Are you a Blame-Thrower? And what to do if you are
- Ryan Wilson
- Jul 11, 2015
- 3 min read
QUIZ
Do bad things keep happening to you?
Are you surrounded by incompetent people?
Are you suffering because other people can’t get themselves sorted?
Do you feel like a victim of your own life?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, read on, you may be a Blame – Thrower!
Let’s talk about blame. We all do it sometimes, some more than others, yet we all generally know that it is not good for us. Why does it matter and what can we do about it?
The Benefits of Blaming others
It isn’t our fault, so we don’t have to do anything about it or to fix it
We get to be the victim in the story, and sometimes get sympathy from others
It makes us feel better in the short-term, because we get to avoid any uncomfortable feelings that come up for us about how we responded to the situation or even in general because we are focusing our energy on what is going on with other people instead of on ourselves
The Bad side of Blame
1. We feel worse in the long-term because when we blame others we give away our power.
We don’t take committed action ourselves towards consistently changing our situation because we believe we shouldn’t have to fix it, it’s not fair!
2. We feel weaker, because we are actually directing our energy towards being upset at the other people or situation- which is literally pushing it AWAY from us.
The healthier alternative is acknowledging what the situation brings up in us, and problem solving appropriately to be able to move forward in as healthy a way as possible given the circumstances.
Blame is a position of victim-hood (of life happening TO YOU) and of denying responsibility.
The truth is that even when things happen that are out of our control, we are responsible for HOW WE RESPOND and this is ignored when we blame people.
Blame to Acceptance and Responsibility
1. In order to do this, we have to OWN our EXPERIENCE. This means that we are CURIOUS
about how a situation or interaction impacted us, regardless of what the other person’s intention was.
HOT TIP! Watch out for Emotional Math: when we know someone didn’t mean to hurt us intentionally or that they did the best they could, we take away our permission to even acknowledge that it had a negative impact on us, like admitting it was hurtful somehow takes away from the positive feelings we have towards them. The result is that the energy from those emotions end up stuck in us instead.
2. Next we use the WHEN- THEN- AND approach.
We acknowledge the specific situation that had a negative impact (or positive, but people struggle less with that)
We acknowledge the EMOTIONAL and other impacts it had on us
we have to reflect on the emotional component because that is how we convey TO OURSELVES that we are SEEN, HEARD and MATTER, so without it we just keep spinning our wheels
Next we focus on ACCEPTING the situation (which is different from liking it or condoning it) and FOCUSING ON WHAT IS HEALTHIEST THING FOR ME TO DO given the circumstances
And since good intentions only get us so far, then we take action towards what is healthy for us
Let’s look at an example,
Acceptance and Responsibility: WHEN they betrayed my trust, THEN I was/am of course devastated AND now I am figuring out what is the healthiest response for me given the situation
Blaming might sound like this- “They made me go back to drinking!”
So are you a Blame- Thrower?
If so, how is that working for you?
You may want to get curious and try the WHEN-THEN-AND approach.
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See you next week!
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