Guilt and Blame

Guilt and blame are perhaps two of the most damaging acts we can undertake. Neither are physical acts, they are the result of our thoughts and their associated feelings. These types of thoughts and feelings lock us into the past and can cause very serious health, emotional and mental issues. Guilt and blame are strongly associated with substance abuse and a plethora of other psychological and even physical ailments.

What is blame? Blame is a mechanism we use to pass responsibility over a particular outcome or experience to another or others so as to avoid taking personal responsibility for it. Guilt is similar to blame, as it is essentially the act of blaming ourselves. Blame allows many people to do anything to anyone or even themselves by providing a rationale for them to place responsibility for it on others. This is simply not the case now, nor has it ever been. Both are harmful to us in the long term; however, they are also an excellent window into the areas where we need to change, where we need to reprogram our rational mind.

The damage caused by these two emotions is incredible. Anyone who is on a path of personal or spiritual growth must remember this. Blame and guilt lock us back on the event(s) that triggered them and keep us locked onto a path that takes us further from ourselves. Guilt and blame empower the very thought forms we seek to eliminate from our rational mind. We all carry both guilt and blame within us, each tied to different times, places and people. These reinforce each other forming a complex web of blocks and filters that block our true nature and potential.

Think of all the times in your life you have felt guilt or blame. Now, imagine there is a string attaching you to the thoughts, emotions and energies created in each occurrence and further that a network of strings forms connecting all the strings to each other. What do you see? You see a huge knot of strings that is next to impossible to unravel. You cannot unravel the knots of guilt and blame in one act; we do it one or even part of a strand at a time. When you are undoing a knot you pull here and there to loosen it up, and gradually it will become loose enough to be undone. In many cases, you get down to a “chunk of thread” that resists unraveling. What do you do? Do you cut it out? In personal terms, this is impossible. You cannot cut out a piece of yourself no matter how hard you try. When you encounter a knot you cannot loosen either you have not found the actual source of or reasons for the original guilt and blame, or the wall your mind has built around it is too bound to get at it. Our minds are easily powerful enough to block memories completely from our conscious mind to the point where the experience never happened. The problem is what they block is often based on faulty reasoning, a fear and protect response not illuminated by higher thinking. The harm to the self or at least the limitations that arise from this should be self-evident.

I am saying this not to scare you, but to make you aware of what is happening already. We do have the ability to correct a number of problems, but the later we start the more thread there is in the knot, and the more interwoven it becomes. If you cannot fix it now start to tell yourself “I would like there to come a time when I can look at this, when I can change this and so a time when I will be free”. Try not to put time limits on it, at least ones that you cannot possibly achieve, so as not to add more guilt or blame onto yourself. This is not positive or helpful.

Ones view of Guilt and Blame

As we start to look into this very important area, let me present some scenarios for consideration. These examples are very “general” and so you should be able to relate to at least a few of them. They are examples of events, and I do not want you to add any other factors into them other than what is given. Life is very complicated and more often than not, there are a number of issues wrapped up in any one situation. In this case, I want you to assume nothing, only consider the information given. Then, I would like you to think about the scenario as if you are in it yourself. After you have thought about it please, in your own mind agree or disagree with the conclusion given. Only after you have done so do I want you to read the short write-ups that follow to get my thoughts on the event.

#	Scenario description	Your judgment Your feelings or thoughts about the scenario	True or False?
1	Your children are yelling and screaming; you are getting angry.	The children are making you angry.
2	You were late getting to an appointment because traffic was very heavy or you were in an accident.	The traffic or accident was to blame.
3	You made a nasty comment, hurting someone’s feelings.	You are guilty of hurting their feelings.
4	Someone is staring at you making you anxious, even scared.	They are making you feel angry or scared.
5	Relationship problems lead to an affair, you spouse is crushed or worse.	You feel guilty because you hurt your spouse, and he or she blames you for it.
6	Someone pushes you hard and too far, you strike him or her.	They pushed you to do it.
7	You are hassled or have problems due to others gossiping about you.	The person who gossiped is to blame.
8	You have done something that has damaged your families pride (say your sexual choices, or legal problems), and they blame you for going against them, for damaging the family name.	You should follow the family line, not put shame on them. You are to blame for it, that you should and do feel guilty.
9	Your parent(s) treated you badly when you were young and now you have serious problems in your life.	Your parent(s) ruined your life.
10	You were permanently injured as the result of an assault from someone unknown.	The person assaulting you ruined your life.

I would hazard a guess and say some people will disagree with at least one of the above judgments I have given. There are reasons for the examples I have used. I do realize that in a given situation one may not have any of the thoughts described above. Do bear in mind that we are rarely aware of all or even most of our thoughts and feelings at any point in time. Let us take a look at each of them.

