Power vs. Blame

Have you ever felt super guilty about something that wasn’t your fault? I have something to say about that, and it has to do with power.

A few years ago, in the Before Times, I was fortunate to take several in-person breathwork classes from Sophia Zogopolous. In each class, I learned something important just by listening to my body's voice while breathing in the special way one breathes during breathwork.

One class was focused on the solar plexus, the power center of the body. As I breathed and allowed myself to feel, I got a message from my solar plexus: "Keep the power, lose the blame."

At the time, I had been processing my feelings of guilt for having caused my parents' divorce (which, of course, as a four year old, I had not).

Four year olds are just beginning to sense their power and test it out. Yet they also still believe the world revolves around them. So when they do something new and something bad happens, they assume, wrongly, that the bad thing was their fault.

So when my body said to me in Breathwork class, "Keep the power, lose the blame," it was a revelation. Having power is good. We each have power to influence people and events around us. We can make or break someone's day by how we treat them, for example. That is power in action.

But to blame ourself for a major negative event involving multiple people and circumstances is overestimating how much power we have. Unless we did something seriously bad like intentionally hurting someone or sabotaging something, most negative events in our lives are only partially caused by us. We may have played a role, but seldom the starring role.

Ditto for positive events. We are not the authors of everything good that happens. We influence, we contribute, we play a role, even a big role, but other people and favorable circumstances also play a part.

Acknowledging our legitimate role in whatever happens is a mature way of relating to our power. We were there, we acted, and we were part of what happened. But we do not take excessive or misplaced responsibility. We only take the responsibility that belongs to us.

Learning that distinction has made a big difference in my inner life. I no longer give myself 100% of the blame, or the credit, for anything. I recognize my impact, feel good about my positive contributions, and resolve to do better when I make something worse.  I strive now to take an appropriate amount of responsibility.

Keep the power, lose the blame. I like it. Thank you body.