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#TTM EP. 21 - BLAME IS NOT A STRATEGY
Watch the intro to the episode HERE.
We are responsible for how we feel in every moment. We are in charge of how we think and we are in charge of how we feel.
We think that everything that's going on in our life is what is causing our feelings, it is the most disempowering thing that we can do, to keep ourselves in a space of blame.
Emotional responsibility is when we decide to take full responsibility for every single thing we feel, no matter what someone else does or doesn't do.
In this week's episode, I explore the difference between blame and responsibility, and how you can completely take your life into your own hands by taking responsibility for your thoughts, your feelings, and actions.
#TTM EP. 21 - BLAME IS NOT A STRATEGY // SELF ENQUIRY
1. Think of someone in your life who you think causes you pain, discomfort, or stress.
2. How do you assign them responsibility for your emotions?
3. When you think about a specific situation with them, can you find the thought you had about their action that caused your emotion? Be very clear.
- What was their action?
- What was your thought?
- What was your emotion?
4. Take a minute and make a list of people you have blamed for your emotions or actions in the past. Make a note of the specific thing you have blamed them for doing.
5. How might you have behaved differently if you had never blamed these people? How has blaming them disempowered you?
6. Imagine your life where you don’t blame anyone for how you think, feel, act, or for any of the results you create in your life. How could your life be different?
7. Think about the times when you blame circumstances for how you think, feel, or act. How might you change this? How might you only assign responsibility to yourself for all of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions?
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
Ep. 13 HOW TO FEEL BETTER
Ep. 14 HOW TO FEEL BAD
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TTM #21 BLAME IS NOT A STRATEGY
You are listening to me talking to myself. Welcome to the podcast, where I share useful tools to create more space, more freedom, inner peace, connection, and life on purpose.
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We are responsible for how we feel in every moment. We are in charge of how we think and we are in charge of how we feel. We think that everything that's going on in our life is what is causing our feelings. It is the most disempowering thing that we can do to keep ourselves in a space of blame. We blame the government, we blame the economy, we blame our bosses, our teachers, we blame the weather, we blame other people, we blame our parents, we blame our childhoods. We blame our calendar, we blame our job. We blame time. We blame technology, we blame money. We blame diets, we blame exercise, we blame everyone for how we feel, the way we feel and why we are doing what we are doing and the results we are getting. Emotional responsibility is when we decide to take full responsibility for every single thing we feel no matter what someone else does or doesn't do. When I take responsibility for how I feel and I make choices for how I want to feel, I end up so much more empowered, and I get to be more of the person I want to be instead of being in this default emotional space. When you are in a place of disempowerment, you are in a place where you feel like you do not have control over your emotional life and you give that responsibility to someone else.
So what is blame? The definition of blame is to assign responsibility to someone else. It's not about the other person. It's not about the person you're blaming. It's not about the thing you're blaming. You are the one assigning responsibility. And what most of us are doing is assigning responsibility for how we feel to someone or something outside of us. You're delegating your emotional life to someone else. Blame is always disempowering as it applies to our emotions. Blaming feels good in the moment, it feels good in the moment to be able to blame someone else and make them take responsibility for how we feel or for something that happens. It's like abdicating responsibility for your own empowerment and it is completely disempowering. It's like someone else is in charge of you. You give all your power away when you do that. If someone else is responsible for how you feel, then you have to depend on them if you want to change how you feel. Do you want to depend on the person that you're blaming for how you feel? Your neighbour, your teacher, your friend, your partner, your boss? Do you want to rely on them and their behaviour for how you feel? You are the only one responsible for how you feel always and forever. If you blame someone else, if you blame a situation, you have no power. You have to change the person or the situation in order to feel better. And sometimes that's not possible.
