Blame Game: The Game to Destroy Relationships

When you have gotten into an argument with your colleagues due to a mistake, who do you tend to find fault in?

Do you try to find all the reasons that the cause of the mistake was not you?

Or do you take on full responsibility for the mistake, regardless of your colleagues’ role in the accident?

It’s not me, it’s you: Why we tend to shame others first

When we find ourselves in the face of a problem, we tend to draw a line of boundary to either release responsibility or take up sole responsibility of the incident as a coping mechanism.

The reason we do so is our need to make sense of the negative experience that is happening around us.

We try to understand and to create associations between the result (accident) and the factors involved (individuals driving).

Simply put, we try to find someone to take responsibility, someone to blame.

We will focus on discussing about those who instinctively try to release responsibility by blaming others today.

(Up next Friday: Why do we blame ourselves first and try to take on all the responsibility)

Sometimes to protect ourselves from compromising our conscience or our ego, we will instinctively turn to blaming others to feel the assurance that we are not at fault.

When we “blame” it allows us to create a safe third person distance from the incident.

Thus, blaming can help us feel morally superior in the short term as we shame external forces to feel better.

Blaming others acts as a shield, a defense, a coping mechanism to protect ourselves from being harmed by the incident, to not feel the uncomfortable emotions triggered by the incident, while also “helping” us to understand the incident.

This may be further perpetuated by the people around you, who try to “help” you make sense of the incident by either pinning the blame on others, or on you through destructive criticism.

Effective Destruction in the Blame Game

Imagine you have your own plate, and suddenly someone puts their leftover food from their plate into your plate and said you were a bad person for wasting food.

You would probably want to scream your head off at their blaming actions and your relationship with them would likely turn sour.

It hurts others when we deflect our responsibilities and push the full responsibility of the incident onto them. Moreover, while feeling at ease that we are not to blame when things go south, the pain we inflict onto others by blaming them would likely damage our relationship with them.

Blaming others is a coping mechanism most of us naturally have. But we need to recognize that this coping mechanism is unfortunately not just protective but also destructive.

Instead of focusing our efforts on parrying away the challenges or finding the root cause of our problems, we complicate or even further damage the situation by trying to find someone to blame.

More often than not, blaming results in a lose-lose situation where all parties find their problems left unaddressed while feeling even more disconnected from one another.

Alternative Approach to Blaming

Blaming is a heuristic way of our mind understanding the ins and outs of a negative experience.

That means, even though blaming can cause harm to others, the tendency to blame could be compassionately explored and worked through to reduce the harm, allowing ourselves to understand our inclination to perceive things in a certain way and ultimately develop our emotional capacity to tackle problems.

To do so, an alternative approach to blame is to:

1. Identify that the emotions we are feeling are relevant and acceptable by showing

compassion towards the feelings of others and ourselves.

2. Hold on to the intention of understanding the full perspective of the whole situation.

3. Tenderly ask ourselves reflective questions:

a. What is it that we are afraid of experiencing which is causing us to blame others

first?

b. How does our vulnerable side feel about the situation that has happened?

c. Is that vulnerable side triggered due to some experience of blaming that you are

trying to protect yourself from?

4. Recognize all the above and take responsibility compassionately for how you are feeling

internally.

5. Act by asserting your feelings gently with other parties involved: “I am acting/ feeling

this way because I am… (share your vulnerabilities).”

Word of Caution: The society is large, and people vary.

Not everyone would be able to acknowledge your efforts of taking personal accountability and may even take advantage of it by blaming you so that they can feel morally superior.

If you are not ready to make the statement to others, take your own time.

Try to direct the statement to yourself.

It can help create a better relationship with yourself and can translate to less feelings of agitation and therefore less inclination to blame as well.

I know that even speaking the statement to yourself could bring a sense of cringe. Even then, cringing could be a sign that you are doing good work for yourself. Read up more on treating your cringing reaction with compassion

Are you ready to break free from blame and foster healthier relationships?

Contact me for personalized counselling and support today.