On Becoming Immune to Blame:
What do you do when someone in your life get’s triggered by something you do, and goes off into blaming you for having done some injustice to them?
Right off its easy to become defensive in some way. I try not to, because defensiveness often shows up as offensiveness. Can you relate?
Another pitfall is to collapse into, “I’m sorry,” to be over compliant just to calm them down. This only supports them being right and you being wrong, and this polarity prolongs suffering. You become their blaming dumping ground.
So here are some Positive Choices.
- Speak in a way that does not offend. Tone and loudness of voice has a huge effect. One teacher of mine says, if you are angry, don’t look into the other person’s eyes, otherwise you are blasting their soul with negative energy, and this is sure to escalate more conflict. If you are really angry, probably the best choice is to have a time out, with the intention of talking again when you both are more calm.
- Another teaching is to stop relating to their angry aspect. No matter how they are behaving, remain focused on their kind aspect. This offers the best space for their kindness to come out. This one real takes conscious effort, but can work magic.
- If you feel you have your own emotions under control, you can ask the other person if they are willing to sit down in a calm way to, not to blame, but listen and learn from each other. If the other person is not willing to do this, your only recourse is to leave that toxic environment.
I have learned through experience that leaders are big targets to blame. Chronic followers always wind up feeling like victims of someone else they gave their power away to. To some degree it happens every year at our I AM U Masters Program, usually somewhere in the middle of the year. This is when their spiritual practice, especially the breath-work practice) activates the Kundalini which causes spiritual opening and the bubbling up of trauma memories and sometimes dramatic reactions. The homework of looking into the mirror at their own shadows may feel too confronting and overwhelming for some students, and so they go to their addiction of choice – blaming the teacher for something he did wrong. I always warn the students. I did not create this program to be comfortable.
When stress is up, instead of introspecting the inner cause, many people go into outer judgment:
“It’ someone else’s fault for my upset. Someone shortened me from what I’m entitled to. “
So, I the leader of the program, often become their target. I am no guru. I am very human. I make mistakes frequently like everyone else. But because I am the leader, students have super high expectations of me. At first, some put me on a pedestal, then later they knock me off when they find out how human I am. I even warn them in the beginning that they will do this, and they still do it, I believe because the blame habit is so ingrained in our culture.
I am just the steward of this program, which is only as effective as students do their own inner work. Usually the one’s that blame me are the the ones who are not doing their homework. Our most important homework is nurturing oneself. When we are loving ourselves, there is no one to blame because we find a way to meet our own needs. We don’t allow ourselves to be distracted by others problems, and if another person throws a road-block our way, we look for a way around it rather than engage in conflict.
In popular three dimensional thinking, “the outer world is the source and cause of my existence. “ This paradigm always has us being victims, pawns to how the world treats us. So if our existence is threatened, we will fight against the threat or take off running in order to survive. But there are no winners from fighting and no fulfillment in running.
In fifth dimensional awareness (which is our true source code) the source of everything comes first from within. Whatever I am perceiving is what I am creating. Outer experience is a reflection of my inner reality. I AM already victorious just because I exist. I am abundant and all my needs are being met.
So I, Joa, ask myself “What is it in me that has students or people turn against me. I hear there is still a deep habit of expecting it, based on so many past life memories of being projected upon and often killed for being different, too happy, for saying my truth, even when the information was not accepted or believable to the culture, and especially if I admit to a mistake.
Our culture is so brainwashed that mistakes are bad. I learned creativity from my artist mother. She was constantly remolding the clay. Like steering a ship, I am constantly correcting my course. The idea of perfectionism gets projected onto me often. Most of the time I am just joyfully creative, and this can bring up a lot of subconscious jealousy in those who do not feel creative, joyful, and free. And they will want to pick me apart instead of heal that criticism in their self.
So in my subconscious expecting to be misunderstood and some degree martyred, I attract exactly that, until I get the lesson. The lesson is to completely let go of what others think about me and have compassion for all their projections. I have found myself still getting too close to students and then crushed when they project their negativity on me.
It’s all an opportunity to remember all upsets really come from within. They come from how I am miss-interpreting my life. This is the gift of being a teacher. Its being tempered like steel by every reaction against me, and remembering to reinterpret the situation. No one is against me really. All that mind stuff is illusion. They are just resisting their their growth, and I being their teacher, often threaten their ego. They are going to have growing pains as they stretch themselves, and there are days of rebellion, of finding ourselves clinging onto our old patterns.
All eventually gets transformed in the loving. Sooner or later we discover all fear is illusion. Only love is real. On the soul level we are all one, and by remembering this, we can allow the duality dance to be the silly illusionary game that it its and quit taking any of it personally.
God within is my source of everything. Every upset is an opportunity to connect more strongly to the great Loving that connects us all. So be it.