Free Community Event - Recorded
Changing the Blame Game!
Who hasn’t been blamed? Who has done blaming? We all have, of course. The Blame Game is enmeshed in our culture from the families we were raised in, the schools we went to, the entertainment we watch, the places we work…
Is it possible to NOT play the Blame Game? Well, we used burn coal to heat our homes… and that was pretty toxic! We still burn relationships with blame… and that’s pretty toxic, too!
Cathy and I have both hope and experience in shifting out of blame into fresh dynamics. Yes, it takes some work. No, not everyone wants to stop blaming. It’s okay.
And if you’re someone who’d really love to shift this, you’re invited to join us in this exploration.
We also strongly invite you to read Blaming… (A Tender Topic) and The Drama Triangle before the session.
New to Tapping? Thriving Now’s Free EFT Tapping Guide
Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy)
Recorded Sunday, February 28, 2021
Computer Generated Transcript (Click)
Changing the Blame Game!
Thinking the blame game, but it’s such a fun game. Isn’t it? Kathy? I love it. Well, it’s much more fun to blame other people because then I can deflect all my problems into someone else and I don’t actually ever have to deal with them because there’s someone else’s problem. And if they would just be different, I would be perfect.
[00:00:24] Um, But it’s not really fun to be on there, which works really well for me because everything is my fault. So
[00:00:35] welcome worth driving now. Um, this is Kathy , who has been a co-creator and driving now and has her own website, the intimacy dojo.com as well. And today we’re going to be exploring the blame game and we’re starting it off with a little light. And that’s because, well, laughter and tears are both welcome here.
[00:01:00] And, uh, preparing for this call, um, realizing that there’ve been times in my life where I’ve been laying by someone who is actively abusing me. And yeah, I was younger and yeah, I don’t didn’t know what I didn’t know. Wow. That was really hard. Was really hard to take on the responsibility that there might be one little sliver of Ruth, uh, about a desire I had or an inadequacy I had, or I can think of that.
[00:01:39] Both applied. And, uh, you know, so lame is a tender subject. I wrote a lot about it and I want to explore with those of you. Thank you for being here. Um, I know that it takes courage to even look at this because who hasn’t been blamed and who hasn’t done some blaming. Yeah, I think all of us have, it’s very normal and natural, and there are times when blame is appropriate.
[00:02:10] So I just want to state that up front. If someone drives their car into my house, I can legitimately blame them for damaging my house. I can expect them to make things right. They have violated all the safety of my home and safety of my home. And so there are times when blame is appropriate saying. This is your fault.
[00:02:31] You need to fix it is entirely appropriate. The problem comes when a lot of us are raised in families where people are pretty broken or depleted, and it’s very common in those families to blame someone, either the scapegoat or whoever’s the weakest at that moment, um, as the fault for everything. So growing up, I was the black sheep of the family.
[00:02:55] Something could break. And I could not be near it and it would be somehow my fault. And it was just, there was just a lot of blaming going on. Like if you said something that somehow triggered. I imagine my mother is someone who has a lot of landmines. She’s had a lot of trauma in her life. It’s unhealed, so she has landmines floating around and we don’t always know what’s going to set them off.
[00:03:18] And so if my beam miss my, my child, like I was playing or something, or I said something or reminded her something, something of her landline and a landmine went off, that was my fault. A lot of us have been around people that have had a lot of landmines floating in their bead and. We could just breathe wrong or look wrong or remind them of something that happened years ago and all of a sudden we’re at fault for causing them pain.
[00:03:46] And in that case, the blame is really a toxic blame. It’s not okay. You actually violated my boundaries. You did something to harm me and you need to fix it. It’s you’re hurting or this person’s hurting. And they’re going to say, it’s your fault. They’re they’re feeling pain for their beingness. So I just like to distinguish that because there are times when it’s like, yes.
[00:04:09] Okay, you do need to fix this. This is something you need to change. And I think when Rick, when you were talking about the sliver of your. Intention and like, how do we separate? How do we do distinguish between? Yeah, I kind of did hope that would happen and it did happen and it didn’t go well, is it my fault?
[00:04:26] Or whose choice was it? The responsibility?
[00:04:33] And we’re gonna, we’re going to go forward and explore. One of the things that Kathy and I do is we, we, along with many of the people in our community, we use EFT tapping to bring some honesty about how we’re feeling and some relief and some direct chat. And I, I believe that tapping can help us find a posture in a particular situation, as well as with blame in general.
[00:05:02] That feels more empowered or we can feel more present and confident at the same time with what is, and that’s a skill. I don’t know too many people where that just comes naturally. So let’s, I’d like to, if you’re willing Kathy, to. It guide us in tuning into our feeling about this blame game and how it’s been in our life and maybe start with some tapping right, right away.
[00:05:35] Yeah. So I’m just invite you to take a nice, slow, deep breath. If it feels good for your body, just notice that you’re you’re here right now in the circle of people that really care. You can let down your guard a little bit. You can let yourself feel what you’re feeling. This is a safe space to feel things and to be who you are.
