The Blame Game

Looking back knowing everything I know now- it’s so surreal. 

How many things could have been so much better had I known how to navigate them. 

But I didn’t. 

Looking back can be a dangerous place. 

Looking back to blame only leads you to blowing up more things in your life. 

When I first started understanding that the work I was doing was taking me backwards- it felt like I was looking for an answer, looking for the magic moment where everything went wrong. 

I went alllll the way back. 

I found a lot of really important moments that shaped me, challenged me and fundamentally changed the way that I lived my life. 

None of those moments promised me a different life. 

It was fun at first to think of who I would have been had certain moments been different. I pictured an easy life full of love, life, and of knowing my place in the world early. 

It seemed so obvious that if XYZ hadn’t happened, I would be a completely different human. 

When I started playing the game of “who I would have been” it made me so sad. I was mourning the loss of what should have been. 

I felt like my real world had been stolen from me. 

My thoughts and emotions stayed stuck in this loop for a while and the longer I stayed, the more angry I became. 

I became full of blame for the unhealed people that hurt me. 

Full of blame for the way that they changed me and stole my life from me. 

I was unable to see anything else until I truly realized that switching one outcome does not guarantee another.

Something worse could have happened. The same things could have shown up in different lessons. 

The point is, getting stuck in blame, does nothing. 

It doesn’t fix anything. 

I thought that finding the source would change something fundamentally within. 

I don’t know what, but I realized when I found the source – it only made me more sad. It didn’t lift the weight. 

In fact, it seemed to bury me more. 

All of my feelings were just out in the open now. I wasn’t pretending to be stronger than I was. I wasn’t pretending that it didn’t hurt. I wasn’t pretending that it didn’t affect and change me drastically anymore. I was owning what happened and every emotion I felt because of it. 

Yet nothing felt better. Nothing felt lighter. 

I was stuck. 

I was a victim. 

My thoughts said that there was nothing that I could do to change the situation. 

My sadness quickly turned to anger and my anger was fueled by years of unspoken resentment. 

All the hurt that I had pushed down – everything that I had kept to myself- all that I had lost- everything that I struggled with… now I wanted justice. I wanted revenge. I desperately wanted to balance the scales…  but when I thought about actually taking any form of revenge…  it didn’t feel good in my soul. 

I was wishing to hurt someone else and that felt worse than I was currently feeling. 

I started thinking about the people that had hurt me. 

I wanted to look at this more objectively, look at them more independently and remove the hurt and pain. A lot of this had happened in the past. Had they changed? Had they grown? How did others speak of them at this point in our lives? 

I took myself out of it and observed. 

Some of them are still acting like really shitty human beings. That’s not my anger speaking, that was just a fact. They were mean to others and went out of their way to hurt them. That isn’t being a great human any way you spin it. 

I dove deeper wanting to witness anything positive about them. 

Every single one of them had positive things about them as well, even if they were small moments- they were still there. That meant that they have the capacity to be kind, caring and shows that they know how  to be a nice human… 

So… why do they actively choose to also be horrible? If they are capable of being kind, why do they do the things they do to others? 

I got out of my feelings and I went scientific. 

I observed. 

This time, I looked back not to see myself. I knew my story. This time, I went back to see theirs. 

When I started looking at everyone around me I started seeing all the moments that their hurt spilled over. All the moments that they themselves took on. All the times that they didn’t have outlets for what was happening to them, around them- within them, and it changed who they became. 

We all have things that we struggle with. 

It was in that moment that I realized that in order for us to truly heal- we must find a way to let go. 

To forgive. 

So many of us are walking around carrying so much trauma within us- completely unaware of how much it truly affects us, acting as if it doesn’t bother us, stuffing down so much pain and trapping it within. I remembered that not long ago, I too walked around making hurtful choices. It wasn’t until I started working fiercely to change the narrative that I was able to stop. I looked within once again, this time, not to find more blame, not to find any answers. I looked back to understand that I wasn’t staying stuck because of what had happened to me. 

I was staying stuck because I wasn’t dealing with what happened to me. 

I wasn’t accepting that it happened and that was the only path I knew. 

I wasn’t looking for new paths either. I was staying stagnant on the same one I didn’t want to be on anymore and I wasn’t doing anything to change it.
I wasn’t accepting my story, I was resisting it. 

I was looking for someone to blame that would fix my story. 

I was looking for an easier path. 

I was looking for someone to change the way I felt about life, about living. 

Nothing was going to change it though. 

There was no apology or time machine that would allow the outcome to be any different. 

There was no magic potion or external source that could fix this. 

I only saw one way to get what I wanted, and that was to go back in time. I needed to open my eyes. There is always more than one path. Why was I clinging so hard to this one? 

If I wanted it to change, then it was up to me to find my way through my feelings. I also could see – CRYSTAL clear- that I was not alone in this. A lot of us felt this way. I knew that in order to truly accept what had happened, I needed to do something good. 

I needed to do something good with my story. 

I took all my hurt and I let it out. 

Tears spilled down my cheeks as my fingers flew over the keyboard. I couldn’t stop. After 12 hours of writing, I knew that I was writing a book. I knew that this was different from anything I had written before. This was the feeling I had dreamt of for a lifetime. 

I was a vessel for this story, and this story- had so much to do. 

It was everything that I had always dreamed and so much more. 

