00:00 

Well, hello there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 196, "How to Break the Blame/Defense Cycle." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Alright, my friends, welcome to the podcast today. So glad to have you here. Thanks for taking the time to join me. I've got some good stuff for you today. Before, I just want to say if you have not left me a review, will you please get onto iTunes or Spotify and you can do that there. It's a great way for you to spread the love and help other people find tools that are really going to help their lives. I, oh gee whiz, these tools have changed my life and they can change other people's lives. If they're changing yours, please consider sharing this with people. You can share it individually or you can go to my Facebook page, Tanya Hale LDS Life Coaching, and you can get on there and every Monday this comes out where you can share it on Facebook as well. And the more people we can get listening, the more we can heal relationships and help create stronger relationships with our children, with our spouses, with our parents, I mean, whoever. I mean, these tools are so fabulous. I cannot even begin to explain how they have impacted my life in a positive way and that's why I love to share this so much. 

01:40 

So that being said, let's jump into today, shall we? So I have been noticing lately how much the concept of blame has been coming up in my coaching and it seems like a lot of other little situations that I've been privy to. And I think the blame is something that is so easy for us to engage in because because our primitive brains love to avoid responsibility. Blame says that someone else is at fault. Somebody else needs to fix this. Somebody else needs to change. And all of that feels really good to our primitive brain, as well as the counterparts of, "it's not my fault. I don't need to fix anything. I don't need to change." So, I mean, I think we've all been there, right? I've been there, spent so much of my life there. Blame feels really good in the moment because it avoids the initial pain of taking that responsibility and of stepping into a space of saying, "whoa, I've got work to do here." But after that initial pain, after that initial avoidance of pain is over, then it feels horrible because the result of blaming someone else is that we get stuck and then we feel powerless. If I feel horrible because of someone else, then I don't have any control over how I feel. I am disempowered. When I don't have control, then I'm not responsible for fixing it. And if there's no way to fix it because I'm not responsible for it, then it leaves me spinning in this place of stuck. 

03:16 

But again, our primitive brains love to slough off responsibility. And so blame is a very natural response for all of us. And it's so natural that very often we don't even realize that we're doing it. We blame somebody else. And it sounds like a fact to us when, in reality, it's often just a thought. So I want to be clear here that what I'm talking about is not that all the people get a free pass and that they're not held accountable for behavior that is really theirs to own. That's a different discussion. For example, we don't start blaming ourselves if our spouse had an affair. Okay? They get to own their own behavior for sure. But what we are talking about today is learning to take responsibility for our own behavior in any circumstance. Because when we blame, the natural response of the other person is to get defensive. And this is when this blame/defense cycle begins. One person blames, the other gets defensive. Then the first person digs in even harder and they start getting defensive. And the second person gets even more defensive and starts blaming the first person. And we're both blaming and defending. And neither one of us is stepping into responsibility. We both have walls up that are not allowing us to see and hear and understand the other person. And before we know it, we're both in a defensive stance. We're both feeling angry and nothing is getting resolved. 

04:46 

It takes a lot of awareness on the part of both people to not get caught in this blame defensive cycle. One person can learn to recognize that the cycle is starting or has potential to start. A crisis can be averted. Remember, it takes two people to have a fight, right? We don't have to go into full blown contention in our relationships. When just one of us has the mental acuity to recognize the blame, whether it's us or the other person doing the blaming, then we can start to move into a healthier cycle of curiosity and understanding, which will create connection rather than contention. 

05:28 

So here are a few things to keep an eye out for. So first of all, we're going to want to blame the other person for difficult things going on. And we may be in the right. We may see things that they don't see. But when we approach the situation from a place of blame and pointing fingers, we are bound to set in motion the defensive response. Not always. But it becomes much easier for that to happen depending on the other person, right? What we want to start learning to do is to pay attention to our brains and see when we want to start blaming the other person. This is probably the hardest step in this process because our brains often aren't trained to see what we're doing is blaming and it feels really good to push off the responsibility by blaming the other person. And we have these past patterns of behavior that happen without thought and without awareness. And we've stepped into a behavior before we're really even aware that the behavior exists, right? We don't even know it. So this is something we want to pay attention to. 

