The blame culture

It seems to me these days we live in a society where finding someone to blame is more important than finding ways to put things right. It has become the blame culture. I guess if we find a cause then we’re letting ourselves off the hook. So if everything is everyone else’s fault then how responsible are you for yourself?

It takes confidence to accept blame as well as credit. Instead we swing between internalizing ‘why is everything my fault’ and externalizing ‘why does everyone else get it wrong’. To help get a healthy balance it can be useful to get honest feedback from ourselves and others. We may not like what we hear but it can help us move forward positively.

Blaming doesn’t always have to mean punishing. If you realize you’ve made a mistake, you can find ways to make things better. If others use it as an excuse to turn on you, sounds like they are the one with the problem.

A useful reframing exercise is even to restructure you’re own sentences. Instead of saying ‘blame’ try saying something like ‘responsible.’ ‘I’m to blame for this’ becomes, ‘I’m responsible for this’. You’ve just said the same thing but responsible sounds like there’s something you can do about it rather than just be punished.

In the days to come will be some ways of addressing blame and blaming, or contact Sentient Counselling.

#blameculture

Tags: blame, counselling, reframing