Today in a conversation with my partner I finally realised that I had been living in blame for most of my life: blaming people, circumstances, and especially women. This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long. Until yesterday, if anyone had indicated that I was living in blame – or in other words not taking responsibility for myself and basically acting as a victim of life – I would have said they were completely off track.
So how did this all start? Where did it come from and how does this continue to play out even today?
It all started when I was very young. My mother, who was very sick, demanded that I make her happy, which was a mission impossible because nobody can make somebody else ‘happy.’
I then chose to withdraw to my own room, feeling a victim of the whole situation, thinking I was unable to solve it. I created my own little bubble of life, with dreams, music and creative activities like building with Lego and aircraft modelling. I became angry with my mother, that she had ruined my life and I blamed and disrespected her. The disrespect and anger played out in my irritation of the things she said or did throughout the whole of my life.
I consider I am an intelligent man, so on a mental level I knew I had to love my mother. But in my body there was anger and the blame, so I was mentally controlling this behaviour.
The big problem here is: if you blame, or even be angry with your mother, this is transferred to all relationships with women. This stems from a fundamental psychological law: the relationship you have with your mother is the model you use to relate with other women. So, in a very subtle way I started to be angry with all women without even being conscious of it.
After this conversation, calling out my blaming behaviour, actually renouncing it, I felt like a huge weight was released from my body. I felt my body filling with a warm quality and the colour in my skin immediately changed from pale to more brownish. My hands, parts of my arms, my feet started tingling. What was happening? Then I felt sharp pains in several parts of my body and realised what was actually happening:
Blame had been the ultimate protection of not wanting to feel my own hurts, my feelings of discomfort in my body.
For years I have been saying that I wanted to heal my hurts. Being a student of The Way of The Livingness I understood very well that my hurts were my buried unresolved emotional issues and were the opening gates through which non-loving energy could manifest itself.
When touched upon, I have cried about some of my hurts, but normally if anyone came into contact with them, most often my dear partner, I immediately would turn the attention towards her, not wanting to feel my hurt. In hindsight it was blame in action. I basically said every time a hurt was revealed: “You are the one causing me to feel miserable, weak and sad and I became angry and defensive”… at first openly irritated, sometimes angry, but I learned to manage this anger because I knew that was not how I was supposed to act as a ‘good’ man.
I became a very sophisticated and ‘nice’ man – a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
But when this behaviour kicked in, I thought in anger and walked in anger. And sometimes I exploded; my charade dropped and showed how very angry and frustrated I was feeling on the inside – believing “Whatever I do you are never satisfied with me, why can’t you be happy with me? Stop criticising me!”… or something in that style.
It was the little boy speaking, and my partner had turned into my mother. I understood mentally that I was still playing the same game, just as I did as a boy, but could not find a way to stop this. Better said, I chose to not find a way out, not wanting to see and deal with the root cause and feeling the deep hurt which was underneath.
Meanwhile my beautiful relationship was like a war every now and then, seeing my partner as the enemy when I chose to go into this blame pattern again.
I even aligned with a friend of mine so that we could ‘support’ each other in our struggling relationships, as he was also in a relationship that was not going so well. But it was no support, because basically we were talking in anger and frustration about “how women play these insidious games” and we were always “the bad-guys.”
When we want to hang onto a behaviour, do not want to let go, and if we are not honest, we will seek the support of the exactly those people that support the very behaviour we don’t want to let go of.
I chose to hang onto blame. And when there is blame, there can be no love.
Of course I understood I should not blame and not play being a victim. This was a mental concept that I understood very well. The reality was: I did not live this. This pattern was so ingrained in my body, and the thing I was doing was controlling and suppressing this behaviour with mental discipline, and that just does not work.
In hindsight I could have easily observed the anger, the hate, the disrespect, the not wanting to take responsibility and seeing myself as a victim, which was all caused by living in blame.
Examples are:
- When any of my numerous relationships ended – even though I saw my own part in it – I concluded that she was not the true love I was seeking and/or there was something wrong with her.
- Not really wanting to hear with my whole body when my partner pointed out my unloving behaviours.
- Withdrawing in self-pity and victimhood when my partner had pointed out something I had “done wrong.”
- Being glad to leave for work, after my partner and I had another argument.
