ADDRESSING THE BLAME GAME PRODUCTIVE TO BECOME PERSONALLY

Do you think you blame too much? Maybe you, like many others, haven’t even given it a second thought. You might be thinking what’s wrong with blame? Isn’t blame a normal part of life? It is harmless, right?

I definitely didn’t pay it any attention for the first three decades of my life. I lived on autopilot; unaware I was blaming in just about every conversation I had. I didn’t understand the role I played on how my life turned out. I was always quick to find the perpetrator for why I thought I was being held back and unhappy. Often I didn’t have to look much further than myself.

Sometimes the perpetrator wasn’t even human. I would wake up in the morning with a stiff neck or tight back and immediately blame the pillow or bed. I was convinced my perfectly good pillow and bed, that had served me well all year, went bad overnight. I am not saying we don’t need new ones now and then, but it isn’t them that change overnight, it is us.

Back then I didn’t realise being in the blame mindset limits my solutions - either cope for as long as you can or get a new one.

The question is, how many pillows did it take me before I realised the pillow wasn’t the issue? Quite a few. I didn’t realise it was the argument I had with my girlfriend, or my fear around money that meant I went to bed tense. It is the same with our partners and bosses. How many do we need before we realise it isn’t them that needs to self-reflect and heal, it is us.

It might seem obvious when it is pointed out, but that is one of the issues with blame, we don’t see what is hiding in plain sight. We don’t see our contribution to what happens in our life, so we get used to taking less and less responsibility for it.

Blame Is Not A Game

Playing the blame game is well known all over the world. Like any game they are fun. But even the most fun games get exhausting when they are played a lot. Imagine playing your favourite game all the time all day. To some people that might sound fun, but again, what about if you played it for 10, 20 or 30 years constantly, every day. The point is, when it turns into an addiction, and it is all you can think about, the fun stops. You might be able to occasionally distract yourself, but that nagging need to get your dopamine high is constantly in the background.

The issue is, blame has become so ingrained into the very fabric of our being we are unaware we have this addiction. Meaning we are doing nothing about recovering from it. In fact, we are doing the opposite, we are feeding it without knowing it, and then wondering why we are experiencing so much suffering, hardship and pain.

Recovery Plan

The reality is, when we have less blame in our life, we experience less mental, emotional and physical

The first stage is awareness that we have an addiction to blame