When you point the finger of blame, remember there are three fingers pointing back at you

“When you point the finger of blame, remember there are three fingers pointing back at you.”

I recently had the privilege of sitting in a yarning circle at a NAIDOC event. The group was led by Brian Dowd best known as the Walkabout Barber. Brian runs a mobile barber shop and is trained in trauma counselling. He combines haircuts with mental health first aid in communities around Australia and does an amazing job.

When Brian made the comment above I had one of those powerful ‘a-ha’ moments because it was just so true. When we point the finger of blame it can make us feel immediately better.  As well-known author and public speaker Brene Brown has said, blame is simply a way of getting rid of pain and discomfort.

But when we play ‘the blame game’ and are stuck pointing the finger, we miss the opportunity for honesty and to consider our role in a particular situation (the fingers pointing back at you).

The older I get the more I realise that life is not black and white, but in fact shades of grey (perhaps 50, ha, ha!). At times I miss being younger when things felt black and white, right and wrong, victim and perpetrator. When we think this way it is easy to point the finger of blame, and we feel justified in our anger and punishing those we think have done wrong or done us wrong.

It’s just so easy. You stub your toe making the bed and it’s all your husband’s fault because you are rushing and the mental load is so much, and if you only had some help this wouldn’t have happened. Or you blame your parents for your failures because they were overly critical or not affectionate enough. Peri-menopause has its hold on me and I sure love a good finger pointing and angry rant. I have had to train myself to sit with my feelings more to avoid over-reacting and making bad decisions.

But God it feels good to sit and hold on to the blame. To be angry and feel justified that it is all someone else’s fault. But as Brian made clear with his comment, in doing this (pointing the finger) you are not considering your role in any given situation (those three fingers pointing back at you). As Brian said, you may be drinking and drugging and busy pointing the finger at everyone and everything thing that has gone wrong in your life, and perhaps it’s not wrong. But the hard work is to fix the broken parts of you and your spirit and let go of blame. For Brian he did this by going back to his roots, and finding connection to country and community.

I love that Brian nurtured his spirit and found purpose through connection. This is a big part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and a deep and spiritual thing I don’t pretend to understand. But ‘staying connected’ it also a big part of self care and helping maintain good mental health. It completely makes sense to me that this was a part of his journey.

Those three fingers pointing back at you, is about personal responsibility. It is about owning your own actions and decisions because when you take personal responsibility:

• you gain confidence and learn to trust yourself
• it can help you find purpose because you understand what you want from life
• it can help you learn from your mistakes and perhaps do things differently because it gets rid of anger and blame
• it can make you more accountable because you stop making someone else responsible for things go wrong.

And do you know what? None of these things are easy.

So the next time you catch yourself playing ‘the blame game’ perhaps take some time to think about those ‘three fingers pointing back at you’. What was your role in what happened, is there anything you would do differently and what will you do differently in the future.

Take care.

L x