06:35 

So if we can start to notice when our brains want to blame, then the next step is to slow it down a bit and see what's really going on. Many times we will find that the other person isn't actually doing something wrong. We are just perceiving what they're doing is wrong. So our goal at this point when we go, "oh, this is one of those things that doesn't matter," our goal is to be able to stand down, accept responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings, and really just keep quiet. It doesn't matter, right? So for example, this is one that comes easily for me to do. When driving somewhere, it can be super easy to blame the other person for giving us bad directions or distracting us so that we miss our turn. Our brain automatically wants to turn them to blame to explain why we missed our turn. So we say, "you distracted me and we missed the turn." It's so much easier on our ego than saying "I got distracted and missed the turn." And really when we pull ourselves out of it, we go, "oh, that's not a big deal." But in the moment, our brain goes into this place of self-protection, like "I'm not at fault. I'm not at fault." And so it's going to want to say "you distracted me." 

07:49 

So once we can start slowing down the process a bit and seeing something, some of the myriad of opportunities we have to blame, then we can start to approach the situation differently. And once we see it in one circumstance, then we will start seeing it in that similar circumstances more and then it starts to spread into other circumstances. So it kind of starts to snowball after a bit of how much we start to notice how we do this. 

08:14 

So if we do look at the situation though, and we see that there is something that really does need to be addressed, then we want to step into a space that I call "owning your own." This means that when we need to speak with someone about something, we approach it by owning what is ours in the situation. What is ours are our thoughts and our feelings and possibly our actions if it's gotten that far. So rather than looking at what the other person is doing wrong, we want to approach it from a place of where we are on it. For example, we might say, "I'm feeling a little frustrated right now because..." or "my brain is telling me the story that..." or "when such-and-such happens, I notice that I feel irritated and I respond by..." So notice that all three of these examples all start by focusing on what we are thinking and feeling and doing. This sets the blame aside and steps into responsibility for our own responses. We are owning our own when someone comes at us with a pointed finger blaming us. Even if we're in the wrong, our natural response is to get defensive. But when someone comes to us saying that they're struggling with something, we are much more willing and able to listen. So own your own. 

09:38 

This is a huge concept in all of our communication and especially important if we want to break the blame/defense cycle. So the next thing we can do if we're on the receiving end of being blamed. So someone is is blaming us. Obviously, we can't control whether someone blames us or not. But what we can control is how we respond to the blame. So generally, our first response will be to get defensive, to put up protective walls. So the very first part is creating greater awareness of when we start to feel defensive. We will want to automatically start defending our position, trying to prove why we're right, protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable. And again, remember this as well is a totally normal primitive brain response. And this is why so many people struggle with it, because it is a normal response for our primitive brain. So when we can start to recognize that we're moving into a defensive stance, we feel that bristling going on inside of us, we feel ourselves putting up walls, here's what we can do. 

10:45 

First: stop, slow down, take a breath, right? And then ask yourself, "where is the truth in their statement?" There will generally be a nugget of truth, at least a nugget. If not a large piece, sometimes there's going to be a big chunk of truth, right? Or the whole thing's going to be true. But there's always going to be at least a nugget. When we are willing to see our part, to recognize the truth, then we step into greater humility. We don't put up walls that isolate us from each other, but rather we start to build bridges of understanding and connection. And that's a huge part of why we want to be in relationships in the first place, to create this connection, right? So once we've recognized the truth, then we can admit it and we can talk about it. And then we can step into curiosity. Start asking all the questions of the other person about why they are feeling the way they are. Ask questions to figure out, what does it mean in the context of your relationship? What would be a better approach and why? What suggestions do they have? Curiosity is such an incredibly powerful tool. I'm finding that whenever I don't know what to do or how to respond, curiosity is always the answer. It never fails. 