It is different to assigning responsibility to someone else for an action, and it's important to see the difference. For example, the person didn't do the work on time. This person didn't show up on time. This person didn't complete the task. This person didn't finish the project. That person is responsible for what they did and their action, but they are not responsible for how you feel. You are responsible for how you feel. Keep your power within yourself and not victimize yourself further by giving them power over your emotions. Holding them responsible for their actions is different than blaming them. Other people are responsible for their actions. They're not responsible for how we feel about their actions.
If you say I'm angry because they didn't complete the task on time, your anger is on you. They are responsible for not completing it on time, but the emotion you experience from the action is in your power. When blaming extends to how we feel or how we act, that's when we give our power away. No one else is responsible for how you feel.
No one is ever responsible for how we feel. We always create our own feelings by what we think about what is happening to us and around us. It may not always seem this way, but it's always true. We can't have a feeling without a thought causing it. A lot of times we want to take responsibility for how other people feel. Example: I do not want to not eat what they serve me because then they will feel upset. You are assigning responsibility for how they feel by what you're doing. That is never the case. They're always responsible for how they feel. When we people please, we are lying so other people will feel better, and we are taking responsibility for other people's feelings. Once we've realised that we are never responsible for how they feel, they are always responsible for how they feel, so even if we do something nice for someone and they feel super happy about it, we are not the ones making them happy. They are still the ones making themselves happy by what they're thinking about what we did.
A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to make other people happy. And they get very upset that they are ineffective at it. And then we spend a lot of time waiting for other people to make us happy and we get upset that they are ineffective at doing it for us. And one of the best ways to go through your life is to just take responsibility for your own happiness and let other people take responsibility for there's. Other people are not assigned responsibility for our feelings or our actions and this is very good news. No one is responsible for how we feel. Therefore we don't have to change their behaviour in order to change how we feel. We are not responsible for how others feel. Therefore, we don't have to change our behaviour in an attempt to change how others feel.
What is the difference between blame and responsibility? Sometimes we blame other people. Sometimes we blame ourselves. It gets a little tricky. If we are going to take responsibility, how is it different from blaming ourselves? The difference is, taking responsibility for how we feel, for what we do, for what we think, for the results we get in our life is the opposite of blaming. Here's how you know the difference. The main difference is in how you feel. That's how you know if you are taking responsibility or if you are blaming.
So how does it affect relationships with other people? Feelings are always self-generated. It's easy to remember this when we are looking at someone else but when we are feeling upset or we are feeling hurt, that's when it's really difficult to remember that all feelings are always self-generated. We believe our feelings are caused by other people. It's never the case. Other people can't cause us to feel anything. Go back to episodes 13 and 14.
When we blame someone else for how we feel we're not taking responsibility for how we feel. When you say that person made me angry. That person hurt my feelings that person caused me to have a bad day. That person annoys me etc. We all blame other people for how we feel. But what we are doing is we are basically saying that this feeling was caused by this person. We are giving that person responsibility for our emotional life. We are delegating responsibility to them as if they are responsible for how we feel. The good news is no one is that powerful. Nobody can generate a feeling for us. That is something only we can do. When we are blaming someone, we are holding them accountable. We are giving them credit for a feeling that we are having, an experience that we are having, a problem that we are having. When we do that, we completely disempower ourselves, we completely lose our ability to respond. Response ability. When we blame, we give it all to them. If they are the cause of how we feel, then they will be the cause of us not feeling that way. So then they have to take some action or do something in order to change how we feel.
No matter what someone does. When we take responsibility for how we feel about it, then we are empowered to feel better, to feel different, to change how we feel and act. We are empowered to respond the way we want to respond without feeling out of control and without being reactive. In the moment, it doesn't seem like we have the ability. There are times when we get frustrated and blame the other person. It seems to be true but that's never true. No one can upset you or annoy you or make you crazy. Like if someone forgets your birthday, if somebody tells you something you don't want to hear. You get to decide how you're going to feel about it. You can either think ‘It's not a big deal’, or you can think ‘I don't want to talk to this person ever again’. Think about that. Where in your life are you blaming someone for how you feel? Where are you blaming someone for what you're doing? Where are you blaming someone for the way you are reacting for how you're letting yourself behave? Blaming the people in your life and blaming your boss, blaming the weather, blaming things outside of you for your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Take some time to reflect.
