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?
252 Comments
When we can get to the nub of the games we play, then we can let go of those hurts that we hang onto that can literally ruin our lives and keep us in the same old patterns that we have hung onto may be for life times. When we release the energy of those hurts, they no longer have any hold over us and we are free to make different more loving choices towards ourselves and others.
There has long been a game where women blame men and men blame women, this energy is hard and harmful.
Now more than ever it is for each gender to drop the blame game and instead bring and be the responsibility the world needs to see.
A long game indeed, just to avoid responsibility. But it is very simple: when there is blame there can not be love, and going into blame is always a choice.
We are either in love and letting that energy in and out through our bodies or we are in blame letting in and out all manor of nasty stuff.
I find that when I get thoughts of blaming or niggling against my partner or another that can lead to even further separation if I allow those thoughts to fester. I know now to nip those thoughts in the bud with appreciation for them rather than entertaining the blame.
Thank you Willem, blaming is a silly game we all have played and when we point the finger at another we have THREE finger pointing back at ourselves and in this we are judging another for a part of our problem when the reality is we are the ones who take all the responsibility for everything that happens in our life.
Then eliminating the self judge-ment deepens our relationship with our essences our Soul-full-ness and thus we are starting to also appreciate the same in another, even when they are choosing not to be in their essences. Appreciation becomes our best friend as we understand that we are energy first and appreciate all equally including the diminishing self, which is stepping aside to deepen our awareness and enriching every-ones life.
Thanks Greg. Only looking at our selves takes responsibility. We have such a tendency only looking outide of us, blaming is clearly a part of that. Clocking blame still every day. Even after I wrote the article, it goes deeper and deeper.
Very beautifully said Greg, when we can understand that it is not us but the energy we are choosing that makes us what we become. To understand that we are just vessels and there are only two energies to choose from. As we deepen this awareness of how life really works it all makes sense of our split personality, or more truthfully said the difference between choosing spirit over our soul.
Thank you for what you have shared here because patterns of behaviour can be so embedded that we fail to see clearly with our eyes, or hear clearly with our ears! Being honest and choosing to see these dysfunctional patters does not need to be an emotional breakdown, it can be as simple as we want it to be once we choose to let it do.
When we drop the brittle shield of our hurts we rediscover the innate love that we are.
Appreciating our “innate love” or essences is foundational in our True evolution.
“This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long” We can be so blind to our own behaviours. Waking up and owning up to them takes courage. Then we can begin to deal with them until they no longer form part of our life. I’m currently working to remove self-blame.
Self-blame and self criticsm is perfect way of using knowledge in a destructive way so we don’t evolve.
Blaming others has become a bit of a cultural pastime, we love to indulge ourselves in the art of ‘passing the buck’. We are quick to join in with others when they take the lead, secretly relieved that the heat is not on us and therefore keen to collaborate with others. It takes considerable effort to not enjoin when others are in the tempo of blaming but after a while it gets very easy and I have found that my starting point of simply not joining in has now shifted to one (if appropriate) of actually suggesting different ways of looking at the situation and also venturing to gently suggesting that we all have a responsibility to look at our part in all that we see and experience.
Love this Alexis – ‘gently suggesting that we all have a responsibility to look at our part in all that we see and experience.’ Blame is everywhere in life – in many conversations. So much better to venture alternative viewpoints rather than merely withdrawing form the conversation.
Love that Alexis. When you start observing conversations there is so much blame in what is happening in our lives. Take diseases: we blame God, genes, whatever, but don’t want to go that perhaps, just perhaps we play a role in creating the diseases ourselves. Gently offering a different point a view, is the key here. Which still could trigger anger.
Yes, even not speaking up can contribute to the culture of blame. At the right moment and with grace, someone opening the door to the possibility that we can contribute to the world we see is addressing the passive acceptance of the world as it is now.
