Our clients can easily get stuck in the blame game:
“If he would stop working so much, I wouldn’t feel so depressed.”
“If I got an occasional compliment I’d be much happier person.”
“I’m not going to put more into this relationship than she does.”
Deep down, our clients know as well as we do - this is a game with no winners. Good spiritual direction helps clients recognize and exit the blame game.
But first, let’s give blame its due. As author Emily Maroutian points out, blame is an important developmental skill for children. It’s one of the early signs of an expanding sense of self. When kids can accurately locate what’s wrong in the actions of someone else, they develop healthy boundaries, protecting them from taking on an inappropriate amount of culpability when pain happens. The capacity to blame others reflects growth in a child’s sense of control, power, and autonomy.
However, the gift of blame for the child can easily become a curse for the adult. Whereas blaming reflects agency for the child, it negates agency for the adult.
Blame assumes that we are controlled by the external circumstances of our lives. Blames gives us the illusion of being off the hook. Blame turns the other into our persecutor, and turns us into victims. And we all do it habitually.
What is the opposite of blame? Responsibility. Blame is passive; responsibility is active. Blame disempowers; responsibility empowers.
It’s important not to blame ourselves or our clients for falling into blaming. We all do it. Instead, the work is to shine the light of compassion on it.
Once we recognize that we are playing the blame game, we can playfully look at what it might look like to bring our response-ability to the situation. We can apply our creative, higher mind to the circumstance.
Taking responsibility for our lives is gradual work, and its transformative. It frees us by giving us agency and choice. If we can help clients move from blame to responsibility, we’ll be helping them shift their thinking and their lives dramatically.
The psychologist Albert Ellis said it well:
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.