Why Blame is a Personal Prison
Deep down, in the quiet spaces of our rational, logical thinking, we all know the truth: that there is nothing we can do to change what has already happened.
So … why do we still try?
The past is not only impossible to change; it is completely unrealistic to expect it to do so. It is an unchangeable, non-negotiable, and irrefutable fact.
Yet, countless well-meaning and good people fall prey to the crippling effects of regret, anger, pain, and unforgiveness. We treat these emotions as if they are tools we can use to fix the past, but in reality, they are ghosts that only exist in the graveyards of yesterday.
Every one of those “corrosive emotional chemicals” is triggered by a thought of something ~ or someone ~ that no longer exists in the reality of the here and now. Every single one of those emotions has one thing in common: they all tie us to and keep us stuck in the past.
The Phantom Court
You spend your life volleying the “ball of regret” back into the court of yesterday. Hoping, somehow, to regain the wasted time, to soothe the betrayal, fix bad choices and unfulfilled expectations, or to mend the fragmented pieces of a “perfection” that likely never existed in the first place.
But here is the Brutal Truth: There is no court to throw that ball back into.
The past has no place to call home. When you refuse to accept this, you attempt to rebuild that “yesterday” with the bricks of blame, anger, rage, and hatred. You expect these walls to keep you safe, but they only encase you in a prison of your own despair.
When you finally stop the volley and let go, you see the truth: the ball has been in your court the whole time. You’ve been holding onto it with a death-grip called control and unforgiveness. This grip is a corrosive, emotional, and chemical force, eating away at your core and slowly killing your potential from the inside out.
Chains vs. Locks: The Blame Paradigm
We need to talk about blame. Blame is a crippling, tormenting chain that sometimes gets wrapped around you, but you lock it there with your own hand by transferring responsibility to those you’re blaming.
In life, adversities are the chains. These are the unavoidable, objective realities that show up uninvited ~ the bad choices of others, the inadvertent accidents, the “unwanted” cards we’re dealt. These chains are heavy, but they don’t have to be permanent.
Blame is the lock. We cannot always control the chains that are thrown on us, but we are in complete control of the lock.
We have two choices:
- Lock the chains to your soul by pushing blame onto anything or anyone to relinquish control. This ensures you stay tethered to the trauma by remaining the victim of your circumstances.
- Accept the reality of what happened and keep the responsibility to respond realistically and securely within the realm of your own inner self-control.
The Key to the Here and Now:
Personal responsibility is the only key that fits the lock of blame. When you replace unrealistic, irrational reactions with intentional, realistic responses, the chains fall away.
The more accountable you are to the reality of the “here and now,” the less baggage you carry from a past that does not have ears to hear you.
The freedom you seek stands just beyond the bars of unforgiveness.
As long as you choose corrosive emotions, you remain a voluntary inmate in a prison of your own making. But the moment you choose the healing logic of acceptance, forgiveness, love, understanding, and peace, the keys to that prison drop right into your lap.
The past is a graveyard. Stop dragging around headstones and start walking toward a new sunrise.