[00:05:57] If you’d like to notice how you’re supported right now, however, is the chair holding you and your feet on the floor, or however you’re being held. That was the texture of that. The sensation of that, and notice that you don’t have to deal with anything you just are held right. This minute, the universe has got you for the next hour.
[00:06:17] We can explore and try things out and take care of ourselves as is right for us. And discover new levels of ourselves. And I think that’s a beautiful gift to give ourselves. And others might you take a nice, slow, deep breath to the bottoms of your toes,
[00:06:38] karate chop, even though I’ve been playing this blame game for a long time. And we invite you to repeat and top long changed the words, you’re all muted. So even though I’ve been playing this blame game for long as I can remember receiving, giving and receiving, what if it’s kind of toxic? What if it’s kind of tops and maybe I don’t have to play at the same way anymore and maybe I don’t have to play it the same way anymore.
[00:07:09] Even though I’ve been throwing blame around, even though I’ve been throwing blame around and getting it splattered all over. A lot of it comes back on me. I choose to acknowledge that I’m a good person. I’m open to acknowledging I’m a good person. Maybe we all need the best we can do. Well, maybe we’re all doing the best that we can do.
[00:07:36] And maybe we can even do better. Maybe we can even do better top of the head. I learned some old patterns. I really learned some old patterns. I REL I parents taught me. My parents taught me. Their parents taught them. Their parents taught under the eye that people can give me blame and I have to take it.
[00:08:04] I have to take their blame. Thank you under the nose. And the only way I can feel better is if I blame them back. And the only way I can feel better is blamed them back or be defensive chin. It’s not really a fun game. It’s not really a fun game collarbone, and it’s not actually productive and it’s not actually productive.
[00:08:32] When I give away blame top of that, I give away my power. Ooh. Maybe give away my power. I bro, I can’t change something that exists in someone else. I can’t change someone, something that exists in someone else, side of the eye. And when I accept toxic blades and when I accept toxic blame under the, I let other people disempower themselves.
[00:09:01] I let other people disempower themselves under the nose. They’re spending all their energy blaming me. They’re spending all their energy blaming me chin, and they’re not actually fixing their own problems. And then not actually addressing their own problems. Collarbone. I’d like to have a much healthier relationship to this.
[00:09:23] I’d like to have a much healthier relationship to this under the Harbor. And I invite my bean to notice when it feels appropriate. When I invite my being to notice when it feels appropriate top of the head and what I should say. No, thank you. I should say no. Thank you. Let’s take a nice, slow, deep breath.
[00:09:49] I mean, I think one of the things that comes to me more talking about that is there’s a difference between, um, and. There, if I go over and I, I would never do this, but if I went over and just smacked Rick on the side of the head, for no reason that would be, I would be hard. I would like be doing something that’s crossing boundaries.
[00:10:10] I’d be doing something aggressive towards him that I don’t have the right to do. But if I share my own feelings, if he says, do you want to go to dinner? And I say, no, I don’t feel like it. That’s not harming him. That’s me taking care of myself. And Eric is great about that. He doesn’t, he doesn’t get upset about people taking care of themselves, but a lot of people do.
[00:10:33] I’ve had a lot of people be so upset. I was really looking forward to that. How can you do this to me? They’re not distinguishing between, Hey, I have. I’m going to autonomous be with freewill and me choosing something you don’t prefer as not harming you. It’s me actually taking care of myself versus me, like actually damaging something of someone else’s or, or, you know, going over and hitting them or something.
[00:10:58] And I just, if you can, the more we can distinguish that the more we can get in our own power and say, you know what? I’m okay with you being upset about this because it’s really not my thing, or, wow. I’d like to make a men’s, how can I help you feel better about something, you know? Cause we all do this. I could be in the Starbucks line getting coffee and days when we could be close to each other and I could step back and step on someone’s foot.
[00:11:22] And for some people that might not be a big deal, but maybe someone had just had hurt their foot. Like there could be harm done. Like there’s actual. And I, you know, I say, Oh, I’m really sorry. How can I help you with that versus me making a choice for myself and someone being upset about it. That’s a very different thing.
[00:11:41] What’s interesting. Um, so I was following you and it felt really useful. Um, and then we got into this. The situation where if you come over and you hit me, that’s an act intentional act. If you call me a name that you know, I’m sensitive about being called that’s active harm. Yes. You’re intentionally wailing out at me if you’re in, in the line and maybe you didn’t notice that I’m behind you and you take a step back and step on my foot.
[00:12:22] Okay. I’m going to hurt. Just curious if, because this is where we get with blame. So, and, and I, uh, I talked about extenuating circumstances in the blaming article and I, if you’ve had anyone, who’s had a chance to read it, Might remember that, like you gave an example that seems really straight where someone’s driving their vehicle and they end up crashing through the front of your house.
[00:12:54] That seems so clear. Cut. Right. As long as we don’t know anything. Other than that, we don’t know that the little four year old from next door jumped out in front of the car and the only place to go was through your fence and through your front yard, even though they were traveling the speed limit. So now we’re like, dang, it was so much relief knowing that we had someone to blame.
