The Pattern Pages: My Fault - Your Fault, The Double Sided Coin of Guilt and Blame

Spinning in Guilt and Blame
Guilt (my fault) and blame (your fault) are two sides of the same coin, opposite extremes of a primarily mental activity that is designed to stop, suppress, or mask the real feelings. Guilt and blame manifest in a sort of "spinning". When I'm in one of these spins, whether it is focused outward or inward, I find I can't cry my feelings. Guilt masks and uses self-hate, primarily. Blame masks and uses rage, primarily. I say primarily, because both these activities can be used to mask, stop, or suppress other feelings as well. Blame uses real and true blaming-rage / hurt-rage. Sometimes it masks terror and other feelings, but most often it uses my real rage as the bedrock for its judgments and proclamations and assigning of fault. Then I find myself spinning in thoughts of blame and rage and how they did XYZ, and s/he said ABC, and so on, cataloging all the nitpicking details of how the person harmed or wronged my. I may tell myself "If I could only tell them how I feel, that would make it better, if they would just listen and hear me, then it would heal." Actually, the healing doesn't happen like that. I know this. I KNOW it. From many years of experience healing my rage, I really do KNOW it. But it still doesn't stop me from wanting to lambast somebody or tell them how rotten I think they are. Guilt uses real and true feelings of self-hate, shame, regret, and so on, to keep me spinning in a cycle of self-judgments. Again, there may be other feelings involved, but often guilt uses self-hate as the bedrock for its judgments and proclamations against me. Then I find myself spinning in thoughts of embarrassment, shame, self-loathing, wishing I hadn't done XYZ, or how I should have ABC. Until the activities and spinning are stopped, the true feelings held hostage beneath the surface will never be able to rise up and cry and truly be healed. But until the real feelings underneath are healed, the pattern won't really be stopped. It's an important distinction to know that guilt and blame at this level are not feelings. In order to move guilt off our planet and out of our souls, we need to really see it for what it is. And what it is not. Real pain can be cried and healed. Blame and guilt do not cry. That is how you can know what is a pattern and what is not. That is how you will know when you have succeeded in reaching beneath the pattern to the real feelings.	See Also: What is Forgiveness Live a Guilt Free Life by Doris Jeanette The Self-Hate Pattern Healing Self-Hate Healing Rage
The Spiral
Blame generates guilt, which generates blame, which generates guilt.... When someone hurls their blame at me, I feel BLAMED. It hurts. It triggers my self-hate which says I must deserve to be hated and blamed. When I accept this blame, when I take it in as something I deserve, I let guilt steal my essence, take my space. Guilt pressurizes. Guilt pushes on us and makes us smaller and smaller. Guilt lives in the space we abdicate. Guilt manipulates, and little by little, erodes your life so that pretty soon, something OTHER than you is in charge of your life. The smaller I feel, the more helpless rage is generated. I may not be able to rage at the person or situation that is blaming me and compressing me. But deep down, in the pit of my stomach and lower, in my survival chakra, a churning rage boils and bubbles. This rage turns to the acting out mask of blame. Guilt has generated blame. My blame may not manifest directly. My rage may feel so helpless and suppressed that it may come out as blame at another person entirely. I may blame someone smaller or more helpless than me. They in turn might feel bad, suppressed, pushed on, pushed down, hated and blamed. They might accept the blame and let guilt take a little more of their space. And so on, and so on. And round and round it goes.
How to Stop the Spinning?
I have had the experience when trying to stop the guilt spinning, of having the needle "jump" to the other side of the record. I notice myself spinning in guilt, and I try to stop the thoughts, stop the run-on litany of how awful I am, and all of a sudden I find myself running on the track of blame and spinning in the litany of how awful "they" are. I haven't stopped the pattern from spinning, I've just jumped over to the opposite side of it. The same thing often happens when I try to stop myself from spinning in blame. I flip over into guilt and self-hate. It helps me to think of the patterns as if they're somewhat alive. They are powered by many many years of survival that says we must not feel what we really feel. And so they have an investment in continuing to spin, in keeping the real feelings suppressed. Since our goal is healing, it's essential to get to the real feelings underneath it all. When I find myself spinning in blame, I try to let myself cry the helpless rage I feel. When I find myself spinning in guilt, I try to let myself cry the self-hate I feel. Or whatever the feelings are that are hiding beneath the mental activity. The first time you do this it might be surprisingly easy. The next time it might not be so easy. That's because the guilt/blame pattern itself, and your own resistance is caught off-guard the first time. But after that it becomes aware that you're trying to break its control, and it clamps down harder. Blaming rage has been stuck spinning in blaming and acting out for so long that it knows no other way. The best way to start with stuck blaming rage is to make it non-verbal. Blaming rage, at the deep gut level, IS a true feeling, and it can be cried, but it's one of the hardest feelings to get to because it has been conditioned to go immediately to masking, which means acting out either blame on others, or guilt on one's self. Good solid blaming rage that moves in sounds and tears is an immensely healing thing. But it needs to be allowed to really cry so that it doesn't continue to act out on others and cause more harm in the world. You might need to use some tricks to get around the walls that suddenly appear between you and your real feelings. Once you've cried the true feelings under the blame, then the magic happens. You'll find new and creative ways to resolve your relationships. You may need to talk to the person about your angry/hurt feelings, but you'll be able to do it without attacking them. And if the relationship needs to be severed, you'll be able to do it without guilt or shame or doubt. And you'll find new acceptance for yourself, faults and all. You'll be able to take up the space that belongs to you, and take your life back from the guilt that has been sitting in your rightful place. It won't happen all at once, and it's not easy. It's a process, it's a path we walk one step at a time. But as long as we keep crying, we can't help but move forward. That's the real magic of the Path of Tears.