The Art of blame Transferring

Joshua Rosa

The Art of blame transfer 

There is this natural pull for us to want to find ways to defend ourselves and find reasons as to why things are out of our control. We blame every single thing possible from our financial state, our access to resources, even down to the decisions our families have made in the past. I don’t want to dismiss the reality that resources and upbringing most definitely play a huge role in how we view the world and interact with it, however, I do think these become limiting beliefs for a lot of people. We use the negative aspects of our life to amplify our short comings and ultimately deflect the blame from the decisions and life we have developed, to the one that was “imposed” on us. 

It’s just much easier to blame everything around us because challenging ourselves and taking responsibility for the trajectory of our lives requires a new level of attention and discipline. It becomes just another scape goat as to why we won’t be able to become who we are capable of becoming or just another reason why we continue to choose to do wrong and fail to do good.

What we choose will continue, where we hide continues to be a hiding place or rather an excuse in every chance we get. There is a very popular phrase based on a common thing animals do when they’re hurt. They tend to find a hole somewhere and crawl into it, maybe you’ve heard the phrase “crawl into a hole and die” this notion that this is where most animals die, because of their fear and wounds they go into a place where healing is not possible. The make home in their wounds and ultimately die hiding away. Sometimes the things we hide behind are not physical but rather the “reasons” why we are the way we are. These things often are emotional and mental blocks that create this false illusion of safety by deflection, we pawn off our struggle on other things and this quickly makes us the victim of the story, but the problem is that you can not be both the victim and the victor. You cannot tell the story from two different sides if you continue to live on the side of your shortcomings. 

Now I want to reiterate this and make it clear, I by no means want to devalue the reality of the things people go through. I don’t want to make the claim that those things are not difficult or not pressing on the heart and mind. 

However, I do want to make clear that I firmly believe (and have experienced) the reality of taking ownership, not so much in taking blame for something you didn’t do or cause, but rather taking authority over something that has continued to be a plague in your life. 

This maybe a weird example, but I want to paint the picture this way. 

Imagine for a moment that you live in a home in which you have done your absolute best to keep clean and one day a family member or a friend or even a total stranger, comes into your home and decides that this a good day to dump gallons of red paint all over. 

It would be very easy and natural to be upset at this and rightfully so, you didn’t ask for this to be done to your beautiful home. This person leaves and is no longer there but the damage has already been done. 

Theres that old saying “home is where the heart is”, sometimes we trust people enough to be within that home and while we are not to blame for the damage they create in our home, we are responsible for what we allow to remain. It would be crazy to think that instead of changing things in our home and cleaning up the places we can clean, we just rather live in the mess. While you are not at fault you ultimately are responsible for the change. 

Because there was a mess you didn’t create doesn’t mean you deserve to live in it but much less does it deserve authority over your life. The best revenge, the best come back story, the best ‘despite of’ story is one which you stop shifting the blame and start taking ownership over what is already yours. 

When blame transfer becomes part of our lives it quickly becomes resentment. We resent our family members for not making better choices or we resent ourselves because we “allowed” these things to happen to us. The truth is that none of that is true. It is not about what the past was it is about what we do next. 

It’s either the excuse or the story

If you haven’t caught on yet the biggest theme of this whole book from cover to cover has been about creating something out of our mess. It has focused on not becoming what has been done to you but rather using it as a catalyst to burn away everything that doesn’t belong and fuel everything that does. 

We can only do this with ownership. 

I want to be even more clear here, once again. Ownership doesn’t mean things are your fault, it just means that the problems don’t own you, you own them. The level of struggle you are able to understand is also the level of struggle you are able to treat. Most would say that in a perfect world none of us would struggle and often those are the people who are still on the less favorable side of their life story. Struggles, pain, hurt, problems, whatever you want to call it, those things are needed! They are a facet of life that so many people are afraid of and the truth is that we tend to create a reality out of our fears. Thats the power of the brain, we hyper focus on things so much so that they become the center point of our life, ultimately consuming us. 

Self-debilitating thoughts 

A shift happens when we realize the authority we have over our struggles and how our suffering can either go to waste or serve a purpose. 

I can’t emphasize more the importance of how you speak to yourself (even though I already have in previous chapters and will in future ones because this is honestly that important). One of the biggest self-debilitating thoughts in our lives will continue to be “this was done to me”. In acceptance of that, is acceptance of the life you’re leading. 

The sad truth is that a lot of us have become so jaded that we have become our own biggest enemy instead of our own biggest advocate. We believe the lies that we are the things that have been done to us when the truth is that you’re not what has been done to you but what you do in response or despite it! The beauty of all of this is that there is no timeline, because you didn’t start before doesn’t mean you can’t start today, like literately this very instance. 

You are under no obligation to continue to accept the mess in your home, but you cannot clean it up by doing nothing and complaining about it. 

Heal & grow, healing doesn’t mean that the damage never existed or that it wasn’t painful, it just means that it has no control or authority over your life. So many people are operating out of hurt place or a place of blame. The problem with that is that nothing fruitful can grow, there’s a colloquial term here in New York (and oddly enough in the Dominican republic) when someone is acting bitter we call them “salty”. 

Nothing grows in a salted plot of land and the sad reality is that a lot of us are ruining our own garden by staying in the same salted soil. Stop operating out of a place of hurt and start moving in a place of peace and hope.