
When painful or difficult things happen in life, how do you react? Do you immediately want to know whose fault it is? Blaming is the habit of making other people or things ‘wrong’ or responsible when difficult things happen to us.
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According to research professor Brené Brown, “Blame is simply the discharging of discomfort and pain. It has an inverse relationship with accountability. Blaming is a way that we discharge anger.”
The problem with blaming is we get defensive and we miss the opportunity to look honestly and gently at ourselves, see what role we played in events and how we might be able to learn and grow from it. We create wrong-doers and right-doers in our minds and may even feel justified to punish and attack others.
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“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg
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“People who blame things rarely change things. Blame is an unassailable change-avoidance strategy.”
―Andy Stanley