Responsibility turns “this happened” into “what happens next?”

The past tense is closed and the future tense is open, and where you spend your attention shapes which one you live in. Recounting what happened is necessary for a while and eventually becomes a way of staying put. Responsibility is what moves the sentence forward.

When you notice you have described a situation the same way several times, deliberately change the question to what happens next. Answer it concretely. That change of tense is often the whole shift.