When you blame another for your unhappiness and your pain -- no matter how much it appears to be directly caused by them -- you end up hurting yourself even more. By placing blame on others, you put the responsibility of resolving your negative emotions and healing your pain onto somebody else. And by putting that responsibility in another's hands, you give away your personal power. In addition, when you blame another for your misery, you also lose control over your life. This power and control is then given to whomever and wherever you can point the finger. Is that what you really want? I don't think so.
Blaming others may give you temporary relief, but it will come back to haunt you repeatedly in the form of your ever-expanding suffering. There are a number of negative effects of blame which contribute to this. Here are the top five:
1. Blame keeps you stuck in negative feelings such as anger, bitterness and resentment. This will undoubtedly manifest as chronic pain -- physical, emotional and psychological.
2. Blame keeps you from learning from your mistakes, which results in making the same ones over again.
3. Blame gives control of your life to another. It robs you of your personal power.
4. Blame makes you the victim, which attracts more behaviors that tend to victimize you further.
5. Blame makes you weak and powerless, and makes the person you are blaming appear more powerful.
Blame has a sneaky way of undermining you. You think you're holding someone accountable and maybe even secretly punishing them to some degree. But this type of punishment never works. To understand the difference between blame and accountability, let's take a look at the dictionary's definition of both:
Accountable; 1. Answerable. 2. Capable of being explained.
Blame; 1. To hold responsible; find fault with; censure. 2. To place the responsibility for.
You can hold someone accountable without actually blaming them for your unhappiness or pain. You can do this by taking responsibility for how you think, feel and act in response to their action and behaviors. For example, within the context of divorce, you can respond by addressing your hurt feelings and by caring for yourself in ways that strengthen, support, nurture and nourish your overall well-being. Once you do, you have more positive energy to create something new for yourself. This way you get out from being an eternal victim and get into being in charge of your life again.
It's important to understand that, ultimately, you and you alone are the only person responsible for your life and how you think, feel and act. And only by accepting that responsibility do you have the power to change it. By shifting the responsibility onto someone or something else, you avoid getting to the core of what the problem is and thereby perpetuate that problem even further. Take back your power and control over your life by asking, "What" the problem is, not "Who" the problem is. This will reveal the core of what you need healed and you will begin to climb out of your negative abyss. Soon you'll be healed and your wound will only be a past memory. And hey, you may even look back on this situation and see it as the blessing in disguise it truly is. Trust me -- it really is a blessing after all.
Pamela now has openings for her one-on-one mentoring program to assist you with resolving emotional patterns, conditioning and beliefs that block you from experiencing peace and joy in your life. Visit www.PassageToInnerJoy.com/mentoring.htm for more information or email her at Pamela@passagetoinnerjoy.com.