- Being glad to go shopping, or do chores so I could avoid my partner.
- Eating things to feel better, just like a drug addict who thinks that the drug is the only thing that can make him feel better: a victim in action.
- Blaming one of the directors in a company I used to run, or all the things that he did wrong even though I was the one who employed him and did not take the responsibility to correct him or to let him go when the time was right.
The days after the ‘letting go of blame,’ more miracles followed. People around me observed my eyes opened up more, people expressed that they saw more love in me and that I walked in a different more, gentle loving way.
When I place things down the way I used to do it now feels hard in my body, so I changed these movements. I felt I could, and that I had the power to hold the connection with myself, feeling an almost constant radiation of love in my hands. Sometimes it went away – for example when I got absorbed or distracted in a discussion – but then I could bring the feeling back easily.
I even started laughing more, about myself too, so much so that tears would roll down my face!
Hardness out – love in.
Is this blame pattern now resolved? Sometimes it still creeps in, when somebody and especially my partner, points out something I have done in an unloving or irresponsible way. I then get this uncomfortable feeling in my body because I know I have made an irresponsible choice. Accepting now that I have the choice to feel in full and not shift the attention to someone else, instead of silently blaming them because I have perceived they are making me feel so awkward and knowing it is me who has to deal with the higher level of self-responsibility.
So thank you deeply Sylvia, my dearest partner, for pointing out this ugly pattern of blame – that I have been carrying around for such a long time and even considered to be my normal.
Choosing to let ‘blame’ go has changed my life and my body, and continues to do so. I am a powerful man, an adult and I know I can deal with anything and any hurt that surfaces in my life. There’s no need to defend what is there to be felt; I know I can handle it.
I know and feel that our relationship can blossom AT LAST.
Published with permission of my partner, Sylvia Brinkman.
By Willem Plandsoen, MsC, Sales consultant, Business owner and dedicated student of The Way of The Livingness
Further Reading:
Relationships are always about evolving – the key to making relationships work
Breathing my Own Breath
Having The Right to React?
149 Comments
It is a great learning to understand that by using blame, it becomes our protection and confirmation so that we needn’t look at again what we have done or said. To observe this and change this way of behaving is huge, our different understanding of it may be initially uncomfortable but it becomes very empowering.
I’ve been there myself Willem and witnessed others trapped in the blame and resentment game and for some well into their seventh decade. The harm caused to body, well-being and relationships is costly. To break free of these pernicious hooks, is to live harmoniously with self and others
This is huge Willem. Through you openness and honesty we all learn and relate to what you say. Once we clear blame from our bodies, it is gone for good. This frees us to walk again accepting the part we played in past and present relationships and makes ready to begin again.
So many of us will benefit from this level of honesty and willingness to take responsibility and explore the root causes of our behaviour. And yes the feeling of being freed from something is very remarkable every time something is revealed, learned and changed.
This is so inspirational, thank you so much for sharing how you came to recognise the pattern and to understand why it was there. I can feel there were and I guess always will be the potential for that to be working through me any moment I choose to blame another rather than take responsibility.
Reading this makes me realise how as men we can blame women and as women we can blame men for things and how unhelpful and disconnecting this is.
Blame is the deep hole we dig and lower ourselves into so that we no longer can see anything other than the sides of the hole that traps us. Blame can be so insidious that it is hard to separate from it and you have been able to do this Willem and support others to see blame more clearly too. We are only love within and to unload something that blocks this love from others and from ourselves is to be truly celebrated. Thank you for turning the spotlight on the behaviours that seek to keep us as ‘less’ and for everything you are now holding for others to experience.
To some extent many of us feel that we are a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ when we live in a cloak of protection as it is not our true and loving nature. We can move around seeking love and validation without the openness necessary as we protect our previous hurts and rejections.
Blaming anyone for our ills is a dead end road. There’s no where to go and nothing to learn. Take responsibility and the Universe is there to show us what we need to learn to be all of who we are.
The body is so amazing that through it, we can observe, feel and heal these issues of anger or blame rather than carry them with us all our lives.
