Excerpt from "What to Do About the People Who Blame You for Everything"
by Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev.
Dec 13, 2015; Retrieved Apr 9, 2018
...The most critical practice to undertake when in a relationship with a blamer is to get irrefutably clear on who we are in our own heart—which only we can know. What is my truth?: This is the question in which we must marinate. The core of protecting ourselves from a blamer is establishing and continually supporting an impenetrable boundary between what we know about ourselves and what this other person needs to believe about us. This boundary requires that we be willing to dive deeply into our own heart, to discover our real truths—without distortion—with a fierce and unwavering intention to meet ourselves as we actually are. Our practice is to create a tether into our heart, and build a place inside ourselves where the blamer’s words cannot reach—where we know (and know we know) who we are. Rather than harming us, then, the other’s blame can then be used as a red flag, to remind us to return to our heart to discover what is actually so for us—separate from the other and their story. Their blame becomes the catalyst to direct our energy away from their narrative and toward our own inarguable truth.
It is heartbreaking when someone we love sees us in a way that doesn’t feel true or positive, but just because another person (no matter how much we love them) relates to us as bad or guilty does not mean that we are those things. We can mourn this person not knowing us, or not seeing us correctly—without having to become the object of their blame. Further, we do not need to convince the other of who we are to be who we are. We need not convince them of our innocence to be innocent. We can simply choose to reject their projections, to return them to sender, if you will. Their projections belong to them; we can let them pass through us. While we feel and grieve the gap between who we are and who they see, it is not a gap that must be, or in some cases, can be bridged.
We can’t control whether another person will listen to or be interested in our truth, but we can control for how long and with how much energy we will attempt to correct their version of our truth. We can also control how and if we want to continue in a relationship with someone who chooses not to relate to who we actually are.
In relating with a blamer, some important questions to contemplate are:
by Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev.
Dec 13, 2015; Retrieved Apr 9, 2018
...The most critical practice to undertake when in a relationship with a blamer is to get irrefutably clear on who we are in our own heart—which only we can know. What is my truth?: This is the question in which we must marinate. The core of protecting ourselves from a blamer is establishing and continually supporting an impenetrable boundary between what we know about ourselves and what this other person needs to believe about us. This boundary requires that we be willing to dive deeply into our own heart, to discover our real truths—without distortion—with a fierce and unwavering intention to meet ourselves as we actually are. Our practice is to create a tether into our heart, and build a place inside ourselves where the blamer’s words cannot reach—where we know (and know we know) who we are. Rather than harming us, then, the other’s blame can then be used as a red flag, to remind us to return to our heart to discover what is actually so for us—separate from the other and their story. Their blame becomes the catalyst to direct our energy away from their narrative and toward our own inarguable truth.
It is heartbreaking when someone we love sees us in a way that doesn’t feel true or positive, but just because another person (no matter how much we love them) relates to us as bad or guilty does not mean that we are those things. We can mourn this person not knowing us, or not seeing us correctly—without having to become the object of their blame. Further, we do not need to convince the other of who we are to be who we are. We need not convince them of our innocence to be innocent. We can simply choose to reject their projections, to return them to sender, if you will. Their projections belong to them; we can let them pass through us. While we feel and grieve the gap between who we are and who they see, it is not a gap that must be, or in some cases, can be bridged.
We can’t control whether another person will listen to or be interested in our truth, but we can control for how long and with how much energy we will attempt to correct their version of our truth. We can also control how and if we want to continue in a relationship with someone who chooses not to relate to who we actually are.
In relating with a blamer, some important questions to contemplate are:
- When I search my own heart, is my intention in line with what the blamer is accusing me of? (Am I responsible in some way for what they are claiming and can I look at that part of myself?)
- What is my heart’s intention in this relationship?
- Have I tried to express my experience or my truth to this person?
- Do I experience this person as interested in or open to my truth?
- Am I allowing myself to experience the feelings that arise as a result of being unfairly blamed and/or not heard?
- Can I honor and grieve the gap between who they are relating to and who I am?
- Can I know myself as who I am even in the face of their need to relate to me as someone else?
- Can I allow their negative projections to remain with them, and not take them in as my own?
- Can I let myself be who I am and know myself as who I am, even with this person believing that I am responsible for how they feel?
- Can I honor myself as innocent even in the face of the guilt they are assigning me?
- Do I want to remain in relationship with someone who sees me in a way that is out of alignment with who I know myself to be? If so, why?