5 Strategies For Ending The Blame Game and Taking…
There’s some responsibility from both sides in the blame game.
One of the more challenging aspects of my work with men is helping them to understand that their partner is not the one making them feel sad, hurt, angry or joyful. Yes, people in their lives are contributing to these experiences, but, ultimately, how we interpret an event in our lives is how we experience it.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” – Marcus Aurelius
Fully owning my response and way of seeing things is one of the most liberating things I have committed to in my relationships. It has allowed me to be in charge of my life rather than putting that responsibility on someone else.
Taking responsibility for our emotional experience gets us out of the blame game.
What is the blame game? This is the response I have when someone does something that is triggering to me. A good example in my own life was when my wife was telling me about something that she didn’t feel was cleaned properly. I felt hurt by this and pulled away from her. I started to create the blame game story: “she is so critical, I never do anything right.” My wife checked in noticing that I was pulling away but instead of being honest I told her everything was fine. Finally, after cooling down a bit, I was able to tell to her how how I felt. We processed it through and things were back to normal. If I had stayed in the blame game I could have been disconnected for days.
What does it mean to take responsibility for your feelings?
For me it is creating the new belief that whatever I’m feeling comes from me and not from someone else. This manifests in my life in profound ways. When I’m with my partner and she shuts down emotionally (maybe I said something triggering) I may notice a feeling of hurt inside myself. This is real hurt. And, it is not comfortable.
Instead of going to the blame game and projecting my hurt back on to my partner, getting defensive and berating her for her behavior, I acknowledge my hurt and actually feel it. Then I can come from a different place and let my partner know that I’m feeling hurt. Not because of her but because I just feel hurt. The way of saying this is, “when you pulled away from me emotionally, I felt hurt.” Very different than saying, “you hurt my feelings when you pulled away.”
As your reading this you may be thinking, “wait a minute, sometimes people say mean things. Should I just let them be mean to me?” No, of course not. However, their mean behavior is not the cause of your feelings. How you interpret and experience what is happening in your environment is always on you. Letting them know that their way of behaving is hurtful and feels bad is the way you own your experience. The hope is that they will then be able to own theirs. Blaming is not a way to set a boundary with someone. It only leads to defensiveness and disconnection.
Here are five thoughts I have about how to start taking on more emotional responsibility in your life.
1. Create an intention that you repeat to yourself each day. Intentions matter. If you say something like, “Today, I will work to own my experience and take responsibility for my emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well-being,” day after day your mind will start to believe it. I do it in the morning. It only takes a few minutes but it can have a profound impact on your relational life.
2. Talk with your partner or someone close to you about this new way of being in your life. Let them know that from now on you want to relate to them differently and that you would like their help in making that happen. Ask them to point out, gently, when you are using blaming language rather than the language of responsibility.
3. Mindfulness. It is not difficult to see the cause and affect relationship of someone’s behavior impacting our emotional experience. Someone yells, you feel a rush of fear, and you connect the dots that the person yelling is to blame. This is so habitual in many people’s lives. In order to counteract that natural conclusion (they caused me to feel something) we need to develop the awareness of our emotional world. This takes effort but is really helpful. Take the time to notice the bodily response to someone yelling.
Feel the fear in your body and then notice all of the thoughts going through your head, “she/he shouldn’t be yelling,” “he/she is out of control,” “Shutup.” This is how your mind can go and go and go. Of course none of this is wrong it’s just how our minds react. Using mindfulness we can step back a little and not attach to these thoughts. Then we have more freedom to choose how to respond rather than reacting from habit.
4. Practice a few times. Notice how the outcomes in your relationships change. For many of my clients the proof of this is in the pudding (sorry for the cliché). They don’t really buy into it until they start to see how different the outcomes of conflict can be. Instead of a disastrous argument ending in hurt feelings, a minor conflict can be worked out when the person is not put on the defensive for being blamed. Slowing down and being able to say, “I can see you are upset,” and, “I’m noticing I’m feeling frustrated.” This can bring in an acknowledgement of discomfort and then a shift to solving the problem. This process of conflict, acknowledgement, empathy and solution is much smoother than, conflict, blame, hurt and shutdown (what I see much of the time).
5. Believe in yourself. If you have been committed to the blame game for most of your adult life know that you can change. I was heavily committed to this game but using many of the strategies above, I was able to change over a few years. Our minds are like a ski slope. Each time a skier goes down the hill they create a groove in the mountain side. As time goes on this groove gets deeper and deeper. It is challenging to move out of old habits but you can start to create new grooves. They will start to shift. You just have to get started.
I believe that shifting from blaming others for our emotions to taking responsibility is one of the most important things we an do to create amazing relationships. I’ve done it in my own life and I know you can do it too.
13 COMMENTS
Great article and website. Interesting perspective!
Mi daughter is 24, she is always depress , angry, always in the blame game, I try to help her and she shuts down, yesterday she was crying uncontrollably because her partner did something to cause her to b upset, I want to help her, don’t know what to do anymore, your article helps a lot. Thank you.
Hi Carlo,
I’m sorry your daughter is having such a hard time. I can only imagine how difficult this is. It sounds like you are really showing up for her and doing the best you can given her circumstances. So hard to find the patience when someone you love is doing things that seem so simple to solve. All we can really do is listen and love. In that space, healing can happen, and your daughter can find her way to her own solution. Thanks for your reply.
