A friend sent me a link to one of the fun-day calendars that lists a bunch of obscure days of observation. It lists today, the first Friday the 13th of the year, as Blame-Someone-Else Day!
We can have all kinds of fun with this day – freedom to try anything we want, and if we mess up, we get to blame someone else. We don’t have to take responsibility. It’s like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.
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But can we really hold others in blame – regardless of circumstances – and be free?
Quite the contrary. Holding onto blame energy, even if whatever went wrong was because of someone else’s actions, is like keeping yourself locked in prison.
And if the person you are holding in the blame prison is yourself, it can feel like maximum security lockdown! You’re locking a part of yourself into the person who made that mistake – no forgiveness available and no permission to move on or to take new chances or to evolve into a better you. You’re stuck!
While you’re at it, you might as well just cut out your heart of courage and hand it over to the person or situation you are blaming, because as long as you hold someone or something responsible for your state in life, be it past, present or future, you are giving that circumstance power over you. This is the power of blame.
Your power will remain with that outer situation from your past until you are willing to let go of the blame – and if you’re blaming yourself, until you let go of the guilt.
But how do you let go of blame and guilt when what happened is so real? The best way to let it go it through forgiveness.
What? But what if they did something really horrible? Or mean? Or wrong? What if they don’t deserve forgiveness?
It doesn’t matter, because the forgiveness is for you.
Sometimes forgiveness is difficult because we feel like we are absolving the guilty of responsibility for their actions. We feel like we’re just saying, “Never mind. It’s okay.” And it’s not okay. We don’t want to open ourselves back up to victimization or harm. And we shouldn’t.
In this sense, holding onto the blame or guilt acts as a way to keep us safe. It’s a way our subconscious protects us. It holds onto memories and positions us in a protective armor so we won’t get hurt again.
However, that armor is the prison. We might not get hurt again, but we shut a part of ourselves off from love – from giving and receiving love. This is not true protection.
The only true Get-Out-of-Jail card is forgiveness. Notice I left off the word “free” this time, because holding onto blame and guilt is self-torture. You have been paying dearly with your soul.
In the act of forgiveness, you are not forgetting what happened. You are not releasing the wisdom you have gleaned from the situation. The situation has given you increased awareness, and you can always use this information in discernment of future situations.
What you are letting go of is the hardness in your heart that keeps you from receiving and giving love in healthy ways. You are letting go of what keeps you from being present with the love you are made from which lives in your own heart.
In forgiving, you are freeing yourself from the power of others and restoring power and freedom within yourself.
Forgiveness of others and yourself is what will free you from the prison and return the power to you to change and heal your life circumstances. It gives you freedom to return to love.
So, by the power vested in me, which comes only from the power I grant myself (a lot!), I declare this day Take-Your-Power-Back Day. And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…
May we all free ourselves with forgiveness and restore ourselves to love, power and true freedom!
Have a beautiful, loving, powerful, freeing weekend.
Live and Love Joyfully!
Debra