Willem, this is a gorgeous and heartfelt blog that is very inspiring to read – you share your experience openly and honestly and there is no pretending to get things right or expectations to never make the same mistake again – but there is a deeper understanding of what has unfolded and deep appreciation of yourself and those around you for the healing and openness that you now feel. These are all the layers for us to gradually heal and let go of and this is a fantastic example that many of us can relate to. Thank you!
Willem, these are indeed very wise words amongst many others in your blog above: “When we want to hang onto a behaviour, do not want to let go, and if we are not honest, we will seek the support of the exactly those people that support the very behaviour we don’t want to let go of. ” – we know exactly how to play the game and continue with the wanton behaviour and this is quite shocking to discover when we allow ourselves to be super honest!
‘Blame had been the ultimate protection of not wanting to feel my own hurts, my feelings of discomfort in my body.’ This is so true Willem, I have done this myself and also I’ve seen someone close to me do the same. The result of blames leaves us living in misery because it pushes people away, block out love and understanding, leaving us going deeper and deeper into a vicious cycle of lovelessness.
It is interesting how we blame others for the outcome of things, and yet we rarely stop to think what our responsibility is and what we have contributed to a situation. It takes a while to look at life in this way, but it does take the reaction out of life and eventually stops triggering those hurts.
Yes, Julie observing children on the playground is a great reflection of how we as adults operate. When having an argument and a problem almost always, the children blame the other and stereotypically the comment, “s/he started it first” is very common. To get children to unpick their part in the issue and take greater responsibility takes a lot of time, but considering, as adults, we don’t role model this it’s no wonder they find it a challenge…. as we do too!
And whilst it may be awkward at first, actually starting with the part we play in things (our responsibility) makes life so simple because gone are all the convoluted scripts in our heads about what was or wasn’t done to us. The taking responsibility for our part keeps things super practical, real and grounded.
Love is our essence and foundation. Our responsibility as an adult is to become aware of everything that does not arise from this quality within us and release it, so that what we carry forward in life will only ever support, nurture and deeply respect everyone in our lives, including our selves.
Real relationships support each other to grow and discard old habits that don’t belong in an adult world, so allowing us to truly blossom into the wise, loving and joyful beings we really are.
You make a really good point here about helping each other to grow and discard old habits because all too often we miss the opportunity as we grow up.
‘This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.’ I can relate. Today I realised I’d a layer of blame I was unaware of, but also aware of, around stress at work. No-one dictates how we respond or react to life but us. How we react may be understandable and the usual reaction to have but there is another way, that of observation of situations but also of ourselves.
William, thank you for such a clear and precise definition of blame. It is a big delayer of coming to terms with our hurts and rejections.
It certainly is Jenny and blame is crippling as well as feeding a cycle of misery, pain and more hurts.
“… nobody can make somebody else ‘happy.’” A very empowering lesson to learn and an important one to embody. We are the ones responsible for our own joy and wellbeing, no one can do that for us, however much we want to believe it. When we really take absolute command of it, we innately know how to nurture and support each other and bring true love to every relationship.
Amazing how pretty much all of our life we may be behaving in a particular way and never able or willing to see it, and then one day bang there it is we see it, and in fact it seems we can’t see anything but that behaviour since it is in every aspect of our life.
Recently when I had a couple of such a situations, I was fortunate enough to have friends who reminded me that it is okay, that I have not all of a sudden regressed, but that I have become more sensitive to seeing the particular issues because I am now ready to do something about them. This was so very supportive.
What has also supported me is also the deep knowing that a pattern of behaviour I am trying to break has perhaps been deeply rooted for lifetimes. So whilst I may have been blind to it this lifetime and it has taken me a while to see it and then address it, I am always in the appreciation of the fact that this process has begun and I also know that in having held onto it for a while, there is indeed a process we need to go through. Once fully open to going to the hurt that precipitated the behaviour it actually only takes moments to clear it from the body. Once having cleared it I am in the appreciation of all those moments of learning that led to the healing.
Beautifully shared Golnaz, the support to feel our hurts is wonderful. It is easy as a first reaction for many of us to go into self blame or self flagellation when we realise what we have done that has been of disservice to others – but that is exactly just another reaction to avoid the real responsibility of feeling the hurt and truly dealing with it. I am a master at self blame as a means to delay further taking responsibility but the more I feel supported and I understand this as a pattern the more I can see that this too is an opportunity to embrace and hence heal and blossom too.
