The Blame Game Part Four:
The Work Never Ends.

As I have said before in this series of essays, to blame others for what has gone wrong in our lives is a normal behavior.  To forgive and then forsake blame is exceptional.  In this, the last essay of this series on the Blame Game, we will discuss how exceptional people remain extra-ordinary throughout their whole lives. 

One of the biggest errors that people make when they are trying to improve their life is looking for the “fix.”  That is to say, they think that can “fix” their lives the same way that they might fix a flat tire.  But your life is not like a flat tire.  There are no “fixes.”  Any worthwhile change that you make in your life will require that you make choices that are permanent lifestyle changes.  For example, if you are a body builder, no matter how strong you get, you will not remain at your peak strength unless you continue to eat right and exercise effectively.  Stopping your exercise regimen will mean that your muscles will atrophy, and, no matter how fit you once were, your body will grow fat and out of shape.  This is a fact of life.  There is no pill, no machine, no technology outside of yourself that can give you the body you want without you doing the work.  Stop working and your body will lose the muscle. 

We all know this, and yet we often live in denial.  The contemporary media is no help.  There are many people getting rich selling diets, pills, machines, snack foods, you name it, all of which come with the promise that you needn’t have to work at getting the body you want.  All you have to do is pop a pill, or starve yourself for a few weeks, or make this minor adjustment, and, behold, you will look great in your new bathing suit.  What nonsense!  And yet, we are all seduced in believing in the “quick fix” at one time or another.  Whether it is a political quick fix, a medical quick fix, or the spiritual one, we can all fall prey to the seductive lie that we can have what we want without doing the work. 

The same is true for the process of giving up blame.  It is also possible to give up blame, and to prosper for doing so.  But, it is also easy to slip back into the blame game, if one is not careful and diligent.  Giving up blame is not a one-time occurrence in your life.  Like a healthy diet and a workout regimen, forsaking blame is a lifestyle choice that you consciously make every day. 

Let me tell you about a time in my life when I found myself sliding back into the blame game.  It was years after my recovery.  I was walking again, and running, and in peak condition.  No one would have known I was ever on death’s door except for the scars hidden beneath my clothes.    I had a great job, a great home, and a wife that I cared for very much.  On the surface, my life appeared successful in almost every way.  But appearances can be deceiving.  All was not well between my wife and I., and, much to my regret, we ended up quitting on our relationship and getting a divorce. 

My ex-wife and I tried counseling, coaching and all sorts of professional help.  But none of it would sink in because we were both angry, and neither of us was ready to give that anger up.    To be sure, our situation was not so unusual.  Many young couples get divorced.  The big difference is that my ex-wife and I were likely the most equipped people you will ever meet to resolve conflict.   If there were ever two people in the world who should have worked things out, it should have been us.

I am a trauma recovery coach and professional speaker who has spent well over $250,000 on education in the last 15 years on personal growth and development.  My ex- wife is a psychotherapist. We are both highly skilled and well-trained individuals.  We have both suffered trauma and went through the experience of a deeply spiritual recovery.  My Ex broke her neck when she was 16 and she learned to walk again.  I was crushed between two cars, almost lost my legs and I too learned to walk again.  Both of us are very determined and self – empowered people, both have similar goals and dreams.  It seemed that we were meant to be together.  But we failed to bring our skills to the relationship.  We failed to communicate effectively, we failed to give each other what we needed to feel loved.   And both of us used blame to hide away from the fact that were not ready to do the work to keep that relationship alive and thriving.  Blame was our way of hiding out, and not dealing with our own issues.

The most humbling part of the divorce for me was when I realised that much of the deep personal changes that I had made during my recovery had atrophied, like the body builder who stops working out, and wakes up one morning with a pot belly.   I took a good look at myself and asked, “What happened to the inspirational man that once lit up a room with his good nature and positive attitude?  Where is the man that once left his physical therapists and doctors astounded with his rosy out-look and unwavering persistence?   Where did that man go?”

That man, of course, was still there, but I had to uncover him again.  He was buried under a new layer of the blame game, a new crust of anger and mediocrity.  I had to go back into my past and uncover the lessons I learned in recovery, and start to apply them to my life again.  This is partly why I continue to write about my life, and about what it means to be in recovery.   For me, writing is a personal exercise that keeps the positive changes alive, and keeps the ‘muscle’ in shape, or helps me to work it back into shape during those times when I sink back into what is “normal,” and forget what it means to be extra-ordinary.

Blame kills relationships, and all possibilities for love and peace in this world. Yet most of us will, some time in our lives, succumb to the blame game, because it takes looking at ourselves and going through the uncomfortable stuff, the skeletons in the closet, as it were, to stay on top of a life free of blame.  In a word, it takes work, and the work never ends.  Even highly trained people have to work at staying in that place of Grace, or at least coming back to that place after having experienced a backslide.   When a person assumes the work is over, they are on the path to losing everything they have worked to achieve.  When you are in recovery, you must work harder then most people will ever know.   Don’t let that work go to waste by thinking the “fix” is in place.  Learn to love the work, and the results will never leave you.