[00:13:24] Um, and so this is. This is where my question about changing the blame game comes from it’s. It says, okay, we jumped to blame pretty damn quickly. Most humans that I see, we, we blame people for their attitudes, their voices, their lack of awareness, their over awareness, their sensitivities, their lack of sensitivities.
[00:13:52] And. I’m gonna make an assumption here that the people that are showing up or this call are probably more likely to take lanes seriously. And what do, what I call lane taking. And like, I care about this person, especially if it’s someone in your, your circle, your community. Care about this person. And they seem really upset.
[00:14:25] And I don’t want to be one of those people who just say, why are you being so sensitive, pull your shit together. Right? Like we don’t like there’s, there’s a quality of, and I think this is the susceptibility for people that want to. And, and have some skill at, at growing and changing and, and healing and creating safer spaces.
[00:14:54] We spaces that really nourish other people that that’s really dear to them. That we don’t get to be the person who never apologizes. So that’s like, ah, dang, I don’t get to be them. It’s impossible for me to be that. And I don’t want to be, but that’s a posture. That’s a defensive posture that some people can do.
[00:15:25] Where’s the other, where’s the sweeter spot in here. And I think that’s part of the exploration is how do we shift out of the blame game into something that’s more empowering and clear? And it has a, a posture of mindful presence and caring. Well, and I, I like what drew said too. What if the person in line who you stepped up says, or who the person line is stepped on, you says, well, it’s your fault.
[00:15:50] You were standing too close. Maybe you are standing too close. Maybe you were sticking your foot under their foot, like the phone in your face. And, you know, you’re just kinda not paying attention and, you know, you’re, you’re in their space bubble. So, um, yeah. I’d like to tap for a moment on, um, if you have something that’s coming up for you in the chat, please feel free to share that I’d like to do another round of tapping.
[00:16:20] Um, okay.
[00:16:26] The feeling of being blamed and shamed, Wayman shame and not a surprise. I think that they rhyme. Okay. So this time allow yourself to feel like, what is it like to be blamed and change? What comes up for you? Do you get all like, yes, I have a horrible person. Or do you get defensive or does it, you know, do you have a range?
[00:16:53] Whatever it is. Even though I’ve been blamed, even though I’ve been blamed. Sometimes I really take it in. Sometimes I really take it in. Sometimes I get really angry, really angry. Like I’m defending my tender parts. Like I’m defending my tender parts,
[00:17:19] like this game. I really don’t like this game,
[00:17:26] people really have blamed me. Some people really blamed me eyebrow. Some of them needed me to look ashamed. Some of them needed me to look ashamed. With some, it was safer to look a shame with summit was safer to look ashamed. Huh? Yeah. That’s one of the rules of the blame game. That’s one of the rules of the blame.
[00:17:54] When you’re being blamed by a beast you’re being played by a piece, then you better look ashamed, ashamed. Thanks. Thanks dad. Thanks. Well, thanks all people who’ve ever done that. Oh, the people that have ever done that
[00:18:21] what’s happening in your body. If you’re getting a little more activated, cause we’re touching on some smaller points, keep tapping this. One of the things that tapping keeps energy moving, um, While you’re listening.
[00:18:40] Um, well, I think one of the things I’d like, we’re going to link to this more so you can dive into if you want, but I think the drama triangle is a good way to start looking at this. The drama triangle says there’s a person or a role. It can be internal as well, but usually there’s people that take on these roles and they can switch.
[00:18:56] There’s the prosecutor, the blame person. You should, that’s often you should have known he should have done. He should have. Um, and then there’s the helper, the toxic helper who’s trying to enable and, and, and help the victim to, to stay where the victim is, the person that gives the fish sandwich versus teaching them to fish.
[00:19:15] And then there’s the victim and that’s a toxic triangle. That’s really linked to the survival brain. And the survival brain is saying, okay. If you we’ve talked often about fight flight freeze. So the prosecutor of the blamer is the fight, the part person trying to fight the part of our survival brain, trying to fight to prove that it’s okay, but it’s not an effective, powerful way to change anything.
[00:19:39] It’s just blaming other people. The helper side is the, the wanting to distract. It’s wanting to flee away from anything. So let me distract you with food. I’m going to help you out, help you out by giving you food or distraction so that you don’t have to deal with this. And the victim is like, I can’t do anything I’m passive and stuck underneath this problem.
[00:20:00] And it’s really easy to get there. Like, you know, Drew’s talking about if you get blamed for being hurt, like that’s like, how do I, if you’re a little kid and you’re like, My mom would always say, if I stubbed my toe, she was like, you wouldn’t, that wouldn’t have happened if he’d been wearing slippers and I’m like, slippers are thin.
[00:20:15] Like why would that help? She just didn’t want to deal with my pain. So she blamed me for having my own problem, but there was this little kid, like, I don’t even know how to deal with this. So there’s just all this mess that comes up when we’re answering. It’s a reactive survival brain. Our primitive brain is just like flips.