Scenario #1:

Answer is False. No one can make you angry. We allow the circumstances we are in, how we feel at the time to influence us. The anger we feel is the result of our issues triggered by acts of the children. The children did not cause any of the anger the parent feels; they simply “struck the exposed trigger”. That is not to say the children do not have issues to grow past; however, theirs are separate from the parents.

Scenario #2:

Answer is False. Traffic and/or an accident may have been part of the reason, not the whole reason. Perhaps you were late because you did not leave early enough to compensate for the unpredictablility of events or because you were supposed to be late to learn about the outcome of choices you have made. I do not believe in coincidences I believe things happen for a reason. We are where we are because that is where our lives put us at that point in time. Examine why you did not leave early enough to be on time, ask why you were not paying attention or perhaps look at the consequences of being late and work back to the choices that led up to it. Do so with all the honesty you can muster. The fact is you may not be able to account for it, and simply must accept that we do not control our lives. We should not assign either blame or guilt because regardless of why it happened, the consequences are ours to deal with. Remember that blame does not serve you, it locks you into the past and is a denial of responsibility for our choices and their outcomes.

Scenario #3:

Answer is False. We are not to blame for hurting other people; we are responsible for our actions, for doing the “right” thing. The person who was hurt must take responsibility for what they feel. Acting responsibly means to accept your part in the matter, and to do what you can to correct the problem. By problem, I do not mean try to make the other person feel better, though that certainly would be the decent thing to attempt. No, I am referring to the problem that led you to be nasty to someone in the first place. We all make mistakes and will in the future, of that you can be certain. What is important is that we try to grow through what we learn from our experiences.

Scenario #4:

Answer is False. If someone is staring and you do not like it, or it makes you uncomfortable move. You might be inclined to say they should not be doing that or they should leave as their staring is making you feel uncomfortable. True they should not be staring, but they are; however, your discomfort is most likely the result of your thoughts around their staring. I am excluding the possibility that they may be sending energy you way, we will examine how to deal with this in the section on shielding. Your discomfort is your own, and you must decide what to do. Your options are to relax, not let it bother you or leave. Insisting on staying because they have no right and then blaming them for your lack of comfort is nonsense and does not benefit you at all.

Scenario #5:

Answer is False. You are responsible for your actions, not their hurt; however, the consequences are yours including those that come from their being hurt. First, there is the matter of honesty. Commitment means just what the dictionary says it means. If fidelity is part of the relationship, either spoken or inferred, and you commit to someone with that as an understanding, you must stay committed until the commitment is over. Only then should you be involved with someone else, not before. In addition, you do not do so just so the others feelings are not hurt or you are angry or have some other strong feelings and feel justified. You made the commitment, and you must end it before moving on. Second, this exposes issues related to honesty and responsibility, in addition there may be issues relating to commitment, to learning not to promise what you cannot give. The issue is important to remember, but you are not responsible for the happiness of others. We do not own or owe others, not even our intimate relationships despite there being responsibilities in relationships.

Scenario #6:

Answer is False. As in #3, you cannot blame someone else for your lack of self-control. The other person’s issues are their issues, not yours, and even if they were wrong, two wrongs do not make a right. We as individuals must accept the responsibility for our actions and not blame them or justify them based on the actions of others. The old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is very true, unless we allow them to. In this case, the issue remains ours. Again, as in the previous case you should have left the situation or controlled you anger.

Scenario #7:

Answer is False. Gossip is a prevalent problem today and just as damaging as ever. However, people who gossip are not to blame for the treatment of us by others they may have talked to about us. We should not let the opinions of others affect us. Words will not sway people who have their values in the right place; they will only influence people who do as they do. Look at yourself; is there any factual basis to what they are saying? Is there anything about you that they are misinterpreting that you can clarify and put an end to their false words? We have no control over the actions of others, getting angry or bothered by it does not change this fact. Listening to the words of the ignorant is foolish and it is your responsibility, not theirs to understand this for they have already shown by their gossiping that they do not.

Scenario #8:

Answer is False. Family pride is not sacrosanct. Each of us must follow our own path in life. If people do care about us, or love us they should do so unconditionally. They should respect what we must do for ourselves and not judge. If they cannot condone, they should not condemn. People who say that the actions of others as individuals (doing for themselves and not harming others) can hurt them are controlling, they are the ones who are weak and need to grow.

Scenario #9:

Answer is False. I believe we choose whom we are to be born as, that it is not an accident. We are born as whom we are to give us the greatest opportunity to grow. Being born to abusive parents is a pain, but the lessons of life we learn growing out of that background are incredible. We should accept our parent(s) fallibility, their ignorance, and understand that life goes on. Each of us must forgive them for their inabilities rather than blame them. They could no more be different than water can be dry. Blame prevents us from moving ahead. In our minds, the blaming of others for the ills of our lives leaves the expectations that they can somehow fix things, make things better. This can never be, and hoping so only makes matters worse for you.

