I am Ursella, and I'm also known as Silver Disobedience.
And today I want to talk about the blame game.
Do you ever find yourself caught in that cycle of blaming others?
It's a struggle, you know? Many of us face it, even if
we're hesitant to admit it. See, in the past, you know,
things like blaming. We used to refer to this
overcoming this habit as growing up and taking responsibility for
our own actions and choices. These days, some might call it
resistance to adulting. But here's the thing.
Constantly blaming others doesn't feel good.
It can leave us feeling isolated and disconnected.
Ultimately, we really need to let go of the habit of blaming
others for our mistakes and the choices we make.
We need to stop blaming others when we neglect to take care of
ourselves, when we're tired, hungry, scared, lonely.
We need to stop blaming others we need when we expect them to
have all the answers, even when we don't.
You see, blaming others is really a way of avoiding taking
responsibility. And all the while, we're trying
to convince ourselves that someone else is to blame for our
problems. Sometimes we even find ourselves
blaming others when we're simply having a bad day and feel like
we need to hold someone accountable.
But here's the deeper truth. When we blame others, we're not
just blaming them. When we blame others, we're not
just blaming them. We're also in a state of
constantly shaming, blaming and judging ourselves.
So we're engaging in self criticism.
We're bombarding ourselves with negative messages and trying to
convince ourselves on some level that we're nothing but
disappointments. We're reinforcing that negative
energy and those thoughts. When anger and frustration build
up and we direct our aggression towards others, we're really
failing to recognize that what we're actually trapped in is the
cycle of self judgement. So instead of acknowledging
this, we tend to unload our anger on people, especially
those people we care about. Or we vent it on strangers, like
when we're driving on the freeway and people lose it.
The only way to break free from the cycle of blame, Cycle of
blame is to recognize that it stems from a deep internal place
of shame or guilt where we're continuously blaming and judging
ourselves, and we reflected on to other people.
Addiction to blaming others is, at the core, a result of some
form of self abuse. So how do we break free from
this cycle of blame and learn to love ourselves well?
Breaking any addiction is always a challenge and changing our
thought patterns can be especially difficult.
However, this process can be successful if you truly desire
to change. Shifting from self abuse to self
love, you got to make it a priority.
And if you make it a priority, it will surpass the need to
control ourselves and others through these critical outbursts
of self judgement. Start by paying close attention
to your emotions. OK, so let me just say I'm going
to go through a few things you can do.
So this is #1. So start by playing paying close
attention to your emotions. We all need to learn to be aware
of when we're starting to feel angry, anxious, hurt, scared,
guilty, ashamed, or depressed. Everything changes in our body
When we start to feel that way. We can feel a tenseness develop.
Maybe we start to sweat. Maybe we start to feel a
headache. We want to start to identify
when those kind of emotions start to rise #2 when we notice
those emotions are rising. I got a hair in my face.
We need to make a conscious decision to explore the thoughts
that are causing the pain. The emotions don't come out of
anywhere, just nowhere. They come from a thought.
We have a thought that says, you know, I'm angry at so and so.
And that then sends us to a state of we're getting
frustrated, we're feeling angry, we're pissed off, we're furious,
whatever. We're bringing this whole story
of emotions into that thought. So #2 is we have to make a
conscious decision to explore the thoughts that are causing
our pain instead of ignoring them and or or worse, maybe
turning to substances or other addictive behaviors or
continuing our continuing continuing to harm ourselves and
others because we're lashing out.
Number three is we have to ask ourselves again.
Since I said emotions are preceded by a thought, we need
to ask ourselves, what am I telling myself, excuse me,
that's making me feel this way? Once you determine the thoughts
that contribute to the suffering you're feeling, then you can
question whether you're absolutely certain that these
thoughts are really true or if their stories were just
fabricating in the moment. And then we could inquire
within, like, what am I trying to control by telling myself
these things? Number four, once you've become
aware that you're feel feeding yourself lies, which is what we
all do often, you know to some degree or another.
Once we become aware that we're feeding ourselves lies that lead
to negative emotions, and you understand why you're doing it,
you can start to seek guidance from your highest, wisest self,
that inner teacher, your spiritual source, your inner
God, your connection to God. And you can ask what is the
truth here? And if you want to genuinely
seek the truth, it will reveal itself to you.
So I encourage praying or reaching out and asking for
divine guidance when you really feel like you're ready to
explode on the world number. Step #5 would be to really try
to change your patterns, your thinking patterns, By embracing
the truth you've come to, you know.
This can involve really doing a major reframing of your
perspectives. It can be a pause when you have
to ask yourself, is being right more important than being
loving? And that answer will help you
direct your thoughts and hopefully you choose It's better
to be loving. Sometimes being right just
doesn't count. It's kind of like in driver Ed.
I I'll never forget the driver Ed teacher saying, you know,
yes, you can be dead right. You're right.
That person was not supposed to run the red light.
But if you didn't stop and look both ways as well before you
entered a busy intersection, you can be dead, right?
Well, you don't want to be dead, right.
And you don't want to destroy a relationship because you were
more focused on wanting to be right and loving.
Number six. You want to pay attention to how
you feel. Because although you know
feelings come after thoughts, it pays.
Feelings are a good indicator. They're a pulse check.
Lies will always make you feel bad.
Truth will give you inner peace. So whenever you're not at peace,
or I'm not at peace, I go through this process and I say,
what do I need to uncover? Am I telling myself lies?
Am I getting myself worked up about things I can't control?
There's a process you can go through so you can uncover the
lies that we tell ourselves. And we all do this.
It's it's not just you. I do it too.
We all do it. We all make up stories to make
ourselves more comfortable, to make us ourselves feel like
maybe we control something when there's very little we control
except our own and maybe physical being and even that can
be impacted by things beyond our control.
So once you uncover maybe the lies you're telling yourself or
the rationales you're giving yourself, you can.
With practice, you'll find you can start residing in the truth
and finding a little more loving and peaceful place for you.
If you take that beat and think about it, breaking the cycle of
blame requires a lot of patience and self compassion.
You have to treat yourself with kindness because it's a journey
of self acceptance that you are embarking on.
But I want to tell you today, if you walk away with one thing
from this podcast, know that you deserve love and understanding.
And that love and understanding has to start with from the love
and understanding you give yourself.
So you deserve to give yourself love and understanding.
Just like you want to give it to someone else.
You have to start with giving it to you.
And when you do, it's amazing how it opens up from other
people around you. I'm Diane Grusow, this Silver
Disobedience podcast. And you can find me on every
social media channel under Silver Disobedience.
And I hope you subscribe. And I hope you come back and
visit me regularly. Thanks a lot.
Have a great night, day, night, whatever it is.