Blame Stories - Episode 27

In the middle of the continuum, away from shame and blame, we find kindness and accountability. The middle is where the truth lies. 

Quotes from Pr. Russell Nelson’s talk “Peacemakers Needed” 

“Building bridges of understanding will require much of you.”

“Contention drives away the Spirit, every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences, but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice.”

“Charity is the antidote to contention. Charity is the spiritual gift that helps us cast off the natural man, who is selfish, defensive, prideful, and jealous. Charity is the principal characteristic of a true follower of Jesus Christ. Charity defines a peacemaker. . . One of the best ways we can honor the Savior is to become a peacemaker.”

Peacemakers don’t blame other people. Peacemakers don’t simmer in shame.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, an expert in child development, said,

"You are still a good person even when you struggle." 

You found me! If what you heard on the No Empty Chairs podcast gives you hope for more help, please schedule a free Conversation with Candice. You can also visit candiceclarkcoaching.com for more information about how coaching tools can help you keep your relationship with your children and your faith. While you're there, be sure to pull up a chair and sign up with your email to be the first to know about news and events for moms whose kids don't come to church.

It's going to be okay, and even better!

Transcript

Welcome to the podcast today! I want to talk about certain kinds of stories we tell ourselves that keep us stuck. They keep us stuck emotionally in a cycle of reinforcing negative emotion, and that impacts how we show up in our relationships. These stories make it harder for us to be open and welcoming to other people, and in some cases it’s hardest of all with our children because of our expectations for ourselves and for them.

The stories I’m talking about are on a continuum. At one end of the continuum is shame, where everything is our fault because we are not good enough. I talked about shame stories on the previous episode. And at the other end of the continuum is blame, where everything is someone else’s fault because they are not good enough. Maybe we blame our kids. Maybe we blame people who might have influenced our kids. Shame and blame are two sides of the same coin, a belief system where someone is “doing it wrong” because “something is wrong with them” and therefore “something has gone wrong.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s a painful way of interacting with humanity, with our own humanity and with other human beings who are doing the best they can. You might think of it as a form of black and white thinking. When we’re in shame we lack self-acceptance. When we’re in blame we lack self-awareness. We think all of the difficulty is coming from other people.

As parents of kids who don’t come to church, we can swing between shame and blame, and that’s exhausting. So today I want to share some blame stories that we might be telling ourselves. I want you to be able to identify them for what they are–stories that are creating a painful experience for you.

Here’s a blame story I used to tell myself. I was attending an in-person coaching event and I was feeling some resistance toward some of the ideas. I don’t remember now exactly what made me raise my hand, but I did, and I told the coach at the front of the room the short version of the story of my divorce. This is the three sentence story of my marriage ending in divorce: “The therapist said, ‘You’re both so petty.’ I said, ‘Yes, we are,’ and went to work. And my husband said, ‘yes, she is.’” I told that story to my coach and everyone in the room laughed. But can you hear the blame in it? If only he had been different, we would still be married. Maybe. We don’t know. But my coach recognized that this story was causing me pain. It was making me feel disempowered in my own life. When she told me I might want to change my story, I couldn’t even imagine how I would do that. It felt really true to me, especially because it was essentially a paraphrase of things my husband had actually said. It took me several months–if not years–to realize that whether or not the story I was telling was true in some sense didn’t matter; I just needed to shift my focus. I needed to center my story on myself as the hero of it, rather than as the victim of someone else I was casting as the villain.

There are several ways blame can show up for parents of kids who don’t come to church.
We might blame ourselves for what our kids experience. If we had just been better at family prayer or family dinner or family home evening, things would be different.
We might blame our kids for their problems. If they had just obeyed us better, they wouldn’t be having the difficulties they are having.
We might blame other people who influenced our children. I remember hearing someone talk about a home teacher developing a romantic relationship with a married sister he home taught. The person telling the story said, “I blame that bishop” for making the home teaching assignment. I’m still confused about how they thought the bishop could have known what would happen. It’s easy to put blame where it doesn’t belong, and it may not even be useful to put it in places where there is some true accountability.

If you find yourself telling a blame story, you don’t even have to try to change the story right away. Just noticing that it’s a story your brain is telling you will provide a little relief because you will feel more in control. ”I am feeling blame because I think if that leader had treated my child better, they would still be coming to church.” “I am feeling blame because I think that if my child hadn’t listened to that podcast, they would still be coming to church.” Whatever your blame story is, you don’t need to start shaming yourself for telling it. There are good reasons that your brain is telling these stories, but they ARE just stories, and you can shift them when you’re ready to do that.

I am here to tell you that you don’t have to live in worry or fear, no matter what your loved one is choosing. And if you can take a step back from blaming your emotions on other people, from blaming your children’s choices on other people, you’ll be able to see more clearly and act with more integrity.

The alternative to blame is to move toward the middle of the continuum. In the middle of the continuum we let go of the idea that someone else should have done it differently. We let go of the idea that we are at the mercy of other people. We let go of the idea that there is something wrong with other people when things don’t turn out as we expect. We have more compassion for other people. We have more compassion for our present self who isn’t having the experience we’d hoped for, and we have an eye on setting up our future self for a better experience.

In the middle of the continuum, away from shame and blame, we find kindness and accountability. The middle is where the truth lies. The middle is the most trusting, loving and peaceful. The middle is where a higher belief system lives and motivates us to grow.

Now that we’ve spent some time thinking about shame and blame, I want to share a few of my favorite quotes from Pr. Russell Nelson’s talk “Peacemakers Needed” in the context of the kindness and accountability we can find in the middle of the continuum.

“Building bridges of understanding will require much of you.”

“Contention drives away the Spirit, every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences, but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice.”

“Charity is the antidote to contention. Charity is the spiritual gift that helps us cast off the natural man, who is selfish, defensive, prideful, and jealous. Charity is the principal characteristic of a true follower of Jesus Christ. Charity defines a peacemaker. . . One of the best ways we can honor the Savior is to become a peacemaker.”

Peacemakers don’t blame other people. Peacemakers don’t simmer in shame.

"You are still a good person even when you struggle."

That’s something I once heard Dr. Becky Kennedy, an expert in child development, say. It’s worth repeating, 

"You are still a good person even when you struggle." 

Remember, there are no empty chairs.