Blame: How to Uncover and Overcome This Negative Behavior

Welcome to How to Find Happiness, Week 6. Blame: How to Uncover and Overcome This Negative Behavior.

We hope you have found the last 5 weeks interesting and helpful. This week, we will focus on tackling another area of emotional baggage: blame. If blame plays a prominent role in our emotions, it can cast negativity throughout our lives. It’s also a short jump from feelings of blame to feelings of guilt, shame, and despair.

When we experience blame, it is difficult to achieve well-being. It is almost impossible to have a positive life, rich with contentment and happiness.

There are two primary categories of blame: blame-shifting and self-blame.

Understanding the role these two negative habits may play in our lives is essential to the road ahead.

How to Find Happiness in 10 Weeks or Less, Week 6: How to Uncover and Overcome Blame

This week, we are going to have a go at shedding another type of emotional baggage: blame. We will learn about blame-shifting and self-blame and the potential roots of these behaviors.

We will discover why it is essential to release these feelings. This is another step in our journey towards contentment and happiness.

When we place blame, we hold someone else responsible for a certain action or situation.

All About Blame: Blame Shifting

Humans are often inclined to assign accountability due to our innate need to understand cause and effect. We are pre-wired to come up with explanations for why something occurs.

Sometimes we may place blame because we also tend to jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.

Other times, we may intentionally assign accountability to other people, even when we know we are at fault.

Sometimes we shift blame because we’re afraid. We fear how people will view us if they know we’ve made a mistake or failed.

Other times it’s because we fear people will no longer love us if they see us as the fallible beings we truly are.

Sadly, many of us also shift blame because we are frightened to admit what we have done for fear of punishment or other negative consequences.

Blame-shifting is largely a defense mechanism.

We believe we are protecting ourselves when we do it.

This may be true, in the short run, because shifting blame to others may help us avoid criticism or punishment in the moment.

But the long-term consequences can be severe, since this behavior allows us to shirk responsibility for our own decisions and life choices.

Other Factors

Shifting blame helps us avoid situations where we need to consider our own faults, weaknesses, or mistakes in greater detail. Although it is not healthy, many of us are inclined to do whatever it may take to avoid this kind of introspection.

There are also times when we blame others because we have a desire, consciously or unconsciously, to harm them. When someone hurts us or makes us angry, we may wish to hurt them back. If they cause pain to us or someone we care about, we might seize opportunities to retaliate.

Sometimes we may do this without even realizing it’s happening.

Shifting Blame Helps Us Avoid Recognizing Our Own Faults

We humans are complicated beings. We want to believe we are perfect. The truth is, we each are perfect, in our own unique way. We equate perfection to being without fault. This makes it really difficult for us to own up to mistakes when we screw up.

The thing is, we struggle to accept that having faults does not minimize our perfection. It is a hard concept to wrap our heads around. But there it is.

Why Shifting Blame Is Harmful to Us

Blaming others for our own mistakes and life circumstances is a dangerous habit. This behavior has both immediate consequences and long-term effects.

When we do it, we may experience a brief instant of relief. It feels better to no longer be in the crosshairs, the target of criticism, punishment, or harm.

And it can help us avoid questioning our own self-worth and worthiness.

But almost immediately afterward, most of us will feel an emotion that is equally if not more uncomfortable: guilt.

Followed quickly by regret.

And possibly anxiety. We worry that the truth will come out. Or our subconscious begins to realize that we are really not as perfect as we would like to be.

Why Shifting Blame Is Harmful to Our Relationships

Of course, the feelings we experience when we shift blame are just the beginning. Often, much more dire negative outcomes arise when those we’ve shifted blame to realize what we have done.

Those we unfairly blame may naturally begin to distrust us. They may lose respect for us when they are unjustly accused or held accountable.

They may even ultimately cut ties with us completely, if the behavior is part of a pattern.

And once they are gone, they are likely never to return.

We may lose valuable friends, family, lovers, or colleagues. All because we chose not to take responsibility for our own actions.

Shifting blame to others is wrong. It feels bad. It can damage our own self-respect and our relationships. Yet we do it, all the time.

Other Consequences

The side effects of blame shifting are bad enough. This need of ours to avoid acknowledging our own faults has other downstream impacts, too.

After awhile, our fear of being wrong or making a mistake starts to affect us. It begins to impair our confidence. Our initiative and willingness to try anything new also suffer.

When this happens, we may become stuck at a certain stage of development.

Becoming stuck or stagnated in our lives is the exact opposite of contentment and happiness.

So, we need to kick this blame-shifting habit, once and for all.

We need to address the issue immediately. When we hear our internal voice saying: “It’s his fault I always feel bad,” we must take responsibility.

Or “We can’t afford a new car because she insisted on renovating the kitchen.”

We’ll cover how to stop this negative behavior in its tracks in a minute. But first, let’s look at the other key area of blame we need to address.

Self-Blame

This behavior is at the other end of the spectrum from blame-shifting.

It occurs when we hold ourselves responsible for things that are not ours to own.

This pattern of behavior may arise as a result of taking on too much responsibility as a child.

It can also come about as a consequence of an abusive or neglectful relationship.

It may also be a habitual reaction for those who have experienced blame shifting for too long. This can happen either early in life or as part of their adult relationships.

