| Articles |  |
 |
What to do when you are assailed by Blame and Resentment | |
Remember the rules for relationships that I gave you in Chapter I: Rule #1 When there is a problem in your relationship, change a character Flaw in yourself. Rule #2 If you discover the other person is to blame, reread rule # 1. Here's the key to handling this flaw. Lets take a look at what to do with the person who is possessed by this flaw and who has decided to inflict it upon you. Don't stir the stew Practice acceptance Practice accountability Know each other's rules Recognize what your responsibility is and what it isn't Focus on your own behavior and character. Forgive like you would a stranger. Don't stir the stew. When I was a kid there was cesspool that overflowed at our house at the Jersey shore. When it was dug up I was overcome by curiosity. I got the longest stick I could find and then I stirred it up a bit. Soon I was overcome by the smell. It's like that with people who are possessed by this character flaw. You could try debating the person who is blaming you, but most of the time it is not about being right or wrong, it is about some other need, so why bother. It is better to ... Practice acceptance. Practicing acceptance requires an attitude that says in effect, "I will try to see how the human soul is operating through this character flaw of Blame and Resentment." The human soul operates even when we are using defenses that seem base and crude. Blame and Resentment implies that there is still some work to be done. Practicing acceptance appears to be harder than it is. Sometimes all it takes is listening for a few more minutes trying to view it from the other person's perspective. In the long run it is the path of least resistance and is the more spiritually correct one. Over the short haul it is much easier to practice irritability and intolerance with blamers. It is more exciting and dramatic to practice raging indignation with people who inflict seething resentment. Practice accountability. More importantly you need to set up accountability methods that work. Before holding someone accountable make sure you specifically define the behavior in question. Sometimes that means a chore list for your children. Or it may mean a phone log at work for your sales people. Know each other's Rules. In relationships make sure that both sides understand the rules to be followed. It sometimes is as simple as one side believing she "must be faithful" and the other side believing he "should be faithful." When the rules are different, the behaviors that break the rules are different. Thus we argue and blame. Recognize what is and isn't your responsibility. If your rules or guidelines are set and the blame comes flying at you, stop and decide whether it is your responsibility or not. I personally feel that the best way to short circuit someone who blames you is to quickly accept the responsibility for your part in it. Then move on. Most of the time the person who is not possessed by the flaw will move on. If they want to whine and complain or continue to rant and rave, you are dealing with a person who is stuck. They believe they have something to gain. If not they wouldn't be stuck. Whatever it is they believe they deserve, it probably isn't your duty to give it to them You need to move on too but refusing to argue. A word of caution. Don't ever accept responsibility for something you didn't do. That would be dishonest. It may be grandiose as well or you may be setting yourself up as a victim. Focus on your own behavior and character. If you do have some responsibility in the situation, focus on your own behavior and your own character. All too often a couple will argue about something until one of them accepts some responsibility, then the blame shifts. Now the person tries to get the other to accept responsibility too. The implied message is, "I'm a morally superior, enlightened, in tune and karmically aligned dude." or, "I'm a Christian who really practices his faith. Be like me, admit you're wrong too". Next this modern day psycho-babbling couple blames and judges each other. They feel morally superior and guilty at the same time. That has to be better than just plain guilty, right? It's not better, just more complicated. It's blame masquerading as spiritual enlightenment. Forgive like you would a stranger. Remember what the psychiatrist in the hospital told me, it is easier to forgive a stranger. How do you do that with someone you have a long relationship with? First of all you have to unstack the hurt. Focus only on the one incident that just occurred. Unstacking the piles of garbage and focusing on the present moment is crucial. We forgive strangers more easily, because we try not to attribute malicious motives to their behavior. We cut them a break in our own minds. You need to do the same thing with someone you love. Look for a motive that is self serving and related to fear. They wouldn't attack if they weren't afraid of something. The people in your life who do stupid things, and that may be everybody, need to be held accountable. They don't need hatred or resentment. They need acceptance and accountability. Forgiveness has another advantage. Generally there is a thread of truth running through your stacked hurts. Those painful incidences that are the basis of your resentments are glued together. The glue that holds them together is you personal power. The more resentments you have, the more glue you are using to hold all that crap together. That means that your personal power is being sapped with each resentment. Why bother to change? A Flood of Prosperity & Success! Of all the character flaws, blaming is most intimately related to the issue of prosperity and success. More often than not when you release the right to blame others something dramatic occurs. You become more successful. I know it sounds strange, but I have seen it so often. The key to greater abundance and prosperity is often held in our ability to be accountable. The only thing standing between most of us