The Blame Game

You hear it all the time, "it's so and so's fault...they made me do it...they're the reason we're in the mess" and on it goes. It's a well played out scene with the lamp being broken as kids are playing in the living room and saying, "the dog did it". Lately, my awareness around the need to blame others has been heightened. Perhaps it was the election that sparked this sense that people have a bad case of finger pointing but it wasn't the election by itself as it seems to be happening a lot lately in other realms.

As I was doing an introduction to a yoga class the other day, I was commenting on how we really want to listen to what our bodies are telling us during the practice. If your body senses pain or a reaction of "I don't want to do that" then listen and respond from a place of compassion. We come into our yoga practice to reduce suffering, not to increase it and paying attention to our internal cues is vitally important to that process. Although we go to people for guidance, such as a yoga class or a personal trainer, ultimately it is only you that pushes you.

I have heard countless times how an instructor "had me do this or that" with the storyteller then saying that because of it, they got injured or had incredible soreness for days. I understand and appreciate that students put trust in their teachers. We assume that they are qualified and will provide the safest possible environment. We anticipate that they wouldn't do anything to intentionally injure or damage us and I believe that this is largely true.

But what about the times when you go to a large class that has a ratio of 1:15 or more? How can the instructor know what is completely safe for everyone? What if there's just one person in the class that seems to be lagging behind everyone else, so the instructor caters to the majority? This isn't a new topic from me. We need to be the ones who are responsible for ourselves. Period (or full stop, for my Aussie mates!). We are the ones who ultimately decide what is best for our body as we are the ones who know our bodies best.

What is a new topic is how quickly we lay blame onto something outside of ourselves. At times I just feel like yelling out, "own your own stuff!" and quit assigning blame to avoid doing so. This is a challenging practice as we often have to swallow a big lump of pride and admit that it was our own doing, our own choosing that caused the suffering. Imagine what would happen if people took responsibility for their own choices more often. If they simply acknowledged that they made a poor choice, it taught them a lesson and as a result, they have become wiser for future situations.

The blame continuum can stretch from people who complain about seemingly everyone and everything, to those who simply don't want to own up to something. It all catches up with us eventually. Satya, or truthfulness is one of the Niyamas in the eight-faceted path of the yoga sutras. At the close of each class, I end with "May we always know our truth. May we always speak our truth. And may we always live our truth". Perhaps sitting with this idea every day will give us an opportunity to control what we can and let go of the rest...without playing the blame game.

Own it.