Part I: A Journey of Awareness

What Holds Us Back: The Unstable Foundation

Day 16: Perpetuating the Blame Cycle

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”

-Robert Anthony

It’s interesting to watch how we get caught in acts of blaming and shaming because of our expectations of others, sometimes without knowing anything about the person. In a second we can forget that the person we are talking about is somebody’s daughter, son, brothers, sister, husband, wife, mother, father, boss, employee, and the list goes on. We forget the people we are throwing blame at are human too. We forget to ask ourselves how would we feel if someone smeared our mistakes all over the place before we had a chance to even see the error of our ways? Sometimes, we can be so quick to pounce we don’t even give the person a chance to exhale an apology if they saw their own mistake instantly. Sometimes we forget how it is when our emotions are leading us and we don’t ALWAYS say or do what is in the best interest for ourselves or someone else. We forget that the person who made the mistake could be innocent of the intention that we put on their actions. Anytime we reach out without the whole view of the story, and throw shame and blame out there, we are perpetuating the cycle.

Does this mean that people who intentionally hurt others should get off the hook and not be held responsible for their choices, which endanger the life or lives of others? Of course not! Not only is it necessary, but sometimes our own self-care means standing up for ourselves and others to prevent these kinds of things from happening to someone else. If our act is one of protecting ourselves and others, that feels good. We don’t have to bash, shame, and blame, in order to do that. Stating facts isn’t shaming or blaming.

I will tell you from personal experience, I once had to write out a testimony to prove why a person was a danger to society. I didn’t get into all the emotions about why I thought they were a danger, and I was VERY emotionally tied to the situation. I simply listed facts and incidents that proved that he was a danger. The courts responded by protecting the innocent people who were involved. I didn’t feel bad about anything I wrote, because I wrote facts. I didn’t say, lock him up and throw away the key. He is an evil human being who doesn’t deserve air. I wrote down things that were about him having to take responsibility for his actions. I know a person has to be filled with fear, shame, judgment, and hate to hurt someone. Healthy people don’t seek to hurt someone else. Perpetuating blame cycles hurts more than just people. It hurts learning institutions, governments, corporations, environments, countries, and the entire global economy.

Perpetuating blame keeps us from finding healthy solutions that are best for ourselves and the majority. Instead, we focus on blame and we think it benefits a minority of people. Then we blame those people for getting us to where we are, the cycle grows and expands until we find ourselves in a constant state of internal and external war. We can’t escape! We keep seeing it everywhere we turn, because if we are engaging in it, we are supporting the energy of it. Yesterday, I spoke about how even self-blame is part of this toxic cycle. We just keep perpetuating and focusing on all the wrong places and to what avail?

Even take something simple like sporting events, getting so worked up about what people did or didn’t do, blaming them for a failure of a play. We are watching from the outside! We are not in their situation. They can’t see what we see. They have a small view of the situation. Everything is easier to see when you have a view of the whole picture. None of us have the whole view of life and of the circumstances leading up to the event happening in front of our eyes. We are looking through a straw in our own life; we can’t possibly know how we would react until all the cards are in place. We can’t expect others to either.

Each of us have a choice to stay in the energy of blame if we want to. If we choose blame, we will stay victims to other people’s actions and we will continue to attract more of what we are putting out there according to the Law of Attraction. Then according to Karma we will get back whatever we put out. So between the two of them, we will feel like we have to be ready to fight. We will attract people and situations where people are ready to fight too. They might even be disguised in beautiful packages. This energy leaks into great causes everyday by focusing more on what the cause is against than what it is for. Seeing this in the world always reminds me of the quote by Mother Teresa:

Projecting blame comes from deep inside of us. We have to deal with our own issues of self-blame before we can project out the love we want to see in the world. Otherwise, our own toxic cycle emanates from us even when we are attempting to spread love. We can’t fix what’s outside us first and then expect that to fix our insides. That is us blaming our outside for how we feel inside, once again perpetuating the blame cycle.

I’m not writing this 90-Day A Better Me Series to force anybody to change what they believe. I just know that these are the transformations that I’ve made over the years that have changed my life. Becoming aware of my perspectives of truth, accepting responsibility for what is going on inside of me, and taking action with the vision of the life I want in my heart; have led me to follow my dreams. I’ve met the most amazing teachers and been able to assist others in seeing their best selves. I have support and love all around me. The rewards of living this life have been endless. Even when the hard stuff comes, it doesn’t break me down like it once did. The pain that used to last months and sometimes years, has worked it’s way down for few hours or at most a couple days. We each get to choose if we are ready to let go of what is causing us to live a life full of internal pain and suffering, but until we clean up our internal world, our external world will continue to be a place that will bring us suffering and we will continue to blame what is going on outside of us for what we are feeling inside…the blame cycle will continue to have power over our lives.

Just for Today

Get a straw or something that has a hole the size of a standard straw. You can even make it with our hands if you don’t have anything. Look up close or print out the two the two spheres below. If you are looking at the center of the fear sphere, what do you see? If you are looking inside the hope sphere, what do you see? If we only have a straw view of our own lives, where do you want to focus your energy?

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff  ©2019

Did you read today’s companion piece? 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 16 – How I’m Perpetuating the Blame Cycle

Keep following along, things are about to hit the core of why blame is so dangerous.

If your ready to move your straw to the center of Hope, Join me:

35-DAY A BETTER ME BOOT CAMP