The Blame Game
I’ve spent my life making other people and situations the problem. Things are always seeming to not go my way and people have triggered the fuck out of me. Whether its my belief that they are doing something to me or they are not doing what I want them to do, I find a way to put blame on others.
When blaming others – everyone suffers. When I blame others I then feel the pain linked to that, both physically and emotionally. I feel tightness in my abdomen, clenching in my chest and the resonating emotions of anger and fear. And all connection to others is severed. None of it feels good, but it does feel familiar and familiar feels safe.
When I blame others or my situation it takes the burden off of me needing to go in and actually deal with what’s going on. If I look out to what is happening around me I can avoid feeling my emotions once again. And the belief that emotions are too painful to deal with is the exact belief trap that keeps us looping day in and day out. As unhealed humans, we tend to think that feeling our emotions and acknowledging ourselves will be the end of us. “It’s just too painful.” So, instead of hitting our “problems” head on and resolving from within, we just keep the cycle going by continuing to look to our outer world as the problem – then we don’t have to feel what’s actually going on within.
Deep beneath the belief that the world is the problem and others are to blame is our sense of unworthiness and shame. We will do whatever we need to do not address and feel those because who wants to actually put themselves in a position of discomfort and pain?
Beneath the Blame Lies Shame
Every trigger towards someone else, every moment we want to blame our circumstances – it truly is a projection of what’s happening within. Our surroundings and perspective are like a movie screen of our inner self and beliefs. What we believe about ourselves plays out as our movie. We are not only the main character, but also the director. We’re in charge of how we choose to see the movie in which we play.
Saving Myself from Victim Mentality
I will say, though, it doesn’t feel that way until we actually choose to believe that is so. I’ve spent my life playing the role of victim. And, I play it well. Victim does not want me to see that I am actually the director of my own movie. That I can choose the theme of my movie. All I need to do is go within, feel, release and move forward. But it first starts with one single choice. The choice to believe truth. That I have control. That I am not a victim. That all can be changed in my life by going within. The choice to be accountable for how my life plays out – it’s up to me. No one can save me.
To let someone save me from myself, I’d still be a victim and powerless. And that is not reality. Reality is that we are all sovereign and powerful. The only way to experience this truth is to save yourself. To see that our lives are all our own inner projections.
Each time that I feel a trigger, It is my opportunity to STOP, state what I see myself doing/thinking and then go in. “Hey girl, I see you making your son the problem right now. What’s up? What do you need?”
I am only just beginning to own this as my truth and choosing to go in. I’ve avoided it. I have not wanted it to be true that the way through is to be with my feelings and to accept that other people really aren’t the problem. I am the problem, but in such a loving, powerful way.
Finding False Safety and Comfort in the Familiar
Our nervous systems feel safety in pattern. To stop the process of making someone else the problem and instead go in, takes courage and consistency. It’s reprogramming the way our systems have been developed to keep us safe.
To go in and talk with and listen to myself also means to connect with myself. When we hold a belief that we are unworthy of love and connection the last thing we want to do is connect with ourselves. To connect with myself, feel the feeling and release someone else from being the problem means to first hold myself as worthy of that connection and to be heard. Yes, to be heard by me. To listen and comfort myself.
Holding Worthiness in Self-Connection
When we did not receive the comfort and skills needed as a child, we began telling ourselves stories to fill in the blank of what did not make sense then. Often, the story goes something like “I am unworthy of being heard.” or “I am not love-able.” or “My voice doesn’t matter.” or “My feelings don’t matter.” When we aren’t able to process our feelings as a child or do not have a concious adult that is able to help us process them, we place belief that our feelings are shameful and that they must be hidden.
Here begins the cycle. We start to feel shame in most emotions deemed to be “too much” for our loved ones to handle and we begin living a life that revolves around keeping those feelings buried. We then project onto others for our own safety because we cannot handle what’s actually going on within.
An Unhealed Society
Now a days, we live in a society where most people live this way. Walking around with buried shame, projecting their inner unworthiness into their lives, and then we either play victim or pretend like all is well and cover our shame up with nice things, electronics, food and busyness.
So much of our life isn’t real. When we function from the lens of unworthiness, we just create more stories to help us feel safe and comfortable outwardly because we haven’t found it within.
Finding Real Safety Within, Instead of Without
And this is my current journey. Learning to embrace my feelings and find safety within. When we can process our buried emotions and shame and find safety in ourselves our entire worlds can change. Literally, the way we view the world can appear drastically different. No longer needing to collect shit and people to feel safe and no longer needing to blame the world because now our inner landscape has changed. If we have peace within, we have peace without.
I “get” a lot of this stuff that comes with the work of healing. However, I will be the first to say that I still make it fucking tricky to choose to go in and do my inner work. I let shame, judgment and punishment pop up. These three gremlins feel so safe to me. Without them I’d be accepting of myself just as I am. These gremlin want no part of that, but at any moment I can make a different choice. I hold the keys.
Suffering Does Not Have to be Our Story
This is all made up. Judgment, fear, punishment, shame – none of it’s real. It’s self-created misery that keeps us looping and seeking love outside of us. It’s a safety mechanism put in place to make sure we have love, when we chose to abandon ourselves and not choose self love. When we were young, this served us. It allowed us to stay safe by conforming to the way our parents were, which literally kept us alive.
Now, we’re adults and capable of make the choice ourselves. To love ourselves first and change our entire life. Yup, I get this shit, but to make this “simple” yet what feels so complicated choice to love myself means to drop all trauma responses that have kept me safe and made me feel like “me.” To love myself is death to my ego and apparently I am continuing to be fucking bratty and do not want to let my ego die. It offers me a sense of self.
Letting it All Go and Embracing the Unknown
Who am I without my ego? That unknown question is too scary to find out, yet.
I do know under all of this buried shame lies peace, joy, love, laughter, safety, kindness. The fruit of the spirit. The real essence that all of us carry within. If I know this to be my truth, why would I be afraid of it? Because my ego offers me a sense of security. I know what to expect. To let all trauma responses fall away and leave only my truth, I no longer know what to expect. To stop making other people and circumstances the problem i would feel no chaos. Chaos offers comfort, even though it doesn’t seem like it would. If I chose to live, instead, in peace my system would want to know when the next problem is arising, the next thing to figure out, to know what to expect so I feel safe.
So, that is my work. To keep going in with every trigger, every moment and circumstance that I do not like, every moment of feeling like a victim of my reality. To say “Hey girl. What’s up? What do you need?”. My work is to choose my worth of connection to myself, to listen and befriend myself and sit with my feelings. The more I do this and change the beliefs I hold about myself, the more my movie can change from one of drama, chaos and hardship to love, peace and joy.
The Key to Life is Within.
Anna Simon
The key to life is within. It is right here. Not anywhere outside of us or in the future. It’s in the first and most important choice to believe in our worth and make the conscious effort to go in.
From my healing journey to yours,
Anna