The way that you know that you're blaming is it feels negative. You will notice that you feel disempowered and weak and hopeless and out of control. That's how you know when you're blaming. Blaming is never useful. All it does, it gives your power away. It gives credit to something that isn't responsible. For example, in a relationship, let's say you give your emotional life over to your partner, your friend, your business partner, your parent, or your child, saying ‘You are responsible for making me happy. You are responsible for when I am upset and you are responsible for when I am sad and everything you do causes an emotion in me’. When you are in this space, you are going to be constantly trying to control that person. You are going to be constantly trying to tell the person what to do and how to do it and trying to manipulate this person and you're going to be mad when they don't do it or they do not do it in the way how you want it. And your emotions are going to be all over the place because you're trying to control their actions, because you attached your emotions to their actions. Whatever they do will determine how you feel. And that is a very disempowered place to be. And it's upsetting and annoying because you can't control other people and other people are very bad at doing what you want them to do. When we talk about relationships and meeting each other's needs, it means you will be always dependent on this person for making you feel a certain way. Let's say ‘My needs are that you do this and this and this in order for me to be happy.’ If your partner or your friend in turn tells you what his needs are for you to make him happy, then you have put each other's happiness in each other's hands. That's not a good place for it to be because most people can't even make themselves happy, let alone try to make someone else happy. And also, most people don't want to spend all their time and energy trying to make you happy because they are trying to manage their own emotional life.
The best relationships are when two people come together and say I am going to meet my needs, you meet your needs. And then we can just come together and have a good time. Not because we need each other but because we want to. How can you expect someone to manage your emotional life if you're not able to do it yourself? I am responsible for my happiness and I'm also responsible for my unhappiness, and I am responsible when my feelings get hurt and I'm responsible for my thoughts, my feelings, and my actions.
Well if you are only responsible for how you feel, then won’t you abdicate responsibility for how you treat other people? So you don't have to take responsibility for your behaviour and you can just treat people badly and not have to take responsibility for them being upset?
You are responsible for your behaviour. If you're going to act in a mean way. You're probably coming from a very negative emotion. You have to take responsibility for your own emotions and your own actions. How that person interprets what you do, no matter what your intention is, is their responsibility. When you're acting from a place of peace and harmony and truth and love, you don't act in a way that's mean to other people. Because you are not reacting from a place of trying to get them to behave in a way so you can feel better. We always want to change people just so we feel better. Usually when we yell at people, usually when we are mean is because we are trying to control them. We are trying to get them to behave in a way so we feel better. And that's never going to work and it's only going to cause tension in a relationship.
Listen, you get to behave however you want and I get to behave however I want and I'm responsible for all of my actions. And I'm responsible for all of my feelings. This does not mean that you're not going to take action that is sometimes going to be something you might regret later. And it doesn't mean that you don't apologise and it doesn't mean that you don't take responsibility for how you treat another person. You just know you're not responsible for how they feel. You are responsible for how you behave. That is really important because you need to decide who you want to be and how you want to act in the world.
People who are taking responsibility for their feelings tend to apologise a lot more because they own up to how they're acting and they own it. They don't say, Oh, the reason I acted that way is because you were like this. That's the opposite of taking responsibility for how you think, feel and behave. ‘The reason I acted this way is because I did not manage my emotions.’ The point of it is not to then start blaming yourself for any thoughts or feelings or actions that you're not liking. If I'm constantly blaming someone else for how I feel, and abdicating responsibility for that when I blame someone else, the tendency may be to then turn that blame on yourself saying, Oh, so this whole time I've been the one, I'm such a horrible person.’ That's not the intention of this process. The intention of the process is to say, oh, so if I feel this way, it's because of the way I'm thinking. If I'm acting this way, it's because of the way I am thinking. And we can be curious about that. And we can treat ourselves with kindness and compassion instead of beating ourselves up for it. Because now we know that we can change and that is a really powerful, wonderful place to be, a place where you have complete power or real life. Being dependent on anyone else when you don't need to be is actually the most disempowering thing you can do to yourself.
