Episode #5: Blame, Shame, and Another Option
If you're like most people, you sometimes end up blaming other people for the negative parts of your life, or you beat YOURSELF up when you make mistakes or fall short. In this episode I'll show you why blame and shame are both tempting, but utimately aren't useful because they both keep you trapped in negative emotion. And did you know that blame and shame aren't your only two options? I'll tell you what I recommend instead, that feels SO much better.
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Full Transcript:
You're listening to the Think New Thoughts Podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 5. Blame, shame, and another option.
I'm Emily Ricks, and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships. In each episode, I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way, so you can love God, your neighbor, and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here.
Hey, how's it going? So last week, we talked about the power of beginning to notice when you're the one stealing your own pens, when you are unintentionally creating results in your life that you don't actually want. And as humans, we create our lives with our thoughts and our feelings and our actions.
And a lot of times what we end up creating isn't really what we want in the end. And this is a challenging space for a lot of people to navigate. I call it the gap, right? It's the place where you can see that where you are isn't really where you want to end up.
Like maybe I'm yelling at my kids, and I don't want to be, or I'm being petty or dishonest, and I don't want to be. Maybe I'm overeating and gaining weight, and I feel yucky about it. So today, I want to show you why we sometimes choose to blame other people for the stuff we create in our lives that we don't like, why we sometimes choose to shame ourselves for the stuff in our lives we don't like, and how both of these options feel pretty gross and keep us stuck.
And then I'll tell you about a third option that I love that isn't blame or shame that a lot of people don't even realize is a choice. So let's talk about blame first. Blame essentially is assigning responsibility to someone else for stuff we create.
Like the reason I flew off the handle is because they were being unreasonable. The reason I'm feeling sorry for myself is because she was so mean to me. The reason I'm struggling in my marriage is because my parents did a bad job of raising me, right? So blame is any rationalization that shifts the responsibility to someone else for what you are feeling or doing.
And it makes sense why we do this. It's logical in a way. If I'm getting angry with people or overeating or doing any other form of me not being my best self, that's going to feel bad.
And if I'm showing up in a way that isn't aligned with who I want to be, then I'm probably going to feel guilt or regret or discouragement, which isn't much fun to feel. So if I can blame it all on someone else, then I can diffuse that negative emotion and get a sneaky, like we can escape the negative emotion if we blame our feelings or our actions on someone else. The problem is it doesn't really work because we ended up trading guilt or regret or embarrassment for other negative emotions like anger, resentment, and bitterness, right? So the way I like to think about blame is usually we reach for it to try to get out of feeling negative emotions, but it actually creates even more net negative emotions in the end, which is why I don't find it to be very useful.
Also, blame keeps us from ever making any changes to how we are thinking or feeling or acting, which means then we're going to be stuck in the same patterns and habits indefinitely. If we're attributing our negative results to someone else, right? So like, if I blame someone else for what I'm creating in my life, I like to think of it like that's locking myself in a cage and handing the key to someone else and telling them, well, Hey, if you decide to be different, then I can be happy. And then I can create the life I want.
But until then, I'll just sit here and be mad at you for ruining my life here, hold onto that key. And if you ever decide to unlock me, then I'll get out like blaming your problems on other people, totally disempowers you. And like I said, it keeps you stuck in that cage, but blame is pretty tempting because a lot of people think that the only other option is self-loathing, which also feels pretty gross, right? So like, if I'm not supposed to blame other people for my problems and not get angry with them, then I guess I'll just hate myself for all my mistakes and shortcomings.
And that's shame. So shame sounds like, well, I'm a terrible person. Everything bad in my life is my fault.
I try, but I keep messing up. So I guess I'm just a big fat failure. And this isn't any better than blame.
In fact, it might even feel worse. Like if we had some sort of negative emotion rating scale, shame might even be a worse feeling than blame. Either way, this way of thinking, just like blame will keep you stuck.
