Fairy Reading

 Stop throwing that blame around

“There are two kinds of people in the world,” a friend explained to me one day. “There are the ones who blame other people for everything that happens. And there are the ones who blame themselves.”

Have you ever watched a movie where one of the actors used a flamethrower? In a movie I watched one day, they called this instead a “blame thrower.” It’s a lit torch of fiery rage that we throw at either others or ourselves when situations don’t work out the way we planned.

Blaming can be a healthy stage of grieving or letting go. But staying too long in this stage can be unproductive. It can keep us from taking constructive action. Blaming ourselves too long can turn into self-contempt; blaming others can keep us heavy and dark with resentments, and fuel the victim within.

If you’re going through a loss, or if life has twisted on you, pick up your blame thrower– in the privacy of your own journal. Give yourself ten or twenty minutes to blame without censorship. Get it out. Write out everything you want to say, whether you’re throwing blame at someone else or at yourself.

It may take longer if the loss is larger, but the point is to give yourself a limited amount of time for a blame-throwing session, then cease fire. Stop. Move on to the next stage in living, which is letting go, accepting, and taking responsibility for yourself.