[00:20:35] It can flip between all those different roles, trying to figure out how not to actually feel the feelings and face the problem versus when we can step out of it and go, okay, I’m going to actually face my discomfort around this. And say, what is yours? Mine, and ours. Like, this is mine. I’m going to fix it.
[00:20:54] That’s actually yours. You can fix it. Or there’s a relationship where we’re kind of in that gray area that maybe we can fix it together. Could you please step back a little bit and I’ll be more aware of my feet. You know, I won’t be, I won’t be dancing while I’m in the Starbucks line, but I’m going to ask you to step back too.
[00:21:11] Um, so I think that we can, you know, tapping is such a powerful way to calm our survival brain and help it see different options because there are often different options besides just blaming other people or trying to hide and get away from that blame when trying to be small enough that we don’t attract that blame.
[00:21:30] That’s what a lot of us do, I think. Yeah.
[00:21:41] Is there a tapping that, that inspires for you? Yeah. If you’d like to let’s um, let’s just tap for our survival brain. Let’s just say karate chop. Hey, survival brain in survival brain. I know this is really hard. I know this is really hard. You’ve been trying so hard to be good. You have been trying so hard to be good and not cause harm when trying to get this right.
[00:22:06] I need to get this right. I have some interesting news for you. I have some interesting news for you. There’s no way to get this really right. No way to get this really right. People blame us for things that aren’t our fault. Sometimes people will blame us for things that are not our responsibility. And that can feel awful and that must be awful.
[00:22:33] And we can tap, we can tap and be clear and we can release blame that isn’t ours. We can release blame that isn’t ours. Yeah. Top of that, maybe 5% are things we should fix. Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe 5% is things that I need to fix I row. And a lot of is, lot of it is other people trying to control us. Yeah.
[00:23:04] There’s a lot of control in blame side of that. They would like us to be different than we are. They’d really like us to be different than we are under the eye. They would like us to do what they want all the time. They would like us to do what they want all the time and, and not. Ah, sorry, coming up under the nose, they would like us to guess what they need.
[00:23:29] I’d like this to guess what they need and do it perfectly every single time. Perfectly, every single time collarbone that’s too much under the arm. It’s also not our job.
[00:23:49] Huh top of the head, those people get to grow up and take care of themselves to take care of themselves. Take care of us. Deep breath.
[00:24:07] I can feel as you know, just one of the things that I noticing in that last statement is they get to take care of themselves. I get to take care of myself and I think that goes to like, what’s ours. So in the meat space, like, okay, I get cranky when I’m tired. And I need to hand to my reactions when I’m tired.
[00:24:31] I want, you know, I want to do that. I, I need to get more sleep when pop babies make that possible and things like that. The other person’s, um, trigger right there, landmine from there. Uh, um, you know, that’s. An empowered position is that Prama is mine. And I want to learn the skill and get the support to take care of that.
[00:25:02] And then there’s this, this, we space that we’re in which don’t wasn’t won’t let me just say what’s what’s yours is yours. What’s mine is mine because in a lot of paces we’re sharing a space. Right. And sometimes the other person is not an emotionally safe, respectful person that, which makes it, which is an entirely different level of complicated.
[00:25:27] They are Rick like you and I will often tell each other like, Hey you, do you. You’re looking at your, you seem like you’re stressed right now. Would it help to take a break? Would it help to like we can support each other, you know, have you eaten yet recently? Because all of us, like th there’s no way for us to be perfect about taking care of ourselves.
[00:25:46] And I love when I have someone who really cares about me, say, you know what? I think you need something neat. And I’m like, let me check. Oh my God. I so need something to eat. No wonder. I’m so upset about my taxes. I haven’t eaten. I go and eat, take a 15 minute break. And I’m like, Oh, this is so easy. So there’s, it’s not just toxic re space.
[00:26:06] It’s also supportive. Right? What questions? What, what sharing, what wisdom is coming up inside of you? If you have something, would you be willing to put it in the chat for us? And do we want to invite a couple of people forward to top? I’d like to, I’d like to talk about the market. I would like to explore posture.
[00:26:36] So an emotional posture is, so if you’re going to. Lift a bag of green, which I used to have to lift 50 pound bags of grain. There’s the way that, you know, you just lean over and you lift it up and you move it and you plop it down. And after doing about a half a ton, uh, 20 bags of that, your body will tell you, this is not that idea.
[00:27:10] If you adopted very different posture of using your legs more and finding ways so that you’re not putting all the strain on your, your, your sensitive bits, the parts that don’t really like doing that, and the posture allows you to move a ton or I’ve, I’ve moved. Two, tons of grain myself once and I was doing it with good posture.
[00:27:39] So emotionally we know that if you get blamed and you take it in, you’ll tend to adopt the posture of shame. Like, Oh, this is mine. So physiologically. We will, we will do that. I maybe I’m the only one that does that. But I do that. If I know that I’m taking in blame, I can feel my, my posture changing. If we move out of the blame game, what would be a posture, an attitude, both physically and emotionally.
[00:28:18] And, and in, in my, my blaming article, I talked about. Like starting by grounding yourself in what actually happened physically without the adjectives and adverbs. So adjectives and adverbs. Yes. Crazy dude, driving way too fast, smashed into the front of my house. And you know, that’s. That’s more of an ungrounded.