Let's talk a little bit about blame versus responsibility when it comes to ourselves. What's the difference between blaming ourselves for overeating, for not exercising, for not going to bed early, for eating something we said we wouldn't eat, blaming ourselves for overspending versus taking responsibility for all of it. Blaming is ‘I'm beating myself up. I'm telling myself that it's my fault and I didn't do it right. It's always negative. When you take responsibility for it, notice immediately how empowered you feel. It's so empowering to take responsibility, even for something that you wish you hadn't done. ‘I choose to eat this’ versus ‘how could I do this? What's wrong with me? I'm so out of control.’ That's blame.
The reason you feel any kind of way is because of a thought you are thinking. That is the ultimate responsibility. I'm taking responsibility for what I think and how I feel. Describe to yourself why you're feeling that way. Own that it's a thought in your brain. And this will give you so much power to be able to change if you want to. You're feeling this way because of a thought you are having. What is the thought? Take responsibility for thinking that thought and therefore feeling that way. Be curious, own it and change the thought and therefore the feeling if you want. The beauty of taking responsibility is then you start to make the change you want to make. Blame leads to no action because it's completely disempowering. When you take responsibility and you own something, then you develop an authority over it. That's when you begin to make the change that you want to make. Instead of saying ‘The reason I did this is because she did that’, you say ‘The reason I did this is because I didn't manage my emotional life. I didn't take control over my mind. I reacted. That's on me. She did not make me do that. She is not responsible for what I do. I am I am the reason I did it.’ You may not be able to change what the other person did, but you can definitely change how you behave. If I blame someone else, the only way I can stop reacting in the same way is if the other person changes. But the truth is I can stop reacting even without that person changing. I have the ability, response ability. I have the ability to respond the way I want. I take responsibility for how I'm thinking about something, for how I'm feeling about something and for how I am showing up. You get to decide in every situation how you want to feel. And if you feel upset about something, you can own it. It doesn't mean you have to change how you feel. Maybe you want to be upset about something. That's valid, but wanting to be upset and taking responsibility for feeling upset is very different than blaming someone else or something else for you being upset.
If you feel like something or someone is causing you to feel a certain way, ask yourself ‘Am I in blame? Am I in self-blame? Or am I in responsibility?’ The way that you know the answer is by how you feel. Do you feel disempowered? Or do you feel empowered? Sometimes taking responsibility for a mistake you've made can be humbling. But it will also feel empowering. Owning your mistakes. owning things that you did that you're not proud of doesn't always feel great. But if you take responsibility for it and own it, it feels empowering. It doesn't feel hopeless or out of control. It feels like ‘Yes, that's me. I did it. I own it and it's okay. I can move on.’ That's taking responsibility. Self-blame is ‘I did this. I am wrong. I should be ashamed. What's wrong with me?’ That is blame. If you can shift in your life to taking responsibility for all of your mistakes, for anything you do wrong in your own mind, owning it all, owning all of your actions, owning all of your results, owning all of your feelings and thoughts, you're not going to feel happy all the time, but you will not feel disempowered. You will not feel out of control. From there you can make the most change in your life.
When you retain your response-ability, that's when you can change your life. So explore this in your own life. Think about some examples of where are you blaming in your life? Where are you not taking responsibility? Where do you feel entitled to something you haven't earned?
Taking responsibility does require more effort. Blaming is definitely more comfortable. It does not require us to take action. It does not require us to change and step up and grow. But it's worth it to take that step into managing our minds. So we are not dependent on other people for how we think, feel, act, and ultimately the results we create in our lives. Look at your life. How can you take more responsibility and take your power back?
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