12:15 

Here's a real life example from my life last week. I was the one who stepped into blame. I started off a discussion with my boyfriend by asking an accusatory question. The thought came to me that, "oh, this is going on." I moved into a past pattern of behavior asking an accusatory question rather than owning my own here. I totally didn't do it. When he started to feel defensive, he's so smart and he was like, "whoa, I'm feeling defensive." He recognizes that as a sign that he needs to slow down and look for the truth. That's exactly what he did. When he did it, he was able to see the bit of truth that was there. Then he went right into curiosity and started asking me a few questions. He owned his own. The issue was actually resolved very quickly, but not because of what I did, but it was because of what he did. Even though I started off by blaming and accusing, he totally diffused the situation by not getting defensive and by moving instead into curiosity. 

13:39 

About 10 minutes into discussion, I had a big aha that I had started off the conversation in a way that we have agreed not to. I did not own my own. That's one of the things that we're really trying to to establish in our relationship. And so when that past pattern of behavior came up, I didn't even question it. I just moved on it and went into blame. I didn't even catch it until 10 minutes later. And when I realized it, that I had approached him with blame, I stopped the conversation where we were. I acknowledged the awareness of my fault. And then I asked if I could circle around and try it again. Because see, I'm working to create a new pattern of behavior, which is owning my own rather than stepping into blaming. So I had stepped into blaming first. Once I realized my mistake, then I was like, "whoa, I want to practice this situation owning my own here and not just leaving it go." So I circled back around and I stepped into a place where I was like, "okay, so here's how I'm thinking and here's what I'm feeling and here's how it's impacting me." And it gave me that opportunity to practice showing up the way that I want to. And it's going to take some more practice before I can do it consistently. But I started back in the beginning. I owned my thoughts and feelings about the situation. 

15:04 

So you can see in this example that I started the blame/defense cycle. But it was immediately broken when my boyfriend recognized his defenses coming up and then chose to look for the truth in what was said instead of getting defensive. It was a brilliant move on his part because it put us into a space of seeking to understand, which created greater connection rather than contention, which could have easily happened had he given into his defensive feelings. And I can almost promise you that had he gone into defensive I would not have recognized my error until much later. And meanwhile something could have blown up into something much bigger. We could have moved into contention. But instead we moved into connection and it was pretty brilliant. It just takes one of us in the relationship to change the trajectory of how we approach or by how we respond. Like we approach it by owning our own or we respond by getting curious. 

16:05 

I know that sometimes my clients will ask me "but why me? Why am I always the one who has to make the changes?" And it feels that seems like a very valid question. But I always respond with "why not you?" If you have the tools, if you have the desire, if you really want a successful relationship and you know how to do it, why not you? If you can change the trajectory of your relationship and have something more satisfying, more fulfilling, more loving, why not you? Worrying about what is fair or about who is doing the most work will not fix our struggling relationships. Using the tools you are learning to approach your conflicts with love and compassion is what will start your relationships to mending. And choosing love is always an option and it's an option that will always make you feel better and will always make the other person feel better. Stepping into the responsibility of owning your own, of getting curious instead of defensive, and choosing love is one of the best things about growing into middle-age. We see it like we've never seen it before and it's brilliant and it's beautiful. And this is why I love growing up so much. It's a brilliant place to be. 

17:37 

And that's it for today, except I want to say as always, my friends, if you need some help working through some of these tough, tough situations in your life, seeing things that you're not seeing, understanding what you're not seeing, help identifying your patterns of behavior that are creating contention rather than connection, let's chat. You can go to my website, tanyahale.com. You can book a free 30 minute consult and we can talk about how you can start to work with me and how we can help you heal these relationships that you're struggling with, whether it be with a spouse or a boyfriend, girlfriend, whether it be with your children, sibling, friends, whatever. I can help you see patterns that you are engaging in that are harmful. I can help you understand how to move into that place of love better. Okay, so that's going to do it for today. I wish you all the best. Have an incredible week and I will see you next time. Bye. 

18:43 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.