[00:28:50] Now, if you can get there, and this is where tapping, like, if I, if I pause and I say, what actually happened was sitting in my back room, there was a loud noise noise that, that from the front of the house, I came out and there’s a car sitting in my living room and a man getting out of the car.
[00:29:16] Yeah. Now feel that you know what happens in your body.
[00:29:27] I believe that if we regulate ourselves, if we use tapping or grounding the energy of becoming more calm, like quieting sensation, I’m rot, calming and rising into like presence are kind of like, okay, I can feel what’s here. That’s okay. That’s that we can, we can say, well, what actually happened? Oh, I, I was in the Starbucks line.
[00:29:57] I took a step back. There was healing of a foot. I lifted my foot up. I turned around the person set out. Or asshole. And we’re like, all things rounding is, uh, if we can ground ourselves at all, like just starting the trend or being more grounded. Our primitive brain says, okay, we’re actually moving to a resourceful place, a responsive place in a pause can be really helpful.
[00:30:39] Hey, can we pause here for a second? That really startled me or I can tell you’re hurting. And we pause here for a moment and, and. Yeah, I I’m noticing I did that the day. Like I, I had taken my shoes off. My partner said, Hey, can you take the baby? Because I need to, um, unpack the car. And I said, Oh shit. She had already been with me for two hours and she was pretty hungry.
[00:31:11] And I said, I’m probably not going to like that very much now. There was some kind of primal sound coming from my partner and I that on that’s blame, right? Like, Oh, I said something and it wasn’t a great, I mean, it’s not something I would choose to say, but it’s something that was authentically that I said, and I took it on.
[00:31:40] And what I did is I paused
[00:31:45] in grounded. And the energy shifted. Now this is this isn’t like someone poking you in the chest and saying, you need to be more positive about your parenting or something like that. If that’s that like inner triangle, like I was, I prosecuted myself and victimize myself pretty quickly. And the pause and the regrounding I’m like what just happened?
[00:32:14] Oh, I took my shoes off. My partner needs to take things in inside. She asked me to take the baby. I said this, Oh,
[00:32:25] there’s, there’s a re there’s. There’s a lot else to it. And any emotionally and energetically sensitive person is going to be aware of all that, you know, be aware of a lot of different dynamics. I loved what you shared. I think one of the things we can look at is Rick was able to separate the story from, we get an emotional reaction and we create a story about it.
[00:32:50] Um, and if anyone ever says always you, you always do this, you never do that. That’s that’s blame. That’s like, no human always does something like no human never does. Like we’re, we’re, we’re more diverse than that. But separating the story out. And I think that’s also useful, um, someone to turn in the chat that, um, it’s, they it’s much easier to blame someone or something for an emotion or state that I’m having trouble moving through.
[00:33:19] And it can also send someone else shared about blaming internally, which also can happen. Like that’s, we get trained at different ways to cope with something. You’d think it’s the best way to do it. But if you imagine that. You want to chop down this tree yet? You’re blaming this chain. You’re putting all your focus on this tree and maybe you’re hitting this tree over here with an X.
[00:33:41] Is this tree ever going to fall down? It’s you know, maybe of old age or luck, but when we’re, we’re putting blame outside or we’re accepting blame that isn’t ours, we ended up just ignoring the problem. The problem is still there and it actually can get reinforced. And for a lot of people, when we have strong feelings, when we’re little and often, unfortunately our parents didn’t have skills.
[00:34:07] We didn’t have skills. Our parents didn’t have skills to deal with this. What we can do is just tap on the feeling. All we have to do is make little baby steps forward. Just feeling that just a little bit. And also if someone’s blaming us for our own pain, we can start saying no a little bit more. It’s all it is as baby steps forward and saying, wait, this person is blaming me for getting hurt.
[00:34:34] Because they don’t want to face the feelings and I can just, I can start saying, well, that’s their thing, but it’s it’s muscles. We build up over time. Yeah. Even though this energy is complicated, even though the synergy is complicated. And it feels pretty toxic and it feels pretty toxic. I take the blame.
[00:34:59] Sometimes I take the blame. Well, if I really look at the situation, if I really look at the situation. I’m not responsible for anything bad. I’m not responsible for anything bad. And sometimes I, I throw the blame. Sometimes I throw the blame. It’s more complicated than that. And it’s really more complicated than that.
[00:35:31] It’s really pretty complicated. It’s really pretty complicated. My brow we’re using. We seem to use chaat by all this rules for complex games, we attend these childish rules for a complex game. I learned blame as a child. I learned blame as a child on the BI and the rules are pretty childish. The rules are pretty childish.
[00:36:00] Situations are complex. Situations are complex,
[00:36:08] but who’s to blame, blame blame. Is that really the best question here? Is that really the best question here? What, what if I didn’t get to that question until I looked at five or six others? Well, if I didn’t get to that question before I asked five or six others,
[00:36:42] so we’re energetic beings. Energy builds up in us. Um, and w we need to do something with it. Um, claim feels really kind of mixed up with a lot of primal threat. Like you said, half the, this crying, all the drama triangle, because blame can feel really dramatic. Like unlike anything else in my nervous system, when blame, the blame game is happening with someone I actually care about.