Scenario #10:

Answer is False. This may seem cruel, however, we cannot blame the other person. I seem to remember a passage from one of Carlos Castaneda’s books where he and “Don Juan” spoke about what would happen if someone took out a rifle and shot him, about how he would not be able to do anything to stop it. Don Juan disagreed and replied, “I would not be there to be shot”. In other words, who we are puts us at a particular place at a particular time. We tend to let life lead us. What Don Juan was saying is he does not let life lead him, he leads. Naturally, the healing process after a traumatic injury or problem takes some time, and it is understandable to blame someone for your loss during that time, but holding onto blame will keep you down, keep you in the past. Yes, you can get on with your life in spite of or despite what happened, though there is a price to this approach. In the case of those seeking spiritual growth it is critical to be at peace with what life has dealt.

Blame and Guilt

We need to look at and understanding the mechanism of guilt and blame in order to resolve them. Typically, blame is making someone other than oneself responsible for the consequences of an experience. This includes self-blame for the consequences from the actions of others, as many parents do. Guilt means feeling remorse over the consequences of one’s actions, this also includes self-blame for those same consequences. The reasoning is the person who hurt me is the cause of and hence is to blame for my problem. Conversely, if I hurt someone, I should feel guilt for wronging or hurting him or her. On the surface, and at the time, both of these may seem perfectly reasonable and even appropriate; however, this is utter nonsense. When we buy into guilt and blame what we are doing is making demands on other people and punishing ourselves for our ignorance. This creates cycles of guilt and blame that those working on personal growth must resolve. Resolution starts with each person thinking about how and why we have come to accept these responses as part of our thought patterns.

People generally do not blame the universe for a flood that drowns people. They may blame it on circumstance, and some may attribute it to some cause or another; however, does that make the universe guilty of killing people? To these you will likely say of course not, and that nature or the universe did not think about hurting people or did not act out of a lack of caring. Nor would anyone declare that the universe has sinned. We assigned blame and guilt, often seen as the result of someone’s sin, only for acts attributed to people. In all of these cases, we tend to expect people to know better and to act accordingly. Which begs the questions of “act how” and “according to whom”?

The idea of sin or transgressions against a higher authority being acts against God or an evil comes primarily out of our religions and cultural systems. What is not true is that people know better. Certainly, people “have been told” what is considered wrong or a sin, but knowing the words and really knowing what they mean are not the same.

Have you ever done something wrong? Sure, you supposedly knew something was wrong, people have told you it was “wrong” or “a sin”, yet you went ahead and did it anyway. Why did you do it? You did so because at the time the words alone could not stand against how you justified your actions. This means you put your reasons (however selfish) before all other reasons. Have you ever done something wrong in the past that you now no longer do? Why did you cease doing it? You changed because either another punishment you feared more changed your justification, or you finally understood what you did not get before and grew past it.

When I was in my early teens, I was susceptible to pressure from my peers. This set up a situation where I allowed myself to be part of the teasing of kids or anyone with disabilities. They took it as fun, for me it was a way to fit in as I felt powerless to go against my friends. A few years later, someone I cared about developed just such a problem and I saw my ignorance firsthand. I no longer teased anyone for any reason; indeed, I become vocal on the behalf of others.

The change was due to what I learned. Back then, I used recognition of my own ignorance as expressed by how I treated others and acknowledgement of the poor choices I made to move past it. Accepting this gave me firmer ground to stand on so that I could examine those choices and try to figure out why I made them. Doing so led me to understand how my actions were partially justified by the blame I put on others for the negative occurrences in my life. I could have chosen to stay locked into the cycle, thankfully I chose not to. I resolved my guilt, and dealt with some of the issues in my life that I blamed on others. We either learn by observing our actions, thoughts, choices and so forth or we do not and continue our old ways. This is the way life is; like it or not.

Both blame and guilt are locking or blocking thought processes. Feeling guilty about something does not make things better, what makes things better is taking responsibility for the consequence of our actions in life. Blame is not about living now, or taking responsibility, it is a denial of it, it is about making someone else responsible for us. Guilt, like blame has nothing to do with responsibility and both are lower level, “negative” emotions.

The fact that victims blame the perceived perpetrators for their ills does not make it the correct response. This is a learned response; it is not fixed or immutable. Animals live by their flight or fight mechanisms, by instinct. We are not animals in the same sense; we have the gift of a mind, of higher aspects, and are here to grow beyond the animal in us. To move past these inherited thought patterns means learning more about ourselves. This is the only way to become closer to being free of the problems that plague us. Fortunately, these emotions are lower order ones, and can be overcome through application of our higher awareness.