and being accountable is the desire to blame others. When it goes, then all the excuses go. You've made room for abundance. One of my patients who was an old recovering alcoholic, had an approach to getting rid of resentments that was very practical. Treat it like your hair. Keep cutting it back until it all falls out. I think it was a good simile for him because he was bald. For most of us it is like shaving. Don't you ladies feel more beautiful after your legs are shaved? Unless you get rid of the resentment completely, it will grow back again and again. That's not bad or good, just human nature. So shave it when it surfaces. And keep at it. Sometimes we gain insights that allow us to release the resentment completely. That's a noble goal. I recommend it, but I realize it's more likely that you will have to start over everyday like the rest of us mere mortals. It's also worth it to stop blaming because of what resentment does to your future. There is a simple process that I used with some patients. We would visualize the time line. That is a cluster of images of how you view your past, present and future. Usually the future is in a line running from you out to the front or off to the side. The close images are the near future and the farther images are the distant future. Here is what we would do. We would create forgiveness in the past and then have it run through the time line. All the future images would get brighter and more exciting. That's what happens to the rest of your life when you let go of blame. It gets brighter and more exciting. How to shave blame and unglue resentments. I wish this was easy. It is simple to do. It just has to be done constantly. Since character flaws are easier and more convenient than virtues, it may take a while for you to get the hang of this. It's like shaving. You do it quite easily now, but in the beginning it was more complicated. You have to work on blame and resentment every time it shows up. As soon as you start to focus on the other person, stop and admit you're blaming. Responsibility is the main issue. You need to focus on what your responsibility is. Be accountable for what you have done. Focus only on your own part in the problem, unless the other person asks you to point out what is wrong. Then use the rule of three. I have a rule that I use in my non professional relationships. I don't give people my opinion of their behavior unless they ask for it. When they ask for it three times, I give it to them. It is better to focus on your side of the blame, and treat the other person as blameless for the time being. That will keep you focused on your own stuff. After all I hope your reading this for you and not so that you can fix someone else in your life. If you break down the release of Blame and Resentment you will find that forgiveness is the key. Stay with the individual incident praise others and stop seeking approval. focus on your own character. practice charity and forgiveness Every time you hear yourself whining and blaming someone for what went wrong, step back and look at yourself. Stay with the individual episode of resentment. Unstack the old hurts unless they are useful for protection. Most of the time they aren't, regardless of how you try to justify it. Take your power pack and deal with the individual episode. That will reduce resentment to blame. It is easier to deal with blame, because you can then focus on yourself. Next separate the person you blamed from their behavior. Keep the "who they are" and "what they did" separate. That will make it easier for you to deal with your blame. Listen to the tones behind blame and resentment. As soon as you recognize how you do it, your whining can be a trigger to praise others and stop seeking recognition. When I taught medical students how to interview, I would not let them criticize their fellows. I used to make them point out what was done right. They all knew where and how they had messed up. They needed to know what they were doing right to get comfortable with the process. If you are a blamer then you don't naturally point out what is going right, but look for what is going wrong. Change that today. It will shock your friends and associates. Focus on your own character. Chances are you are trying to feel righteous by holding resentment. Clearly it doesn't work, so stop scapegoating and look for things that you can change in you. Remember, Judge not.. Stop judging others. Practice charity or love and forgiveness. We had a drill that we did in group. We would take the wholesome quality, in this case Acceptance and Forgiveness which are the opposite of Blame and Resentment. We worked on identifying so totally with the virtue that we would not just have it, we would be it. In other words we wouldn't seek so much to forgive as to be forgiveness itself. In the end resentment and blame leave only when we are forgiveness, rather than are trying to forgive. It is a great leap for some, but it is so totally empowering that I recommend trying to be forgiveness until you get. Even if you temporarily fail at it you will have done a lot of forgiving. An elderly women said to me after the funeral of her husband, "Most resentments are worth a hill of beans in the long run. All the things I blamed him for and resented were a waste of time." Don't wait for someone to die to figure that out. This is a character defect that will die if you don't nourish it. First resentment goes and then even blame. My patient had spent a lot of her life hating some of the things he had done. She finally got to the point where she looked at his soul as unblemished spirit. He didn't change. Honestly, all he did was die. She changed. She became forgiveness itself. Most people are simply too afraid to accept responsibility for themselves. You have to be full of humility to notice the good in others. It takes great faith in human goodness to do that. Instead of having faith in human goodness and being humble, we use the next character flaw, Worry and allow it to expand into Fear. |
||
 |
||
|
|
