
I feel the troll as tightness, scarcity and urgency.
The angel is flow, trust, sharing and opening — like a tight fist releasing.
Let the troll angel do her salute!
xo
Michelle´s last post … Dork Dancing, Check!
What a lovely post Hiro,
I’ve never gone beyond seeing the Responsibility Troll, never even held the notion of a Responsibility Angel or anything like it.
I think I’m a responsible person but Responsibility has always been a tiring/draining concept.
I felt a softening in my body as I was reading and look forward to getting to know my Responsibility Angel.
Many thanks,
Thank you, Hiro. This post really resonated with me.
I think that my mean troll appears when I’m doing all that ’should’ing’ and ‘ought-ing,’ telling myself those old stories of who I should be.
But when I notice that and allow myself to let go of those sorts of narratives, that makes space for so much more lightness and freedom. That’s when I notice or discover who I feel myself to be and my felt sense of what is the right fit for me in that moment. That’s when I can hold things lightly, rather than driving or pushing myself towards goals and outcomes. And the funny thing is that, when I do that, all sorts of things become more possible.
I think it was Abraham Maslow who said, ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail.’Your angel is the antidote to the hammer!
Thanks for the distinction between the body energy of responsibility and the spiritual quality. This really helps me understand my experience of the heaviness of the weight and the involuntary nature of the responsibility I feel, especially as a mom. And then there’s the other side- the angel of lightness which I understand as the ability-to-respond.
Lovely imagery as always Hiro!
Liz´s last post … February is Retreat Month!
What lovely and helpful imagery! I have been trying to delegate the Responsibility Troll to shelf where I can play with her hair and then put her away.
I am learning to let go of the sensation that if I don’t feel and care and worry, the world will fall apart without me (’cause I’ve done such a great job of holding the world together — ha!).
I am endeavoring to fly on the wings of the Responsibility Angel. Thank you for your beautiful reminder.
Hiro,
I love your writing style, so effortless/seamless/! What a sense of style.
My biggest shift came with my children, when at first I had the “Troll Trenchcoat” on- BIG TIME. You saw me wearing metal cufflinks hunched over like an old woman. I could not tell that I was at my son’s beck and call – EMOTIONALLY. He was a needy child and in my history, I was always doing for others, especially my parents who always leaned on me too much. (and still do when I let them!) So I was a set-up for the responsibility Troll.
But after the birth of my daughter, who gives back hugs and smiles with abandon, and has a million dollar smile to give to you, I was able to switch to the feeling state of responsibility as a mom, and out of love for her. For me, that means that I do it because I WANT to, not because I HAVE to. It also means I let others do for her also, without feeling guilty. The saying “it takes a village”, well that’s been helpful. For example, if she is up at night because she’s sick, instead of the usual “here we go, mama doesn’t get sleep…”, I think “here’s my lovely daughter who one day will be a teenager and never want to be home, so let me ‘enjoy’ this now”…and I get up and hug her, and care for her. Then it’s from the angels and I feel loved from her during the experience too. And instead of having to be the one to take her to the doctor, my husband does it. It helps unload the tasks and the feeling that it has to be me, and it’s on my shoulders. The other thing I do, with my family, is surrounding dinner time. The “Trenchcoat” would have me fixing a nice dinner every night after coming home from a day of work, because I have to, or because it’s a “role”, or because I want the admiration. Yuck!!!! Now I see if it “feels” like I have enough energy to do it, and if I do, it’s “FOR FUN AND FOR FREE”, not because I have to, but because I am enjoying the joy of cooking and preparing food, and I have enough leftover energy, after working, caring for kids, myself, to DO it.
Love your words, and big hugs!!!
lisa
Being aware of the responsibility troll can help us divert its influence. The problem is, it is too instinctive that we give it automatic acknowledgment. Again, awareness is the key. It takes time to develop this knowing, but small effort every day can make this a habit. Same goes with angel of responsibility. :-)
Walter´s last post … Selfishness under the pretense of love
wow this brought back memories….thank you. now i have a post to print out and ponder when the troll and the angel are fighting over what kind of music to dance to…