An Empowered People Will Change Our World.
“The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave.” Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
I’ll get back to that quote in a minute. Before bravery, comes naming what gets in our way of truly living in the world… what gets in the way of bravery.
Blame Disempowers
It’s routine for clients to say something like… “Everything that is happening is my fault.”
Upon hearing these sentiments I find myself taking a deep breath.
This sentence is communicating a lot to me. For one, it lets me know that we’re getting into deep territory- which is good news. It also reminds me how deep the oppressive dominant narrative is for humans.
I know what has been constructed inside that person’s mind, that allows them to believe these lies of blame, this depth of shame. This is the workings of the oppressive dominant narrative that has been around for decades, centuries, millennium. We all have been born of this construction.
Most of us can tangibly see how we’ve been incarcerated by the self-blame oppressive narratives of our mind, in some way or another:
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- “If only I had done/said X, Y wouldn’t be happening…”
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- “I am suffering right now, and it’s my fault…”
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- “I knew better but I did X, so I deserve Y….”
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- and so on, and so on.
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- “I did X…”
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- “Doing X had Y affect…”
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- “Doing X has harmed/influenced Y, and I will make that right by Y”
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- “In the future I will …”
Love it!