[00:37:13] Um, and can’t just dismiss. Then there feels like there’s this really big drama going on about like I’m trying to, yeah. We’re playing a blame game. And we know that like rounding, one of the things that we can do is pay attention to our posture. Like I mentioned before, but also finding some questions. For example, um, someone mentioned, I, I still blame my parents and they both been dead for 15, 20 years.
[00:37:51] Um, and, and that’s where, like what actually happened. Uh, my parents did this and this and this. I asked for this, they didn’t give it to me now. That’s that’s if you get it to the place where you can describe something that actually happened, that that’s what you believe happened. One of the things that a posture that I’m exploring is, and I would have real, I had a need for, so back the children, I had a need for.
[00:38:29] Feeling like my parents were on my side. I had a need for safety. I had a need to have my feelings acknowledged as being really human. I had a need for encouragement. I had a need for like, They’re in nonviolent communication. They have all of these needs that we’re very human and we need just like we need plenty of them.
[00:38:52] What are your names selenium for? Well, you’re trying to really be thick. You don’t have millennials. You don’t even need to know what it is, but if you don’t have selenium, here are going to be a sick puppy. Human puppies. Get sick horses, get sick. If they don’t get enough selenium. You don’t want too much, but it’s we have needs.
[00:39:12] And so if you say, well, I had these needs that were not met. And my parents, even though, like in some cases where you needed safety and a kind of love and presence and acceptance, and they, they just did not give that to you. That was not it at all. Like I really needed this and my parents did not give that to me.
[00:39:37] They did not meet that need. And that is the unwanted reality half tap tap now. And you feel the, like for me, at least in my nervous system, when I think of a specific experience, this is what happened. I had a need. I’m honoring the need, the actual real human need, as much as it would have been. Great not to have that need.
[00:40:03] I, I did. And then I did not get that need met by the people that if they were healthy and thriving would have naturally met that need. I can, I just riff off that re I love what you’re sharing. I don’t want to step on you, but I think part of that comes, there’s a, there’s a, should I shouldn’t hurt my parents should have done this.
[00:40:27] And I think one of the things that keeps blame locked in place is there’s an assumption of guilt, assumption of intention. I think 99.9% of flaw feels the, where we, we end up feeling hurt from each other. They’re not intentional. Herb’s, someone’s distracted, they’re focused on something else. They don’t know our cultural paradigms.
[00:40:48] I think a large portion of what we experience as, as things we blame other people for, or we’re blamed for are not intentionally to harm. And yet I think Blaine gets locked in because there’s an incense of, you should have known you should, I should have never experienced this hurt, or I should’ve never caused that hurt.
[00:41:08] And it gets blocked in place because we’re not worse. Like no rigidly lists, this was wrong. Versus, Oh, the person that crashed into the front of my house was trying to avoid a four year old. I’ll take a, you know, putting in a new window. Great. So glad you missed the four-year-old. And I think if we can kind of start like bricks talking about looking at what actually happened and your parents were really kind of broken or really depleted.
[00:41:33] Yes. Maybe they didn’t meet our needs. Maybe they did really harm us in some ways, but it wasn’t the intention wasn’t to, to come and mess us up. It was, you know, they were just doing the best they could. And just the honor, too, there are, there are human beings who are deal with her energy by messing up other human beings.
[00:41:54] And some of them are parents, um, and trying to take away. Yeah. I, I know you’re not, I just, I wanted to honor that. So. Like blame. If, if that’s the game and blaming our parents is where it belongs. If you were mistreated, harmed either actively or neglectfully, if they didn’t form a really healthy bond and the, and the game is blame.
[00:42:27] I would much rather you have you blaming them for their inadequacies, then you taking it on. Like, I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t cute enough. I wasn’t happy enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t, you know, that’s something too, like a lot of, a lot of healing in come from switching out of.
[00:42:48] Wait a minute. I was a cute kid. Look at this picture. I didn’t deserve to be.
[00:42:56] And that means we’re still in the blame game. And honestly, defensiveness is left. Poctech defensiveness on the part of someone who’s doing harm. Actual harm is really unsettling. And there are people out there that will harm. I really think most of those people are incredibly in a tremendous amount of pain internally.
[00:43:25] And the only way I’ve done a lot of stuff in my own abuse backgrounds. And there’s a lot of studies about how an abuser will often try to elicit the feelings they felt. When they were often were abused themselves. They want to see the expressions of terror, fear pain on someone else’s face. So it can feel like it’s displaced out of them, which is really hard to like, wow.
[00:43:47] Someone is willing to hurt me so they could avoid their own pain. That’s that’s hard to look at. That’s hard to face that there are people out there that are willing to take that, that extreme. Step two, feel a little better for a little while and tapping is really powerful for that as well. So happy, um, posted about the drama triangle.
