From blame to thanks
What is it about blame? And what really happens when we create it?
Photo: Emerson Peter, Unsplash
“Make all your think your thanks.”
From Blame
What is it about blame? And how does to actually work?
Turns out it’s a pretty lousy deal in the end. How come? Blame shifts responsibility. It puts what’s ours onto someone else, onto others. When we blame we make it someone else’s fault for the world not living up to our expectations. At its worst, we don’t even tell the blamed our expectations and then make them more wrong for falling short. What else?
A game in all its absurdity
The great justification-making game.
It starts out of need. A need for me to feel justified. Justified in my reasons, actions and expectations. Reasons and expectations that I don’t even tell you. So when you fall short - as you most definitely will, for how could you know - I get to blame you more. And because it’s your fault, I avoid responsibility. I’m so very clever, shifting the fault and responsibility to you.
A game where two and more can play.
In return for my justification at your expense, have something too — I invite you to retaliate, blame me back. Blame away as it would be boring for me otherwise! In fact, I need you to blame me back. This gives me more reason for continuing, and the more right I get to be.
Now we’re in the perfect blame game. A race to the bottom spending our days resenting each other and the world for all our problems. Until the day comes when we’ve been at this for so long we can’t remember how it all started, that original self-betrayal. We’re spent so much time at this, surely we can’t stop now. To pack it all in, a sign of great weakness.
So we fight on. We blame on, avoiding responsibility. I’ll invent new reasons for you to blame me if you’ll do the same for me so we can keep this going. We’ll do everything to keep our justifications going: Here are more reasons for your mistreatment of me if you give me more reasons for my mistreatment of you. Like a conspiracy of blame, we’ve become partners locked in keeping this deadly game going.
What if we Stop?
What if today I didn’t blame you? What if I break this pattern and gave it up? That feels risky. Would I know what to do, or even who I am anymore? It’s been so long. My identity’s been shaped and moulded by my commitment to this game of blaming.
Maybe it’s better to stay locked in this than face the pain of change. The alternative’s so different, can I imagine anything else? Who would I be instead? Who would you be instead? What could it be like for us — a life beyond justification, being right and winning at any cost?
Looking around, what do I see? Blame doesn’t just hurt you; it carves a distance between us making any true connection impossible. Over time we find ourselves surrounded not by love, but by walls of justification.
Blame are the bricks built higher by justification. Only I can remove what I’ve built. It’s my justification; it’s my shit to clean up. All of it. No more to blame: I let go of my justification, of giving my self-authority and responsibility away for the sake of being right. A relationship without blame. What would that be like?
Surrender into freedom, with responsibility
Like a trade, we surrender our freedom and exchange it for reasons and the comfort of feeling justified. Blame then imprisons us. We hand over to the jailor the keys to our freedom.This is hard to face, hard to hear and to admit. But it’s the truth. Freedom starts with giving up blame, taking back responsibility.
Imagine even a day without blame — where instead of fault-finding, we find reasons for thanks. This is the path to freedom. And it begins with a single step: Gratitude. Gratitude shifts the focus from what’s wrong to what’s possible. To what’s here right now. So switch the trade. Surrender instead your reasons and justifications for responsibility, self-authority and freedom. Replace the blame with gratitude.
Ask yourself, “What’s one thing I can appreciate in this moment?” Then say it! Practice giving thanks. Let’s see what it might be like.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.