I love your honesty in this blog Willem. On reading this ‘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.’ I am wondering how many of us in the world put on a face where we pretend we are one thing but actually feel another? It is so harming to ourselves when we do this and of course affects the genuineness (or lack of genuineness in our relationships). From experience it is not always an easy thing to take responsibility and see that actually it is not another but instead ourselves and how we are living but also from experience when we do this so very much heals to the point that I can say it is totally worth doing ✨#takingresponsiblity #notblamingothers
Thanks for your sharing. I live as honest as possible, Vicky. But I stil have trouble getting honest, especially when I run into feelings that are awful, and admitting that I feel terrible. Keeping up the illusion of doing good, I call it. Just another defence, and probably more common with men then women.
Thank you Willem, there is a lot you have shared here that I haven’t considered, like how a situation can make us uncomfortable and we then perceive it to be from that person (blame) instead of taking responsibility for ourselves. I can still see that in myself and now can see it more clearly in others. It’s a great blog on a topic that we need to look at. Letting go of blame is like a reawakening back to our responsibility and power, no matter what has happened to us, or the hurts we have, we can return to being love if we choose to.
Yes Melinda, everytime we interact with somebody and we start getting feelings that are not so great, it is an opportunity to heal, to let go and let the love that was always there come out. Great theory, for me still work in progress.
Once we realise that it’s not possible for anyone else to make us feel crap, it’s a game changer. Sure other people can do all manner of crappy things to us but none the less it’s still a choice that we make if we choose to be affected by whatever it is that they’re doing. We spend so much time berating other people and blaming their behaviour on how we feel and all so that we can choose to continue with our own behaviours.
‘This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.’ The hurts we harbour and protect allow for some insidious behaviours that we can spend a whole life time unaware of. When we finally manage to deal with them and let them go it becomes a wonder that we were ignorant of them and were able to hold on to them for so much time!
You got that right Michelle! It is indeed amazing how unaware we choose to be. That is why we need people who reflect us back those behaviours we would like to let go of if we were aware. If somebody just said: “Are you a person that blames people, the world for how you are feeling? I would say no. That is definetely not somebody I want to be. Thanks to the reflections of people, especially my partner, I realized I did blame a lot.
The concept is such a simple one – being honest about our choices and behaviours, yet it is such a hard thing for us to do unless we are shown (which is different from being told) because the insidious layers can run very deep along with the denial, which can also run very deeply.
Being shown is so very different from being told and very refreshing. I know from my own experience I hated being told what to do as a child, which has led to me dig my heels in to resist as an adult. Being shown that there is a different way to live and interact with people comes with no judgement, no push, just the reflection of a possibility of living differently.
Without the reflections from others, where would we be? We may not like being pulled up but when we ponder on our behaviour if we are honest we can see the truth and loving care in the calling out and then make different choices.
Our immediate behavior and way of being often has much bigger consequences than we would care to admit,
‘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.’
The clue in here is: what is the root of it all? Often we start managing the symptoms.
I have found this to be the case with many so called ‘normal behaviors’, how great when we can stand back and look objectively to what we have been caught in, ‘This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.’
Through The Way of The Livingness and practising this as my religion I now have such a deeper level of understanding of myself and others, I have watched deep heavy hurts I have carried for so long drop off me by living and accepting the love I am.
Whether you are man, women child adult whenever we blame another we do not accept the learning that it is on offer for us.
Whenever I go into blame or finger pointing it is almost always that I don’t want to take responsbility for my behaviour or actions in something.
Very true, it is always important to look at what is being reflected to us, what is our part and responsibility in the situation.
We do not know what we are being constrained by till we make a choice to see with fresh eyes.
It has often amazed me time and time again, how in the process of looking at hurts and dealing with them how so many have been latently there, held in my body and weighing me down. It is only when I have managed to nominate them and clear them that I have realised just what an insidious impact they made on me and how they infected all my relationships.
Yes, simply the choice to nominate and look at why we are blaming opens up a whole new world of vision, hearing and sensing that we had blocked ourselves off from. There is so much awareness waiting for us if we drop the fear and protection of being wrong.
Lucy I have realised it’s when we block off our awareness to the fullness of life that we resemble the zombies we see in movies. It’s almost as though without our awareness we withdraw from life because we have lost our compass on how to live in life.
