Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Perfect Scapegoat

Who is your scapegoat?

We all have one (or many)

They are the person(s) you hold responsible for everything that is going wrong with your life?

You know you have a scapegoat if:

a) you consistently need to call a friend and complain about a certain someone (or many someone's)
b) whenever you are faced with a disappointment you look for fault outside yourself
c) you don't feel you have any control over your reactions to life's never ending list of events

I'm not bringing this idea of scapegoats up to make anyone feel guilty, embarassed or dumb.

In fact, I'm bringing it up for the opposite effect.

To empower you to see beyond what you are projecting out onto others and get you to ultimately take responsibility for EVERYTHING in your life.

We all have this affliction of placing responsibility for our issues on someone other than ourselves.  Why?  Because it's easy.  Taking responsibility for ourselves, our lives and our troubles is hard.

But the truth is, YOU are the only one who can possibly be contributing to your life in any way, shape or form.  So, does placing responsibility on someone else's shoulders do you any good?  No.  Does it get you any further ahead?  No.  Does it somehow make your troubles magically disappear?  No.

You know what does do you good, get you ahead and make your troubles magically disappear?  Yep.  You guessed it.  Taking responsibility.

One way we can do this is to catch ourselves as we are about to go on a rant about how 'so and so' did 'such and such' and made us feel 'this and that'. 

The idea is to have enough courage to stop yourself, reflect on what you are saying and ask yourself 'how am I projecting my shame, guilt, resentment, fear, etc. onto this person and making them responsible for my feelings and my challenges?'

This idea of taking responsibility for yourself is something I've been working on a lot for the past few years.  Sometimes (okay, many times) I slip up and catch myself getting caught up in the blame game.  But what used to take me months to overcome, now only takes me a few hours or a day because I've learned to recognize that anytime I bring someone else into my story I have some digging to do inside of myself.  I've also learned to seek help through trusted friends who will shine the light on my truth and get me to see it for myself instead of fuel the blame game fire.

Here's the other thing you need to remember about any kind of personal discovery or lesson you are learning.  Forgiveness.  You must forgive yourself for engaging in the behavior.  Holding onto a grudge against your self isn't going to make you a big fan of self discovery and may keep you from owning your story. 

So, do yourself a favor, forgive yourself without exception and reap the benefits and rewards of a job well done.

1 comment:

I enjoy receiving your respectful comments :)