[00:44:12] It’s out of thriving now that center, and I found a graphic, um, you know, there’s the drama triangle, and then there’s the empowerment triangle. And I’m happy you. I think that that’s part of. W if we can switch out of being a persecutor of ourselves and doing courage. And one of the things I think that is encouraging and is like, what do I value if I have, if I have harm as a result of something that I’ve gotten, like I was watching my phone and I stepped on someone’s foot and they’re really harmed by that.
[00:44:58] Then, if I’m clear as a champion, it’s like, you know, I really value people’s physical safety, their, their boundaries, the, the sanctity of their body. And I was careless and I’m going to champion myself to be more aware, not out of like, you need to, you know, whip yourself. That’s the persecutor. The champion goes to values and then the coach also like, Oh, okay.
[00:45:30] So what are some ways that I can be in clarity about my values and how to put those, embodied them? If I, if I, if I value kindness, but I. Wasn’t fine to myself or others in a certain case. How can I, how can I cultivate more kindness energy inside of me activating that inner code? And instead of the victim, the creator, someone who says, okay, you know, I was really harmed and I, I really appreciate Kathy you bringing that distinction between harm and hurt.
[00:46:11] Um, We when we’re children and we’re not, our needs are not met. We are being harmed. If we’re in a relationship and we have agreements that are being broken over and over again, if our safety and the sanctity of our body is being not honored and respected, then there’s harm there. And when we’re being.
[00:46:41] Farmed, um, the, the, the creative person, if you can get out of victim, and sometimes that’s really impossible ish fire perimeter brain. But if you get a moment when you’re not in victim, I you to think about, well, what do I value and what kind of boundary would make that value, you know, allow me to embody that value.
[00:47:10] Um, Mr. Making sense that we’re, we’re looking for ways to, it was a bit of that with the chat. A couple of people are talking about how they take blame, because they feel like that’s the only way to be accepted that if they didn’t take the blame, that the connection would be broken. And I I’ve done that, certainly myself, like, Oh, I’m going to get small and I’m going to like, accept all this that I should have known.
[00:47:33] I should have guessed that this person didn’t want that. Or, and then I feel horrible. So that’s the drama triangle. And if I want to step out, I realized like Rick said, I value connection a lot. I it’s my heart really longs for deep connections with people, but is it really, what I want to do is to, am I really helping that person by accepting that blame?
[00:47:56] Am I really helping the lease space between us? Am I really helping me? I’m not, it’s not good for any of us because that person that’s blaming is actually avoiding a problem they need to address. Whether it’s the ability to feel their own feelings or probably need to address, or they need to actually, I have a good friend that does not articulate what he wants.
[00:48:17] And then he gets really mad when I don’t do it. And for a long time I accepted that flame, but that just let him perpetuate this. And he was doing it with a lot of people and I started speaking up and at first there was a lot of upset. And there’s still some days there is, but it starting to get more clear and he’s realizing I’m not the dumping ground for his shit.
[00:48:36] And there is a risk of that relationship could go away. But if I want to, like, if I’m in the positive triangle, I’m going to champion myself, I’m going to be creative on ways I can take care of myself. I’m going to coach myself and wow. Okay. I’m really depleted today. I’m not, you know, maybe today I don’t mean to speak up to him.
[00:48:56] But I can end the conversation and go away and maybe I’ll write a letter later, but it’s also like baby steps where we can do forward. How can we start standing up for ourselves and saying, wow, I have this pattern of accepting blame. It’s a currency that I’m accepting in exchange for the connection, because part of me believes that I’m not worth it, but otherwise, yeah, karate chop, even though I’d been accepting all this blame.
[00:49:24] Even though I’ve been accepting all this blame in the hopes that I’ll keep this connection in the hopes that I’ll keep this connection. This connection is actually not what I want. Anyway, what’s aspect of the connection is not what I want. Anyway, the blame is making the relationship toxic. My name is making the relationship POCs for both of us or both of us top of the head.
[00:49:49] I think I need to accept this blame. Oh, but don’t, I have to accept this blame. I brought, I learned this a long time ago. I learned this a long time ago, side of the eye when I was really little under the eye and I didn’t have a lot of options for connection. I didn’t have a lot of options for connection under the nose that poor inner child
[00:50:17] chin thinking she has to share. He has to take this blame. Collarbone. What if I just love this inner child just above the center child under the arm and reminded them. They do not need to take blame in order to get love, reminded them. They don’t have to take blame and wonder of receipt club top of the head.
[00:50:43] I can say no to blame. I can say no to blame now. And yes, to love
[00:50:58] you touched on the fender that, um, you know, when, when we’ve been a dumping ground, um, out of, out of maybe it’s. A weakness and maybe it, we really felt we can feel from like, I can feel, for example, from past experience where the someone was really blaming. And my me saying, yes, I’m sorry, it’s my fault. And actually like taking it in, even though, even if it wasn’t, there were extenuating circumstances out the wazoo, but that didn’t matter by me taking on the blame.
[00:51:41] There was relief in their face. They felt understood and things quieted down. I am not close friends with either of those people where I had that pattern anymore. And, and not because honestly I stopped taking the blame and it just, it was toxic to do that. It was really toxic to do, to be the one who says, okay, it’s my fault because I value you never being hurt.