It was perfectly imperfect – exactly as I wanted it. 

It was everything I wanted to be a prime example that you didn’t have to match any prerequisites to become a published author. 

It was everything that I needed to show others that every dream we have is possible if you work at it and never give up. The little things are the big things. Let them build. 

It was everything I needed to show others that it didn’t matter what the story was- where it came from – we are all capable and it can look like anything you want it to. It’s yours. It’s meant for you to do something beautiful with. 

When I finished The Accident, How to Shake the Sh!t Out of Your Life – I felt full of confidence yet full of doubt. 

It was everything that I wanted and more, but I knew that if I published it- it’s out there forever. I can’t decide it sucks later and pretend I didn’t write it like I always did before… This was it. 

It was permanent. This would forever be my first book. 

I decided to sit back and read it again not as the girl that wrote it- but as a girl who needed it.  

The same thing that happened every single time I popped open the pages… 

I fell in love all over again. 

This book was perfect. It was every single thing I needed it to be for what it needed to do. 

I wiped my tears, took a breath, and sent it out into the world. 

This would forever be my first book, and I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful than that. 

All of the fear left me. 

My longest dream came true. 

I am a published author. 

I did it. 

I soaked it all in. 

Healing isn’t linear. Things from my first book would still come back to challenge me- to see how much I have truly learned while other pieces I couldn’t see at the time started to unfold. 

This was just the beginning. 

The harder the lesson, the deeper the dive. 

I understood that it was time to take myself off of a timeline for my life and it was time to take all of my expectations off the table. 

It was time for me to slow down and start opening my eyes to new perspectives. 

It was time for me to start living my life for myself. It was time for me to start loving myself deeply and repairing all of the damage that my thoughts had done to myself. 

I had spent so long blaming everyone else because it was easier than accepting my story and accepting myself. It was so easy for me to look at others’ faults instead of looking at how I was participating in this cycle. It was so easy for me to see the obvious that I didn’t realize that’s what I had been looking for. The hard path that I was choosing to stay stuck on, was actually the easier path. I didn’t realize that it was the easier path, but I was accustomed to stuffing down the things that hurt me. That was what I knew. The harder path is that of the unknown.

I thought that I was looking for the “easier” path, but I was on it. 

I said that I didn’t want that,  but my actions and thoughts were showing me that I did.

It showed me in the way that I allowed my thoughts to loop around what wasn’t right. It showed me in the way that I used the majority of my energy to overthink and wish to control the way that others behaved. I was completely affected by others’ moods and actions. I let it all spiral within me. 

Which also showed me that I wasn’t aligned with myself. I automatically, and unknowingly, searched for familiarity and that is what led me right back into the same lessons in different forms – over and over and over again. 

It took every single moment to get here. 

Now looking back I can see how much more uncomfortable and difficult life got when I stopped going with what was easy and familiar to me, which at first, frustrated me endlessly because it felt like I would NEVER get out of this loop of hard things. I realized more quickly though that the experience is what you create. My thoughts immediately looked for what was familiar and it saw discomfort as more pain. I was creating internal chaos. Seeing this, I started rerouting my thoughts. I took what I knew and applied it. I slowed down and I changed my thoughts to what was good, what was fun- what was new. I allowed myself to celebrate all of my wins big and small. Every single thing I caught and rerouted- I applauded. I started thriving instead of surviving. 

Looking back I can see how much more free I became the more that I was challenged. The deeper my understanding became- the more enriched I felt. 

I was still the same person. My situation didn’t change. Life didn’t suddenly get easier. 

Life got harder – it was full of scary choices and completely unknown. I had no idea where I was or where I was going because I had never been here before. 

All I did know was that my body wasn’t full of pain, doubt, blame and fear like it had been before. 

I wasn’t looking for anyone to save me anymore. 

I knew that I had everything I needed within. 

I was building something beautiful. Something that would show others how to save themselves too. 

It all starts with us. 

Our story is what we do with it. How we think about it, and the actions and reactions that come with those thoughts. We build our lives. We are responsible for what comes from what is. 

While we cannot control most things, we can control ourselves. 

The harder path is to choose the opposite of what we know, and once we start to grasp how much of the life we crave lives there,  the more we are able to comprehend how capable we really are. It becomes impossible to go back. 

This is the path to truly experiencing life and it’s so much closer than we realize. Every single day, we are all what we choose. We are our thoughts and our beliefs. Bring them to the surface. Greet them as friends. Hold yourself, love yourself and forgive yourself for all the things that you didn’t know until now. Applaud yourself for all the times you didn’t know how you were going to get through it- but you did. Applaud yourself for never giving up, for learning through it all. Let go of who you were- who you’ve been- and focus on who you are, where you are going- and why.

Look at the way you treat yourself. 

Find ways to treat yourself more kindly, more lovingly and to allow yourself grace as you learn and when your day feels hard, recommit to yourself. Give yourself everything that you have ever needed. Be the safest- kindest- most caring space for yourself. 

Reroute your thoughts to build you, not blame you. 

The past is over. 

The present is right now. 

The future is full of endless possibilities, the good, the bad and everything in between. 

Trust that you will have the tools, the wisdom, and the strength you need to forge your way through it all and leap. 

Look for the lessons. They are everywhere, every day. 

And remember that there is beauty even at rock bottom. 

It’s your choice if you find it.