We can spend out time blaming others, or we can choose to look at what it is we are reacting to and consider why. The unraveling is such a freedom as you have shared here.
Yes, we can get caught in the blame game, so as to not feel what is truly happening in our body, ‘Blame had been the ultimate protection of not wanting to feel my own hurts, my feelings of discomfort in my body.’
The freedom you mention Lucy, is so well worth the effort. The sense of space and clarity in the body after something has been let go of, is in and of itself, an amazing motivator to keep going.
I know this one so well …. the difference between saying and doing ‘For years I have been saying that I wanted to heal my hurts’ for we can ‘say’ something until the cows come home but it will not make an ounce of difference if this is not lived or we do not truly allow ourselves to go there. Very inspiring that you went there and started to heal this.
Seeing something wrong with another is the spirits age old trick of avoiding the intimacy and love that knows is ultimately there.
Anger is simply an emotion carried out to avoid love; any emotion running through the body is purposely a movement to cover up or deny the truth of who we are.
Without honesty and being open to honesty when another is honest we just stay imprisoned and not able to be with another as we otherwise could. I’m learning that no matter how ugly it feels to be honest it’s so much better than continuing to carry whatever it is around, and if it’s not love, then it’s not a part of me and I can let it go.
I have found that it has been so refreshing to be honest. Whist it may initially have been uncomfortable in the lack of experience of dealing with shame, nonetheless, with practice there was less shame and more acceptance and lack of judgment. In the end the only way we can deal with our issues is to be honest about them from the observation that we are so much more than they are.
Blaming anyone for our ills is irrelevant to living as a student of life. Responsibility is the name of the game,
Blame is often a hard habit to break, even now I catch myself blaming my husband, blame offers no evolution.
And when there is blame, there can be no love. Impossible.
And when there’s love there can be no blame. Impossible.
Blame ultimately retards us, if we stop and look at ourselves we are far more likely to grow and learn.
Not only does blame retard us but it retards the other person too. Both parties are immobilised. Where as understanding frees us up and also frees the other person too.
So often men and women are hurt by one member of the ‘opposite sex’ and then rule out the rest and often for really long periods of time. It’s actually quite ridiculous when you think about it but we do it none the less.
Blaming others will only and can only bring us more sorrow.
I can relate to this far too well and I absolutely celebrate your healing around the topic. Its so easy to withdraw and then go into victimhood and it leaves us not as full as a result. I so appreciate the incredible way in which this was written.
This is true for many things, when we are stuck in the midst of things, it is often hard to stand back, just observe and be objective of the situation and self, ‘This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.’ Great exposing Willem.
The world is currently in the mess it is in because we have allowed blame to become rife, there is no real responsibility taken in society, our first port of call is to look outward before we look within and hence as a result we have a world where we remain stagnant and un-evolving.
Blaming others is such a great way to excuse oneself of responsibility and therefore such a great way to dis-empower oneself.
Its interesting how when something occurs in our life it can stay in our body and comes back in a similar situation until healed. Same hurt in a different setting
‘This blame was so normal for me that I did not even see that it had been running my life for so long.’ I am constantly uncovering ever more subtle levels of blame that I’m running. I noticed this recently when I decided I’d had enough of being negative. I didn’t realise how much I wanted to put a negative spin on life so I would then have justification to be defensive, grumpy and blame everyone but me for how I was living.
‘The days after the ‘letting go of blame,’ more miracles followed… people expressed that they saw more love in me and that I walked in a different more, gentle loving way.’ It is amazing that when we let go of our stuff like this, just what can happen.
Thank you, Willem, for your honesty and willingness to put our relationship with blame on the table. We are artful at finding others to blame, all in a desperate and let’s face it exhausting attempt to avoid the part we play in our lives and how things turn out. My habit to blame is strong but I know without doubt that it only leads to further disruption and disquiet, so I have a very real choice in every moment to review and be honest about my responsibility. This maybe uncomfortable at first but always opens up to opportunities to learn and grow.