[00:52:17] I value me never saying anything that makes you upset. I value of being so considerate. Can that, um, I just never caused you any hurt. There’s such a difference. Um, I’m really finding comfort in the posture of, yeah. I’ll own my farm. That was unintentional. It exists in the waste space, but the holding of the power there needs to be either jointly or there’s, it’s not.
[00:52:57] Just because I was human today, at least that’s. And you’ll, you’ll hear that I’m kind of moving around. I hope that you, that you can feel the exploration happening. I, before we forget, um, this is a conversation, the kind of Kathy and I have been integrating and taking in a lot of stuff around blame and safety and boundaries and things, and I hope you’ve felt some of that.
[00:53:25] But I know that the answer to this is not just about what Rick and Kathy are saying, because the wisdom that flows, who youth through you and the things that matter to you are things that, that this is where our new postures, our new languaging, our experiences and refining refinements are gonna come from.
[00:53:46] So please, if you are in a place where you’d like to, and it would benefit you to share. And it’s free to join. Um, um, let’s continue this. Um, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I just want to emphasize too that blame and shame don’t really change anything. So someone saying I’m doing this for your own good. They’re really in their survival brain.
[00:54:11] There may be we’re following patterns and learned, but for instance, I’m a bigger person and I have people come up to me at restaurants and, you know, they’ll just come. They feel, they have the right to come up and tell me I should lose weight or I shouldn’t eat something. Or I should try. And certain diet if blame and shame worked right now, there’s 72% of the population is considered overweight.
[00:54:32] And I think 40% is considered obese by medical standards. And there’s so much shame and blame out there. If there’s shame and blame actually worked, we’d all be fucking size too. And I would like you to notice I’m talking about weight because it’s something never do anything wrong. Never, never, never, no one triggered.
[00:54:52] There’d be no one. No one having an uncomfortable moment. Yeah. But I invite you to notice things you’re blamed about do you often feel bad, but not, you’re not like I invite you to notice how often you actually change the behavior because of blame or shame. My behavior changes when I get an insight or clarity, and that doesn’t happen when I’m in survival brain or I’m feeling like I’m being should at upon or yelled at.
[00:55:20] That has never, ever, ever created change in me. So someone’s telling you it’s for your own good. I invite you to say, fuck you. And I, you know, just like, seriously, it’s not working. And maybe they, honestly, my mother will still shame me about my weight and my eating and you know what, as soon as I get off the phone with her, I go eat lasagna every time.
[00:55:40] Um, but it’s like, You know, she, I know she means, well, her intention is good, but her, her she’s coming from survival brain. She’s coming from fear. And if you can notice shame and blame, whether it’s internal, we do it to ourselves. We have the drama triangle, plain and inner children are inner parts of us all the time.
[00:56:00] Or with outside people. It’s not actually creating any change. It’s not actually creating connection. We want, we think if I take this blame, then I might, or if I help somebody or if I tell them how they should live their lives, better, deeper connection, not happening versus can I just be with this person?
[00:56:21] Can I feel my own discomfort? Can I accept the things I might want to change, but I haven’t changed. I am where I am right now. That’s deep. Beautiful connection. When we’re all come here together in the circle that Rick’s created so beautifully, we’re here with our stuff. We don’t come and pretend we’ve got it all perfect.
[00:56:43] Like Rick and I don’t either. None of us are, we’re all here. Like we have our flaws, we have our foibles, we have things we want to change. We have things we trip over, but we’re here with love and connection and that’s a beautiful, vulnerable connection. There isn’t the blame or shame. So I invite you to notice that many of the things we think we’ll get out of stepping into that triangle, they’re just stories, the things that we learned a long time ago.
[00:57:09] And when we realized that, you know, accepting that blame is not actually going to get us the love, we want the create the connection we want or giving blame to other people is not going to get them to change for their good or our good or anybody’s good. And helping people in a toxic way, like kind of enabling them is not going to help them either.
[00:57:27] So it just internally as well. If you notice that I do that, I’m very good at shaming myself and blaming myself. It’s not actually creating change. It’s just putting me on a hamster wheel or I’m spinning and spending a lot of energy and making a lot of the noise, not actually changing anything. Thank you Kathy so much.
[00:57:46] Um, we’re, we’re coming to the end of our hour together. Um, thank you for valuing a change, a change of the blame game. Where it feels, it feels so rich to me to have all of you here today. Um, and for those of you that are going to be watching this on the replay, thank you for joining our circle. Um, I love the technology makes it possible.
[00:58:15] Let’s continue the dialogue, the exploration, because for those of us were a different way, emotionally freer way. Some way that actually makes change something that we can support champion coach and encourage each other. Um, that would be awesome now. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Yeah. We can remind each other.
[00:58:47] If we get stuck in the shame or the blame, we can remind each other to help step out of it. And that’s a beautiful gift to give each other. Yeah.
[00:58:59] Just, uh, hold on a second. I’m going to stop the recording.
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