When something’s gone wrong in your relationship, the temptation to put the blame on someone else is HUGE.
When you decide that the fault lies with your husband, your stepchild, your husband’s ex-wife, your sister-in-law, your mother-in-law, or your marriage, let’s just say, you’ve just bought yourself a ticket to a wild ride on the Blame Game Hamster Wheel.
Once you perceive something’s gone wrong, it’s so much easier to assign blame to someone else rather than take time to examine yourself and your role in the problem.
We’ve all been there! Welcome to the club.
Your brain is designed to find evidence that supports and confirms the thoughts you think.
When you’ve decided who’s at fault, your brain will go to work digging up a slew of examples that prove what’s making you mad is legit.
It’s exactly this kind of default thinking that sets the Blame Game Hamster Wheel spinning.
But make no mistake, this kind of thinking is a dangerous trap.
It damages connection and intimacy and creates unnecessary stress and anxiety.
It fuels defensiveness. And defensiveness fuels the Blame Game hamster Wheel.
When you catch yourself assigning blame, call a time out.
Manage your mind to stop the Blame Game cold.
When you are unhappy with someone’s behavior or the circumstances you believe they have created, you need to take a peek into that mind of yours.
As you begin, remember this immutable fact: the ONLY person’s thoughts, feelings and actions you have any control over are your own. No one else’s.
When you spend time dwelling on what the other person should or shouldn’t do, say or feel, you are depleting your energy on a lost cause. You have handed over the keys to your happiness and well-being to another.
A managed mind is the only way to regain your power to slow down the Blame Game Hamster Wheel.
A managed mind creates an intentional life. And that’s your goal.
You need to create this shift so you can jump off the Hamster Wheel and get on with the life you want to live.
Ask your self these questions to begin to get your thinking in check…
Once you accept that you have no control over another adult’s choices, think long and hard about your answers. Write them down.
Mull them over in your mind.
Take some time to consider the life you want and how you intend to create it.
- Who do I want to be in this relationship?
- How do I intentionally choose to show up?
- How am I contributing to this discord?
- What do I want to think about this person that can help me calm my stressed out brain?
- What is it I want?
- How can I ask for what I want, knowing I can’t control or manipulate the other person’s response?
- Do I need to set boundaries to protect my emotional or physical safety?
- How can I/we handle this challenge/problem differently?
All relationships have hot spots.
Some are periodic, some persist with a life-span as long as the relationship itself. And that’s perfectly normal.
The challenge is to keep the unsolvable and persistent problems from contaminating your attempts to resolve the solvable challenges and problems.
Ask yourself what persistent and unsolvable problems are a predictable part of your relationship?
Determine how you can you mentally corral them or fence them off to keep them from bleeding into or interfering with the solvable ones?
Responsible complaining about challenges and problems takes a managed mind and practice.
- Refrain from criticisms, shoulds and blame.
- Focus on solutions, either ones you can unilaterally enact or ones that you determine together to produce a win-win, even if it’s not perfect, outcome.
- Show compassion for your human-ness and your willingness to look at your own role in the problem.
What has you trapped on the Blame Game Hamster Wheel in your relationship?
Are there hot spots that are driving you crazy that you can’t seem to resolve?
Are you ready to jump off the Blame Game Hamster Wheel and intentionally create the life you really want to live?
I’m here to help.
Contact me right here to set up your Free Strategy Call and let’s set the right wheels in motion to make it happen.
