Woa. October was intense. Did it feel that way for you too? If so, kindness. Sometimes life is just like that.
Of course, it’s more than just what was happening in my day-to-day life that was fueling the intensity… there is also all that is happening in the world at large. The collective fields of fear, anger, revenge, blame, and righteousness are off the charts.
There’s this epic essay that has been living in my mind about it all. However, every time I’ve sat down to write, the words just wouldn’t come through.
So, I’m here today to offer a much abbreviated version.
In this version, I want to offer a prayer for the resolution of the archytypal pattern of blame that underlies so much of what is happening today.
This pattern plays out in my life. My husband comes home late and wakes me up and I lie in bed, seething, blaming him for waking me up *and* for my reaction to being woken.
It’s HIS fault I’m upset and now, can’t fall back to sleep! It is up to HIM to change his ways so that I can sleep and be ok!
This pattern plays out within myself as I blame my headache for how little I accomplished that other day.
It plays out when I feel a surge of anger at how badly people are parking at my son’s school… making it impossible for everyone to fit. How dare they? What’s wrong with them?
It also, of course, plays out on the world stage resulting in atrocity after atrocity resulting in cycles of ever more blame and more retaliation.
While I don’t have the answer for any of this, I do have practices that I turn to in times of self/other blame that help me return to myself, that help me step out of blame and into a place where forgiveness, connection, and reconciliation become more possible.
For instance, lying in bed, seething, awoken yet again by my husband (for possibly the first time in this situation!), I remember one of these practices and am able to re-find my own center, step out of blame, and return to sleep.
The next morning, instead of silently judging/othering him, I feel gratitude. I feel grateful that his actions gave me the opportunity to return to myself, to reclaim a piece of my own power that I’d inadvertently given to him.
[And, of course, I can request a different way of entering the house which is likely to be better received coming from a neutral versus blaming/shaming place. Shifting out of blame myself doesn’t mean things can’t or don’t need to change in other ways as well.]
My prayer is that each time I am able to step out of blame, that this small action has a huge ripple effect within the larger pattern of archetypal blame playing out with such ferocity within the collective right now.
My prayer is that when each of you reading this missive finds yourself caught up in blame, you can find the courage (with support) to return to yourself, to meet yourself with compassion and understanding, and to return to love (of yourself and others).
And, if not, to find love for yourself anyway.
It’s not easy. When I am caught up in blame, the last thing I want to do is to use any of the skills I have honed to step out of that pattern.
Blame feels so righteous, so good.
It feels stunningly amazing to be ‘right’, to hold the other as ‘bad/wrong’ and to feel utterly justified in the anger and blame that I feel. That sense of strength and conviction is so compelling and insistent.
And yet, when I can feel my through all those sensations of rigidity, tension, heat, and inner shaking, oh! What relief! The sense of my own power, agency, and self-responsibility returning… the coming home to myself… well, that feels even better.
with love,
Larisa
ps. Last month, within the Witchy Healer Wisdom School, I spoke about this collective and archetypal pattern of blame including offering a way to work with Pine as an antidote for this pattern.
What to be a part of a wisdom school that actively works in a ritual way to shift these patterns of blame within both ourselves and the world at large while also stepping into your full power as a witchy healer? Yes? That’s great. 🙂 I’d love to have you in the GUIDED cases study program for witchy healers seeking new clients.
The shift out of blame (of logarithms, of self for not doing enough or the ‘right’ things, of others for not responding to our offers, and on and on) and into your full power is one of the keys to thriving as a witchy healer.
Want to know more? Contact me with GUIDED in the text and I’ll send you all the info.
Image by lisa runnels from Pixabay
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