Willem, through nominating what was holding you back and choosing to let it go, you have freed yourself from the chains of blame and victimhood that was restricting your body from moving and expressing love. Very powerful.
It’s so easy to see how we can get stuck in this blame game for the whole of our lifetime and not even realise there is another way to look at these things.
Yes. It is the way society is set up. I remember once listening to a conversation in which the then prime minister was blamed for the outcome of a football match. And we call ourselves intelligent?!
When we are willing to see and accept truth there is space created for expansion in our relationships.
and within ourselves but I guess our relationships cannot expand if at first we have not allowed this within in ourselves. I find myself asking what have I not been willing to accept .. and of course this can be something positive rather than negative.
It is a great trick, trying to make someone happy, it can never work and sets up a whole complex scenario we can never live up to. What a game is played here, great to see the whole picture Willem.
This game is like having an invisible constrictor that restricts our movements, our body and our expression, it is like it is slowly strangling us without us knowing and controlling our every movement. Once we choose to cut ourselves free, we can feel our movements and expression expand. Just like Willem has so beautifully shared.
Trying to make someone happy is the same as a lie, once you go down that path, you must continue supporting it until it collapses like a house of cards.
“This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.” Such an incredible thing to become aware of, as so often we see these behaviours as who we are, not something we are choosing to hold on to that smother the love we have inside us. Quite an awesome healing to identify the veil that has been covering up the gem of a person you really are.
It is very true that we can live in blame without one jot of realising it. Giving energy towards blame and we fall victim to circumstances. The circumstances or situations we find ourselves in are offered to us for growth and evolution; they are not offered for us to distract ourselves, avoid responsibility and blame.
Our best friends are the ones who are not afraid to point out our ugly bits, in the knowing that we are so much greater, lovelier and wiser than the behaviour we got hooked into.
Wow, amazing Willem, this is huge what an incredible blog you’ve shared with us about letting go of blame and embracing responsibility. I can totally relate and see how blame pollutes our relationships and stops us from allowing love to flow in and out. Going into blame is a form of protection which makes sense why we then go into hardness to avoid love.
Blame is one of those things that is there as a defence, so the end goal is not to get rid of the blame, but look at what is sought to absolve responsibility over.
Yes – we can only rid the energy of blame from our bodies when we are willing to take responsibility for the hurt and resentment that causes it.
I love the way you have expressed that Michael… we do need to go deeper the moment we feel resentful about a situation or person, so that blame isn’t the end point but a point of learning can be seen and deeper responsibility is owned.
Taking full responsibility for anything, when genuinely at fault, tends to take the sting out of the situation. It provides space for learning, reflection and understanding. From there all can heal.
Yes – we can only rid the energy of blame from our bodies when we are willing to take responsibility for the hurt and resentment that causes it.
There is an irony to this. In avoidance of the sticky feeling we try and suppress it by looking outward and projecting onto others. This does nothing to transmute the feeling – it just adds to another level of denial and protection that the body doesn’t shed. However in dealing with it and in being honest, allowing ourselves to sit with it, nominating our part in the situation we clear it from our bodies completely. To me, taking responsibility beats all the avoidance I have ever been in – we have to deal with it all in the end anyway (we get to a point where our bodies simply can’t withstand it any more) and there is no better time than to catch it in the moment. Done.
Being attached to our created protections is what hurts us most.
“Hardness out – love in. ” The simplicity and profoundness of this sentence summarizes in its content the path we all will walk one day, by letting go our shell whilst embracing self-responibility and love.
Dear Willem – your writing opens me up like a tin and exposes the similar patterns I have within, and unpacks each aspect of it to the end – so it cannot be fudged or pushed back in. I relate so strongly to what you offer here, and feel so many of us live with blame as a hidden template for navigating life. What a horror. Thank you again for sharing your experience so openly.
Your comment is very open and honest too Joseph. I can relate to using blame as a form of protection to avoid love. What a game to play that hurts us even more. Being open to seeing the many ways we use blame and at times silently hide, exposing blame is a start, by being absolutely honest about what is coming up. The power of nominating and then letting go, discarding the ill behaviours is incredible as described here by Willem.