Blame, Blame, Blame!

Glorious morning!

Today I would like to focus on Blame. The quote that hits me is from Erica Jong.

“ Take your life into your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame"

Erica Jong was born in 1942. She is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear Of Flying.

Whoa! Imagine living your life not blaming anyone for anything. Talk about never carrying around anger and frustration, well…. That's exactly the results we would get. Not blaming anyone for things is NOT the same as never holding someone accountable for breaking laws or doing disrespectful or horrible things to us. Not blaming someone simply frees us up instantly to find solutions and remedies for transforming bad situations.

Let’s say a birthday girl made dinner reservations at the best restaurant in New York city for her birthday celebration and this particular restaurant needs at least a month in advance notice because that's how popular it is. She makes the reservations early enough and is able to get the actual day of her birthday for her and 5 friends. The night comes and she is ready and the limo that was rented is ready to take her and the friends. They all have an amazing ride to NYC laughing and listening to music. She gets to the restaurant and the host at the front of the restaurant does not see the reservation. He goes to the manager and asks what he should do because obviously whoever took the reservation, never logged it in the book. To make matters worse, there is absolutely no room for her and the 5 friends. All tables are taken and the only possible thing the host can say is , I'm so sorry there has been some kind of error with the one who took your reservation and we can not accommodate you tonight.

The manager says the only thing he can do is give you some gift cards towards a future dinner. So what to do in that situation? The birthday girl can start crying and feel extremely sorry for herself and go down a rabbit hole of blame and anger and start saying things to the manager like , THIS IS SOOOO FU%~<:” UP! You have ruined my birthday, I waited a whole month for this and it's all ruined!! I don't want your stupid gift cards because I am never coming back EVER! She could let that stew inside of her all night and really let her night be ruined and everybody else that is with her OR she could acknowledge her disappointment but also acknowledge the fact that it was simply human error and that no one was out trying to ruin anything. She could say , well it is what it is, thank you for the gift cards and can we make that reservation now with the manager personally putting my name down. They can then start looking up other restaurants who can accommodate her and her friends and continue the evening with just that slight arrangement and have a blast. Lets face it, she can still have awesome conversation and drinks and food in another restaurant, really, the night just required a small adjustment to make room for the imperfections in life.

What trips us up is when we take mistakes or oversights, personally. Usually when we are taking things personally, it is the result of a trigger and triggers are born from unfinished issues from our past. When triggers are laying dormant in us until the next similar event that triggers it , the trigger stimulates the emotions attached to a memory. It can feel very, very real, like we are being “ victimized “ all over again. In reality we are allowing past stuff to continue our victim mindset. The truth is, not blaming people helps us learn a real and important life skill, self empowerment. Not letting events take away from your joy and well being is a super power to be mastered. Taking our focus off the offense or wrongdoing and onto solutions that serve us in a positive way is emotional intelligence. We all need to grow and develop that amazing super power.

Do you have trouble letting things go? Do you let triggers devour your joy? Backpack therapy is an excellent tool for self awareness. Make a free discovery call today. Peace be with you, Dawn

Discovery Call

Book Now