Yes, I too have had a habit of blaming others, so being a victim of life, and not taking responsibility for my part in the situation, ‘I was living in blame – or in other words not taking responsibility for myself and basically acting as a victim of life’. Now I have awareness of this old pattern I am choosing to not have it a part of my life anymore.
I have noticed that I am much more reactionary to judgement or criticism from others if I am already being judgemental and critical of myself. So for me it all comes back to the relationship I have with myself and how honest I am prepared to be about that and how willing I am prepared to be to change it.
Spot on Andrew, I have the same. When I have this solid relationship with my essence, my inner beauty, I feel beautiful and there is no need to judge or blame others. But if I don’t have that connection, that critical part in me takes over, wanting to blame, judge and not take responsibility.
Thank you Andrew. I get this. The more understanding, respectful and open to learning I am with myself, the richer and more honouring are all my interactions with others.
Me also Andrew, when I am in appreciation of myself it doesn’t matter what others say but if not it’s a sure recipe for taking things personally.
I have noticed whenever I go into blame or defended I am avoiding responsibility.
Blaming anyone is so disempowering.
When I first read your amazingly beautiful and tenderly truthful blog, Willem, I had to go away and allow the truth of your words to just be. I recognised me in the words you have written and the blame that you address and I felt a deep sadness coming to the surface. For different reasons I too have blamed my mother my whole life and yes, it has affected the way I have related to women as a result. Blame is such an insidious energy and seeps in to every aspect of life. It is a champion for avoiding taking responsibility, and society will help you lift the winning cup high and proud if you’re determined to claim the championship. You win and you are so deserving of the win! To choose to put the cup down and walk away at the height of your game will seem foolish and a big mistake to those still clamouring for the cup, but once the decision is made to walk away if feels as though you can’t get away fast enough. A new playing field has opened up and it has nothing to do with winning or cup championships. Herein lies the true gold.
This is so true Bridgette blame, righteousness and irresponsibility are so normalised and championed in our societies that to walk away from these can feel like a big thing and for me sometimes challenging thing to do but it is so worth doing.
What is blame? The convienient refusal to accept the power and responsibility of the light we are. We are so invested in not taking responsibility that we have a whole world of excuses for it, all stories that sound so good and yet are lies.
Brilliantly said. I know for me it’s often a willingness to drop the arrogance and come back to harmony, valuing that more than any story or selfgain i think I’m obtaining by being irresponsible.
It is only recently that I have started to get that whenever I react to something, that in itself is a clue that there is something that I could go deeper with and it is now in my face for me to look at. Blaming someone is definitely one of those instances in my books, with the clever twist that by making someone else responsible for what I am feeling, I end up in effect side-stepping the opportunity that has been presented to me to deepen my own understanding and responsibility.
I know that side-stepping two step well, Golnaz. Funny thing is, while we were prancing around the dance floor side-stepping every bit of responsibility that came our way, the dancing shoes we were born with were turning in to steel toe work boots that reduced our flowing, grace-full movements into diminished, robotic versions of our former glorious ones depriving us of the space to stay with our own inner rhythm without going in to reaction and blame. There before us is the dance partner we’ve asked for, inviting us to dance the two step to deepen our connection but we’re so caught up in the side-step we can’t see the opportunity that is on offer.
The culture of blame that we have developed and continue to perpetuate is one of the most damaging constructs in society. It allows us to carry on through life pointing fingers and abdicating responsibility.
Withdrawing from a situation just means we indulge in thoughts and emotions that are by their very nature designed to take us further away from love, the love inside us and the love of others. I have learnt over the years that choosing to remain committed and engaged is the fastest way to deal with our hurts and ultimately empowers us to see how we have initiated, allowed or enjoined certain behaviours that wound us. No one else is responsible for how we feel.
And we are not responsible for others feelings either. Trying to take care of another persons feelings makes them feel less and takes away their own self responsibility.
“Blame had been the ultimate protection of not wanting to feel my own hurts, my feelings of discomfort in my body. ” To realise this brings a huge awareness and then different choices can be made. Go Willem!
