Blame

Accepting blame is something I am -or- have historically been less than pleased to accept. Historically, I have had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that feels connected to being wrongly accused of something especially if I don’t perceive that I am to blame. Defensiveness is how it can look.

This morning, I missed my flight and it was -all my fault- . When I told my mom, who I woke from sleep at 6:30am her time, she said, “There’s no one at fault for this but you.” I said, “Yes, it is all my fault.” No wave of emotion swept over me, no pit in my belly. There was a palpable calm at the other end of the line in my mom’s energy, something about me accepting blame that pacified the situation. And the energy on my end passed through and I was seemingly unaffected…by that.

In the tangle I got myself into beyond missing my orginal flight, there were larger thoughts and feelings at work for me. How I have been approaching this trip with some dread. This is yet another thing that I’ve been cajoled into by my mom. Not planned by me, not a desired venture for me. The timing’s off. My children are to start school this week and I am not there (they are 3 and 2, the two year old going for the first time). Overall, it feels obligatory—part of me wants to spend time with my mom—the part that wants to be nurtured by a mother, that wants a safe place to land, that wants to be cared for by a parental figure while I am struggling to find my own path as a nurturing safe space type of parent to my own little children. I know that isn’t going to be the reality of visiting. I can see already from our interaction this morning -and 40 years of being mothered by my mother- that I will be on my guard, protecting my energy and coming home with these subtle inner longings that were never pacified to dive into my own family life where much is demanded of me, my energy; my personal strength not recharged by having a nourishing experience with my mom.

Talk about blame, eh?

My mom is a human being, heart in the right place and doing the best she can with the tools at her disposal. Becoming a parent has made this reality glaringly obvious to me. Accepting the responsibility of finding myself nurtured, nourished and cared for, feels good and right. The power to create this experience resides within me. It resides within my daughters. This power resides within each person who claims it.

In my particular situation, I am relating strongly with my intuition and inner knowingness as I never have before. I am relating with spirit as I never have before. I am balancing these things with reason and logic and starting to integrate the experienced but unseen aspects into making decisions that work for me in my life.

I take full responsibility for my actions that contributed to how this morning unfolded. I don’t feel bad about my role in it. I don’t feel the feeling in the pit of my stomach that I have done something wrong. Maybe it is because I have taken ownership of each piece that was mine to control and I have resisted taking on feelings of others in this particular energy situation.

As I walked around and interacted with some people at the airport, I heard people casting blame as delay upon delay happened. It seems a way of pacification, a way of bringing that feeling that you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not your fault, it was not within your control so it’s ok…feelings that I have, in the past, craved because of that instant pacification. I now have the sense that in the scheme of things, how this morning unfolded matters little. What matters is an observed and felt difference in how I moved through.