Drop 3 – Drop the Blame
Taking responsibility…
In our book and when coaching couples we always warn about getting drawn into the ugly ‘blame game’…the game that nobody wins. We’ve all been there. This is when we find ourselves dwelling on and even painfully dissecting who is at fault…or even who is ‘more’ at fault! This is a hard one for all of us. We feel justified and want this recognized.
Until we take responsibility for our part in the misunderstanding, we remain stuck in the victim mentality. Taking responsibility also means being committed to doing whatever it takes to resolve the conflict and get back to the ‘loving place’.
We ask couples to practice three important principles (briefly summarized here) to avoid becoming a slave to the killer victim mentality…
- Realize that the only person you can change is yourself! We often want to fix everyone in our life. We start thinking “If only he/she …would /could blah blah blah. Whenever you go there remember this meditation- While you are trying to fix and run everyone else’s problem…who’s running and fixing yours!
- Could it be your problem? (at all!!!) We have to be brutally honest here. Anytime someone is pointing out your part in the conflict equation, stop and ask yourself what kernel of the accusation could actually bear some truth… You are not responsible ‘for’ the other person but you are responsible ‘to’ the other person. This means taking responsibility for how you behave and respond. This is an inward focus and is very powerful.
- Ask and You shall Receive! Simple, but profound. If you don’t know what your contribution is- get curious. Simply ask what you may be doing or saying (or failing to do or say). We even discovered when coaching one couple that it could simply the ‘way’ of doing and saying that can cause the problem. Word of caution… When you ask, be prepared to be open and hear without getting defensive, so make sure you have ‘dropped the flame and reflected’ enough.
Once you realize and accept your contribution you can then reflect how that is affecting the other person and work through the remaining drops.
When you accept full responsibility for your part and for working through your issues you will experience that most defining ‘aha’ moment…that you are both on the same side! You are then left with the ‘problem’ and not each other!
This is big…a genuine game changer and it releases you from the insidious attack/defend cycle that we often get stuck in.
I’ll leave you to digest all of this with a Mahatma Prabhu quote that I found which sums it up nicely!…
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