Blaming doesn’t get us very far.  Whether we blame ourselves and stay stuck in the cycle of I can’t or I’m not good enough, or we blame others, we can get stuck in a cycle and not be able to get off the merry go round.

It is easy to blame others for our choices.  If they hadn’t done or said that, I wouldn’t have done or said something, so it’s basically their fault.  It’s easy to react to someone or something without thinking, but it doesn’t mean what you say or what you do is someone else’s fault when you chose to act or say what you did.

Basically when we blame others, we give our power away to them.  They did it, so I feel this way.  My reality is due to something someone else did.  That means you may feel you can’t change your life.  And when we blame ourselves, we have the same problem.  We may not feel good enough, but we are letting others trigger those self-blaming attitudes.  So we are being buffeted by the world, by what happens, by what someone says or does. That means all we do is react to the world and we don’t feel we have any say in the matter.

Even when things don’t appear to be going well in a circumstance, we have the power to choose how we will react.  So if you get laid off…do you sulk, cry, get angry…well yeah, we may all do that…but for how long before you change your attitude, pick yourself up and start looking for another job?  Before you look at all the reasons why the job you got laid off from may not have been the best for you, or if you thought it was, think of all the ways a new job could be even better.

Blaming ourselves or others for what happens is a reaction that gets us nowhere, except maybe to be more aware of what we’re doing to ourselves.  So be aware of how you react when someone does or says something hurtful. Do you lash out in pain or anger?  Blame them for their feelings or how they approached you?  Or can you let that go quickly if you feel it and react with love and concern thereby turning the whole interaction upside down?  We have the choice.  Being aware of why we fall into the blame game can be incredibly helpful.  Step back from yourself for a moment and make the choice to learn why you react, and then step up your game.  Getting off the blame game merry go round will give you peace and that will ripple out into the rest of your life.