Usually when we tell ourselves that we're failing and then we feel hopeless and depressed about how lame we are, that's usually when we'll end up over-consuming, being mean to people, withdrawing part of ourselves from others and all sorts of other actions that don't align with who we really want to be. And that feels bad. So then we try blaming other people.
Well, it's their fault that I feel awful. No, actually it's my fault. No, it's their fault.
No, it's my fault. And it isn't mine at all. So the blame shame game is what we call this is when we go from one to the other to try to get out of negative emotion, but they both feel bad and they both keep us stuck creating more of the same negative thoughts and feelings and actions that we don't even want.
You know what I'm talking about? Have you been on this merry-go-round? Here's what I want to tell you today. Blame and shame aren't the only options. You can actually get off the merry-go-round.
Okay, quick story. When I was in elementary school, there was a restaurant we sometimes went to with my cousins. It was called Fur's Cafeteria.
It was an all-you-can-eat buffet where you get your tray and you go through the salad bar and then the entrees and the sides and the desserts, and you can pick whatever you want to eat and then even go back for seconds if you want. One time we went there for dinner and there was this lady in a hairnet scooping vegetables and she would ask each person as they went through the line, peas or carrots? Peas or carrots? And somehow this exploded into a huge inside joke with my cousins for years where we would imitate her just to be funny. Peas or carrots? Peas or carrots? I don't even remember what her voice actually sounded like.
It probably sounded nothing like that, but we thought we were hilarious when we would say that. I think about it now and I think the funniest thing is that she was asking us that question at all at a buffet. Peas or carrots? Like those were our only two options, right? We had a hundred options of what to eat and we didn't actually have to get vegetables at all if we didn't want to.
I was a fairly picky eater at that age. I wasn't interested in peas or carrots, so I scooted past her without getting either one and moved on to the cubed jello with whipped cream, the macaroni, the chocolate mousse pie, because those things were way more appetizing to me. Okay.
So you don't have to have peas or carrots when you go through the line. You don't have to schlop blame or shame onto your plate. Don't fall for the idea that there are only two options.
Let me tell you what I recommend instead. Ownership and acceptance. These two things are a huge part of the work that I do as a coach.
So ownership is choosing to take 100% responsibility of everything in my model. I am responsible. I'm responsible for what I choose to think and feel and do.
No one else can cause my thoughts or my feelings or my actions. I'm responsible for those. I get to choose.
And actually I am choosing these all day long, whether I realize it or not. That's what ownership means. When I notice I'm out of alignment, I will own that.
I am the creator of negative thoughts, feelings, actions, or results in my own model. Sometimes we don't want to take responsibility, especially for the stuff we unintentionally create. Right? So we'll say stuff like, well, I didn't mean to, I didn't know I was doing that.
I didn't mean to. And then we think we're off the hook, but here's the thing. If you deflect ownership of your results.
Okay. Like in the last episode, when I thought that there were gremlins who were stealing the pens out of my drawer, then you also push away the possibility of making intentional choices to create something else. So if you don't own that, you're the one who is creating it.
Then you can't own your power to choose to create something else. That's where all your power is. So you give it away.
If you taking responsibility. So if you want to claim your power to choose what you make of your life, then you aim for 100% ownership. Don't take responsibility for what other people do or what they think or what they feel that's their responsibility.
And that's the circumstance of your model, but you take 100% responsibility for the rest of your model, the other four fifths, which is your thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. It's how you choose to respond to others and in anything you think or feel or do or create. Okay.
So that's ownership. Then to that ownership, you add acceptance. Let me see if I can explain this.
Most of my private clients are Christian women. And here's what I see happen. A lot of times I'll see a woman who starts taking ownership for her own thoughts and feelings.