Blame and guilt are instrumental in setting up a significant percentage of cyclic problems in our lives. We have looked at how cycles of guilt and blame lock us in. We may expend a great deal of emotional and mental energy, but it does not change anything. Allowing oneself to get into a cycle of guilt and blame is both dangerous and damaging. If you find yourself in one, use the tools and ideas you have to examine it, to discover connections with other events and thoughts. You will need all of these to break the cycle.

The western culture, based largely on the influence of Christianity, has deep constructs associated with sin, and right or wrong. We grow up with adults who taught us guilt and blame. Our rearing makes it an integral part of our personalities, of our rational minds. Parents often give children heck for things, and use blame to trigger a guilt response they hope will force the child to do as told, or are supposed to do even if they do not want to or need to. This does not get the child to do the right thing, only to learn the technique and respond in kind. They blame their parents for making things difficult, for being uncaring, for not being able to make things better and for all the feelings associated with the incident. This is not the correct way to raise children, but we cannot blame parents who do not know any better. Those who dare to accept their ignorance are becoming more aware of the influence of their actions on children and are acting on it. This is also natural as it takes time for awareness to come to the masses.

Breaking guilt and blame cycles is not easy. Often the guilt trips laid on children or other family members is, at the time, stronger than one’s ability to exercise their own will. Many factors can limit one’s ability to muster their will at a given point in time.

Getting over guilt’s certainly can be a problem. Let us for a moment look at an example. Take a strict religious family where one of the children is gay. They gay child can feel so guilty, so sinful that they can harm their own lives and those of others trying not to disappoint or hurt their families. They often act out in ways that act against their own best interests. This again is foolish though understandable given our collective history. Humankind as a whole does not have a good record of showing love and compassion.

The bottom line is the actions of others cannot hurt me unless I allow them to. It is just that simple. When judgments get strong, a family may not show any feelings of concern for the child who is different, who is sinful or has the problem. To them there is no problem, simply quit the sinful activity, and that is it. For the child it is a different matter, for them the feelings are amplified, they are the ones being judged and forced to deal with it. We should all know it is not possible to simply quit being gay any more than a heterosexual could quit being straight. Nor is there any law under God about what your natural sexual preference should be despite what religious leaders would have you believe. The bible has examples of this. Even more fundamental to this is the fact Jesus said, “Judge not lest yea be judged”, and that judgment is the Lords. If one is different, it already is God’s will. The blame and guilt are not Gods will but humankind’s foolishness and ignorance.

Overcoming Guilt and Blame

Overcoming guilt and blame requires change to our views of us, and the nature of our relationships with others. It can be a slow or rapid process depending on the depth of our issues and our commitment to resolving them. For some even the idea of letting go of guilt and blame can seem callous, selfish or indulgent as though they are a denial or avoidance of personal responsibility. Guilt and blame may seem to be valuable to us. One may even believe that guilt and blame make them more responsible and accountable, or that it contributes to the development of compassion, caring and honesty. This is not the case, it is an illusion. To compound the problem people often feel both guilt and blame at the same time. People feel guilty about something they have done and blame themselves for doing it.

Guilt and blame may provide some impetus to changing our behaviour; however, any overall good or benefit this may provide is lost because we are doing it for the wrong reasons. Guilt and blame are the result of poor observation and misunderstandings about our nature and who and what we are.

There are always consequences to our actions in thought and deed. We cannot bypass the law of cause and effect. What is misunderstood is how this works. Take the case where someone strikes us which results in physical or emotional harm to us. The tendency is, on one hand, to blame the other person for our injuries, and on the other hand, to feel guilty for what we have done. This may seem reasonable, but this is because we do not understand the nature of the Cosmos we live in or our own nature. There are laws that apply to consciousness, our souls if you will just as there for the physical universe such as the laws of physics or chemistry. Further, we attract influences in our lives because we have those aspects within ourselves. If someone strikes me, my first thought is not “Why did they do it?” it is “Why was I standing there to be hit in the first place?”

One’s beliefs about the nature of their existence can add to the challenge of overcoming guilt and blame. Those that see this life as being the only life we have can feel robbed of their opportunity or happiness due to the actions of others. It can also be true for those that see humankind as separate from God or the Cosmos around us and those who see sin as contravention of divine law rather than ignorance of it.

We learn to feel guilty and to blame at an early age. People tell us over and over how what we may have done hurt them, and that it is our fault, and vice versa. They want us to accept responsibility for them and their feelings when what needs to happen is for people to accept personal responsibility for their actions and the consequences of them. Go by the mantra of “you can only hurt me if I allow it”. Replace guilt and blame with acceptance of your ignorance and ownership over your thoughts as well as your actions as both are actions. Think about this: guilt and blame look back, but there is no way to go back and you cannot do it over.