What a waste of our lives it is blaming others, when there is so much to gain from taking responsibilty and getting on with claiming back our power and responsibility in our own lives.
Blaming anyone for our ills is a renunciation of responsibility. To step away from such actions brings more love and wisdom in the body.
Why is it that we can stubbornly hang onto a way of being that feels awful, but we feel unable to drop it; as if owned by it. It just goes to show that we can’t just grow up out of our hurts and that we carry them around with us until we die unless that is we clear the sadness and let it go.
Blame is an excuse that we create to get in the way of living true purpose. There is never any justification or reason to blame another for the situation we find ourselves in. Every situation is perfectly constellated to support us to grow; blame avoids or dismisses this growth or the opportunity to evolve.
Without open and truthful communications in every relationship, how can we ever evolve!
Absolute honesty is so important in all relationships stating how we feel and being open to one another.
This eliminates any blame, shame, anger or resentment arising. Love and harmony then prevails and our relationship deepens.
When we get hurt by another we so often go into justification and hold onto the hurt more deeply… I know I certainly have, rather than understanding that there are in fact two options; to either deal with the hurt or not get hurt in the first place by observing the situation and holding steady inside oneself.
The fact that we even think that another person can hurt us is part of the set up that we’ve bought into. If we stayed true to who we are then nothing could truly hurt us. We have to bail first and then yes sure we can think that someone else has hurt us but it’s not true. We were the ones that chose to bail from ourselves and that is incredibly painful but it’s our own doing.
Being super honest and understanding with myself is freeing me from the belief that there is a right and wrong way to do everything and that my worth is based on getting things right. It is amazing to begin to feel that deeper than all this there are qualities that are me, and that these are valuable and strong and have much to offer. This is a rebuild of self-worth from a true foundation.
Throughout history, women have been a soft target for men to blame. Until we men reconnect to the natural tenderness that has always been within us can we see and feel the power women have and bring with their sacredness.
I have also used blaming in the past so I would avoid taking responsibility on my part and use that to pull away from situation I initially put myself in. Sophisticated lies and manipulations that would be little white lies to start with but would eventually become the big white elephant in the room.
When we fail to take responsibility for our choices and our feelings we can easily go into victim mode and blame others, wanting them to take on our reactions. Within this we can easily go into justification moving further away from honesty, indulging in the emotions we have created.
‘Absolutely Michelle. Taking responsibility and knowing the consequences of ones actions are important life traits that can be taught from a young age. Having understanding – and not judgement for our slip-ups is also important.’
I hate blame. Whether it is me putting it on another or it being put on me. I see it as a poison in relationships that has us abdicating responsibility and building resentment towards others.
I hate the energy of blame too, Matilda. And when there is blame, even in the slightest from, there can be no love. This little thought of another having done something wrong? Instead of looking at our part? Love is gone.
Even blaming our selves is still an evasion of our responsibility to love our selves to the hilt and resume our natural authority, care and integrity, qualities that support everyone to be true to them selves.
Yes. Blaming ourselves is a disaster too. When I get into that kind of thinking with myself I am undermining myself, shutting down the opportunity to learn and contracting away from love. Mad.
Yes – in the blame game, no matter who we are blaming – ourselves or another, we are capped playing less, failing to claim our equality and authority. There is such a different feeling from the body when we allow ourselves to claim the love and wisdom we are; there is a strength there that is foundational that keeps us open, willing to receive and to learn and grow but from a place that knows who we are and where we are from.
Amazing to read about the changes experienced from letting go of blame. We do not realise what we hold back when we hold onto such things in our life.
Indeed Michael, we don’t know what we hold back, which is our ability to feel love. The scary thing is: blame can feel so normal that it does not even bother us. And it should bother us.
So true, nobody can make somebody else happy. A simple truth so important to know and abide to for everyone . If we learned from little onwards that we are the sole creator of our own well-being we would spare ourselves much hardship, sorrow, blame and drama.