And she'll start to realize she is creating so much of the negativity she feels in her relationship with her mother-in-law or with her husband or with her kids. She'll start to see that when she's judging others and thinking negative thoughts about them, then she actually shows up in a way that doesn't really line up with the fruits of the spirit that she values and is aiming for love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. And I love helping women realize this like, oh, I'm totally not showing up in this relationship with gentleness or love or long suffering when I'm judging this other person and blaming them for my negative feelings and focusing on the things I want to change about them.
It's so powerful for someone to discover this, right? Like I feel judgment and negativity in this relationship because I'm creating judgment and negativity in my own model. I didn't know I was doing that. So that's ownership.
But what a lot of people tend to do at this point, and I've done this too, is go into self judgment. Now that I see I'm choosing negative thoughts about this other person. Now that I see I'm not showing up with very much love or meekness or temperance when I'm interacting with them, then they go, oh, I'm a terrible person.
I'm such a mess. This is all my fault. Right? So we judge other people.
Then we judge ourselves for judging other people. And then we feel pretty bad. The other option that feels way better is to step out of judgment and into compassion, right? So this is 100% acceptance ownership of that.
I am creating my results and then acceptance of wherever I am. So here's something interesting. I feel like a lot of times as Christians, we end up accidentally believing that the way to improve is to criticize and judge.
I know I've definitely fallen into this. Like we think we can help others improve by criticizing and judging them and pointing out their weaknesses. Like we're being so helpful.
We think we can help ourselves improve by criticizing and judging and beating ourselves up. But actually this is completely upside down. Do you see it? Like we have a vision of the loving, patient, kind person we want to become.
And we realize we aren't exactly being that person in a certain situation. And then we do the funniest thing. We get mad at ourselves for it.
We choose to be unloving, impatient, and unkind with ourselves, thinking that this will somehow elevate us to be more loving and more patient and more kind. But do you see how ridiculous that is? I want to be more loving and patient and kind. So I will hate myself, be frustrated that I'm not perfect yet and be super mean.
That will help me get more loving and patient and kind. Like, no, it actually totally won't. So I think it's funny to see that for what it is.
Judging ourselves is very heavy and it's very serious. If we can lighten it up a little and find it amusing and laugh, we can move from judging ourselves into accepting ourselves. And that is the magic wand that opens up the way to being able to improve.
So if what you ultimately want is to be a person, become a person who is loving and kind, then don't use hatred of yourself and meanness to yourself as tools to get there. Do you see how that's backwards and then it won't actually work? The most amazing way to become a person who is loving and kind is to own the times when you aren't, and then choose to be loving and kind to yourself anyway, even when you are being imperfect, right? This sounds backwards to a lot of people, but it's not. Love is the way to more love.
Kindness is the way to more kindness. So blame and shame, which are both rooted in judgment are in opposition to love. So if you want to become a more loving human, don't let the lady with the hairnet have you believe that it's either shame or blame.
You have other options. You can choose ownership and acceptance. Take 100% ownership of everything in your life that isn't your circumstance.
The four fifths of the model that you have total and complete control over. Thoughts, feelings, actions, results, take responsibility for how you respond to what other people do and say. Own that you are the one choosing your thoughts and feelings and actions, and you are the creator of your results.
And then when you become aware that you've been creating stuff unintentionally, when you realize you're the one that's been stealing your own pens, I want you to laugh and be like, this is so funny that I've been doing this. Accept yourself and whatever intentional or unintentional choices you've made up to this point. Embrace the gap between who you are today and who you have the potential to become in time.
It's okay that you're not there yet. You're not actually supposed to be there yet. You're supposed to be exactly where you are.
This is how you learn and how you grow and how you evolve. And if you can accept exactly where you are, you unlock the ability to grow and change and improve. And also as you begin being kind and gentle with yourself, as you own that you're the creator of your results and accept 100% whatever decisions you have been making, you'll notice that you start offering that same acceptance and gentleness with others, which is pretty amazing that you end up loving your neighbor as yourself.
Super exciting. I want to invite you to try that out, practicing radical ownership and radical acceptance. All right.
Thanks for joining me today. I'll talk to you next week.