What is with me that I cannot seem to leave the guilt of a failed relationship until I have proved myself in the right? That’s exactly what BJ did. He proved to himself that he was in the right-that all the blame was mine-and therefore he can move on and I will shoulder the blame. What legalists we are. How judgmental. How full of shame and blame for others and ourselves. If we would just forgive ourselves; would that not do away with the necessity of finding others to blame?
(excerpt from the work in progress, Before I Went Crazy, Cherry Odelberg, 2010).
Today I am asking myself, “Does the element of blame have to be present to prove a point?” Is blame a necessary ingredient of debate? Is blame part of a grammatically correct sentence, a leg of logical debate, necessary to well phrased rhetoric? Why do I insist on either laying blame or accepting blame?
Elizabeth Gilbert, in a most excellent read titled; Eat, Pray, Love (Penguin 2006) says, “…the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.”
Apparently that’s why we need a savior, a redeemer, a sacrificial lamb, a scapegoat, and why we need to be reminded of this often. As Gilbert goes on to say, “This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping (2006).”
So today, as the sunshine returns and we are on the edge of spring; I resolve to let go of blame; especially self-recrimination, and thus free myself of blaming others, too. Spring is a time of rebirth. Breathe deep! Take your first cry in a new world!
“I let go of my failure, I let go of success; I let go of perfection; I let go of this mess… Now its time to let go of my guilt; And I know its time to let go of regret; And I let go of frustration; And I forgive and forget; I release all control; and I hold nothing back…” Kevin Decker, from the Song, Hold On, by Hail the Sound, 2010 http://www.myspace.com/hailthesound