I had a conversation with a practitioner some time ago and they suggested that there is no right or wrong just a learning. I know I got so caught up in this belief as a child that there was a right and a wrong and I was seen as being in the wrong most of the time. And so I gave up and just accept this as part of life. Now I have the fascinating understanding that the life we live in is unreal and to keep us all in the unreality of this life we are held in deep illusion. And that is why to me there is no right or wrong we are offered a choice to learn and if we can understand why we made the choices then we can chip away at the veil of illusion we live in and eventually we will come to understand just how deceived we have been all along. Until then we are held in this deep illusion so much so that people will say I’m mad for saying such things. And so the circle is complete as this was what I was told as a child. When people don’t want to hear the truth they make up things about you that aren’t true to try and put you off what you know to be true.
Blame is so easy when we are not brought up to admit and learn from our mistakes, blame only happens when we are not willing to take responsibility.
‘…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.’ We can do this with anyone… just yesterday a friend and I were talking about a couple of issues we have around each other. There was a subtlety of the blame game on both sides and a defensiveness in expressing. We both picked up on it… and the challenge was there to get super honest, take responsibility for our own hurts and not put them on the other person.
The moment we give our own power away to please another we separate from the very place that nourishes and sustains us. That does not mean that we do not care and do things for others but if at our own expense it is undermining.
I wonder how many other relationships around the world would be totally revolutionised if those involved could stop the blame game? Most of us have gotten caught in it, and it takes a lot of honesty and willingness to bear any pain that comes to light from stopping and really considering what might be going on to really cut blame out of our lives. Thank you Willem – your article certainly resonated with me and it seems from the comments to date, also with many others.
We really need to be teaching children from young how to take responsibility for the part they play in all interactions, understanding their motivations and intentions as well as how to discern and read what is coming towards them from others who may be in reaction, comparison and jealousy etc., or in all genuineness. This is basic, basic stuff and yet as adults we are no way near mastering this ourselves. Simply raising awareness about the level of our own duplicity and lack of honesty founded on protecting our hurts is going to take some doing!
I feel you’ve hit the nail on the head here, Michelle, in that we as adults are no where near mastering taking responsibility for the part we play in all interactions. As such, it feels an impossible task to teach our children what we have not taken responsibility for first as not taking responsibility is all that we have been role modelling for our children. Once we start changing our movements to ones of taking responsibility in our every interaction this will then be reflected to our children from day one and they will be free to emanate responsibility back to us rather than being forced to shut it down because we can’t handle our own lack of responsibility being exposed.
To clear deep seated resentments and hurt from our body, is to begin life anew accepting ourselves and others fully and with love, not judgement.
Yes, it starts with us first, after which we start to see that what we thought was a big issue was not!
When blame is used as a stick to beat others with it holds us prisoner. With inner reflection and willingness to take responsibility for our part we can heal and ourselves and move on.
Blame validates us in not taking responsibility.
Blaming anyone else for our ills is the same as putting ourselves in a prison and throwing away the key.
Pointing the finger and blaming another (or even self) is simply a way out of taking true responsibility and allowing the growth on offer from the situation at hand.
The deepest healing is when, with honesty we see ourselves, patterns, and so called issues clearly for the first time and own them. To say yes this is me, this is how I’ve lived and why my life is as it is – a major breakthrough.
Yes it is Kahinde. But not easy, as we then have to feel everything in ourselves, instead of being busy with the other, how the message is delivered.
Kehinde, yes the deepest healing I have ever experienced is when in observation I have been utterly honest with what is going on for me without self judgement, when I have gone as deep as I can go with feeling the poison of my patterns and choices. In the observation I have always understood why I made those choices, which always came from a deep hurt, and in that understanding it has supported me to let go of the hurt. Part of the process has been to get behind the hurt and understand the choice that only I can be responsible for that precipitated it.
Even though it is very common, it does not make sense to hold a whole gender or even every other human being we meet in our lives to ransom for the unloving act of one person from our past.
You are fully right Andrew. And still, we do just that, mostly seemingly subconscious if we are not honest.
Blame-free and responsibility-full, the world will be a very different place.
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