Needless to say, blaming ourselves for things that are not our responsibility negatively impacts our mental state.

In fact, according to Psychology Today, self-blame is “one of the most toxic forms of emotional abuse.”

It can also lead to increased anxiety and depression.

And may also have damaging physical effects including increased production of the stress hormone cortisol.

When we are blamed too often for actions of others, we may begin to believe these accusations are valid.

Recognizing Blame

As with many areas, both emotionally and physically, we first need to recognize that there is room to grow. This is an important step for improvement.

Many of us may have been shifting blame or enduring self-blame for a long time.

We may not even realize what we were doing.

Blame shifting is not just about blaming someone else for things they have done. It’s about blaming others for our own life circumstances.

It’s what we are doing when we think “I could be more successful if I hadn’t married him.”

Or “He makes me feel so bad about myself.”

Likewise, self-blame is not just about taking on responsibility for about transactional events, or situations.

It’s about blaming ourselves for the behavior of others. We might think, “If I was a better wife, he wouldn’t abuse me so much.”

Both may be a chronic problem or one that only arises once in a while.

Whatever the case, it’s worth reading on. This helps to better understand why it’s best to eliminate these behaviors from our lives as completely as we can.

To begin to break these damaging habits, we must first acknowledge that we do it. Then, we need to pay more attention to the situations that seem to trigger these behaviors.

The Role of Resentment

When we shift blame in our minds, it may present with feelings of resentment.

The thoughts may sound like this: “If he wasn’t my husband, I’d have a better life”.

Or “If she hadn’t forced me to have another baby, we’d have more time and money for fun”.

Resentment is an incredibly strong and toxic emotion.

Just as positive thoughts cannot coexist with negative ones, happiness cannot survive where there is resentment.

To make matters worse, those who experience resentment often see themselves as a victim.

As someone who has been harmed by others or circumstances.

When we see ourselves as victims, we are incapable of taking responsibility for our lives and choices.

To move ahead and change our behavior, we must not view ourselves as victims.

We must recognize ourselves as strong, worthy, brave, and powerful people. We are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve our dreams.

Why We Must Avoid Self-Blame

As with blame-shifting, self-blame comes with an unhealthy dose of side effects, including depression, anxiety, and feelings of worthlessness.

The more we associate ourselves with negative outcomes outside our control, the more negative our view of ourselves becomes.

It’s a vicious cycle that creates a negative spiral. It’s important to do what is necessary to disrupt the pattern of negative thinking associated with it.

The other direct result of self-blame is that we do not hold others accountable for actions they are responsible for.

This is particularly damaging when mental or physical abuse is involved.

How To Move On

It is easy to quote platitudes. “Everyone makes mistakes; you can’t ever grow unless you fail, etc.”

While these statements are valid, they do not help address the underlying reasons for blame-shifting.

These are much more deeply rooted.

Most of the time, fear or insecurity drives us to hold others responsible for our own circumstances.

This prevents us from accepting healthy responsibility for our own mistakes without “blaming ourselves” for them.

It takes self-awareness to understand what the real drivers are to our habits of blame-shifting and self-blame.

It takes courage to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We need to show our true selves, faults and all, to others.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

The table below includes questions to help you explore this week’s topic more fully. These questions focus on how these negative behaviors may be impacting your mental health.

Before you tackle these new questions, pull out your notebook. Review your notes from previous weeks.

• Which areas of well-being did you decide to focus on?
• What kind of energy did you decide you need most to pursue to improve your own happiness?
• Which scientific findings related to happiness did you decide to internalize in your personal development strategy?
• What did you uncover in your work to determine your life purpose?
• What qualities of your best future self did you identify?

Are you beginning to see themes that will help you develop a more holistic strategy to achieve happiness and contentment?

What about our last week’s work on shame? Did you realize there was some shame affecting your outlook? Is there any shame you need to let go of?

Write about what you are learning.

See below for more questions. These may help you better identify how blame affects your current mental and physical health.

Were you often expected to take on responsibility as a child? How do you think it has effected you as an adult?	Are you more prone to blame others or yourself too much?
Have you ever held another person responsible for a negative outcome that you shared responsibility for?	Do you accept full responsibility for your own actions?
Have you been in a relationship where you’ve been a victim of this type of behavior?	Are you currently in a relationship where blame plays a fundamental role?
Do you understand what the root causes of any related issues you have may be?	Who may be a positive influence as you seek to break negative habits and behaviors?
Are you ready to break these destructive habits?	Name two times when you may not have taken full responsibility for negative actions or outcomes.
What actions can you take today that will help you resolve blame issues in your life?	Next time you notice you are about to blame someone for something, what will you do?
What does it feel like when you take responsibility for your own mistakes, forgive yourself, and move on?	How do you imagine a life with less blame will feel?
Are you ready to take this next giant step towards happiness and contentment?	Imagine you have packed up all your blame emotions and tossed them to the curb. Picture them being picked up and carted away forever. How do you feel?

So, what do you think about Week 6?

Do you feel better equipped to take responsibility and release negative emotions? It’s a huge, important step on the path to contentment and happiness.

Please leave a comment and share what you are learning with all the rest of us.

After all, we are all on this journey together – and we are all so much more than enough.

If you’re ready to move, our next segment focuses on something essential to everyone. Week 7: All You Need to Know About Healthy Relationships.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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