Let’s say somebody close to me unintentionally upsets or angers me. I understand that they did not mean it and can vaguely grasp that my anger is a reaction to a different situation, so I do not snap. The tension goes away after a while, some resentment, though, remains, because my ego nonetheless feels hurt. This is even more pronounced in a situation where somebody intends to hurt me. What do I do with the tension and resentment? How do I let go of my ego? How do I find empathy towards others even when I hurt? How do I find empathy and love towards myself that can heal past wounds? This society we live in has come so far from mindfulness. It is an extremely difficult and life-long journey back that takes serious soul-searching, honesty, and dedication. I think we need to talk about the bumps on the road and appreciate progress.
These are great questions Sophie. I wish I had an easy answer. In all of this is our own growth and opening to more compassion. When I think in my own life I find that my ability to find compassion is something that I have worked to build. I have done this through healing my own wounds, developing a mindfulness practice and learning how to experience my emotions. When I’m hurt I sit with the hurt, the tension in my chest and the constriction in my jaw may be what I’m noticing. I make meaning of these sensations that I’m pissed. My first instinct is to fight back to hurt the one who hurt me. If I can get through that I’m able to allow myself to feel the discomfort of being hurt. The next instinct is to distract myself or to dismiss my feelings as “no big deal.” If I can get through that I can actually start to feel the pain of being hurt. My emotions want to let me know that this wasn’t okay and also some insight, possibly, into why I’m hurt. As I continue to stay with all of it I start to notice a lessening of the discomfort. It usually doesn’t all go way in a few minutes but it becomes much more bearable. Slowly I’m able to find myself again. Then I notice too the story I’ve created about the person…”they are always or never this.” As I notice the story I’m able to soften my identification with it. As that happens I can see the person who said this hurtful thing as just a person. They are doing the best I can. The next step could then be to acknowledge to this person how it felt to hear their words. The trick is to not say it from a place of blame or acquisition but from a place of open honesty. “I’m just letting you know the impact of your words.” “When you said blank, it hurt my feelings.” The person may be able to respond in a healthy way or they may not. That isn’t what is important. What is important is to let them know and thus let your nervous system know that you are respecting your boundaries.
How do I deal with my sister who is my hot button. She does things that provoke an outburst from me then afterwards I feel horrible. She then tells me she’s not responsible for my reaction only to repeat the thing that provoked me in the first place. So frustrating. My resentment towards her is huge.
Hi Brent, this sounds really difficult. For me, the key to handle these issues is setting clear boundaries. For example, one of my important values is being respectful towards people. I don’t like it when people express themselves in disrespectful ways towards me. When this happens I get triggered. I don’t always express my boundary clearly but I try to let them know that talking to me in a way that is disrespectful is not okay. I do believe that our feelings are our responsibility. I also think that we can let those around us know, that it would be helpful if they did things in a way that wasn’t triggering. This is what a healthy boundary is. Your sister may not get it or even acknowledge it at first. However, keep setting the boundary. “It’s not okay when you talk to me like that.” It is also a good idea to sit her down when you both are in a good place and tell her how it feels when she does certain things. Ask her if she would be willing to work on these things with you so that you both could establish a healthier relationship. See if she is open to this. If someone continually disrespects your boundaries you need to decide how you want to be in that relationship going forward. I’m going to guess your sister will be more than open to working on this with you. Warmly.
Thank You Bryce, She means everything to me. If it’s the last thing I do, It will be resolved. Much appreciated. Brent
Hi! Reading this comment and your reply sounds exactly like what I’m going through with my partner. I actually take the steps you suggest, yet he just keeps going and refuses to acknowledge that what he is doing is hurtful to me and therefore he doesn’t remotely show a willingness or awareness to address his behaviours. I feel that in a relationship it’s part of intimacy to know and understand each other’s triggers and to work together to live. Adaptive growth mindsets is what I think of
Any suggestions on what I could try?
Hi Katt,
I think that you need to make it clear to your partner that it is in his best interest to work with you to create a more connected intimate relationship. Often times men fear working on themselves. When emotions are not a big part of our experience we don’t want to go into this realm because it will just show our limitations. Let your partner know that you are doing this together and not creating any shame around his limitations. Try and stay encouraging. Let him know that he has a lot to gain in having a healthier relationship.
I feel like i do the blame game and not being able to understanf my partners feelings. I feel as tho that all my behaviors has been because of how he acts towrads me and i react the same way. I noticed that i do need to understNd how im feeling even tho he doesnt understand how im feeling ether. Its very hurtful and i want him to see how im feeling rather than just himself. Im still having trouble. But this article did help on how i have to take reaponsibility for my own feelings. Even if i do feel neglected.
I do want to change my bad habit and when i do maybe than he will finally take notice of what im feeling.
Hi. My spouse has struggled with alcoholism their entire life. Every thing I try to do to help just infuriates them. Refusal of counseling. Refusal to take accountability for their actions. There unable to hold a job . And constantly say it’s my fault they drink. Because I am afraid of it ruining our marriage. And this I am manifesting the behavior in them. Our relationship is falling apart. I am trying to be better. not choosing to get upset by the matter . They simply want me to accept it and get over it. What do I do in this case?
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