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Old 09-13-2012, 11:44 AM   #19
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
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Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:
Mary Eastland wrote: View Post
To me there is a difference between blame and responsibility. Let's take the cake example. If someone trips me and I drop the cake. It could their fault or my fault. It would depend on the situation.

However, if it my daughter's birthday and I am responsible for the cake, I would most likely spend very little time deciding whose fault it is and just go get another cake because the cake is my responsibility.
I like this -- both the distinction you make between blame and responsibility, which are so often conflated...and also, responsibility for having caused the situation vs. responsibility for fixing it. You are quite right -- our focus is so often who's to blame, and while I think that sometimes it does matter to establish who that is, it's often (mostly? nearly always?) a side discussion to the matter of sorting things out.

In terms of feelings, also, I think that blame is more likely to be a waste of time than in something tangible like the cake example, because your power to get the agent to try and make things better is less -- not to speak of their ability. If I knock someone's cake to the floor, I can usually do something about it -- if I do something that's emotionally hurtful, that's harder to fix.

Quote:
Mary Eastland wrote: View Post
Please don't think I make light of this. You can see in my last post that I wrote about the process. It is a very hard process. I spent much time blaming others or circumstances for the hard things that happened in my life. It really got me no where. Now I look to what or where I can change and move on. I usually don't love having to change. My motivation is not altruistic...it works for me and that is why I do it.
I hear ya. I understand what you mean. I think for most of us, it's good medicine. Experience has also taught me that it's not a medicine that everyone is ready to take...and also, there are cases where it's not sufficient by itself. If someone is violent towards you, you have to take as much control over your own healing as is possible...but you do also have to deal with the violent intent.
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