How Can We Move From Blame to Accountability?
Over the last several posts we have explored what passivity means and how it impacts our relationship with ourselves and others. This week we will take a deeper look into blame and accountability. You may be thinking that we talk about accountability a lot, so why again? We talk about it in some way almost every week because it is an integral part of creating resiliency in both ourselves and our relationships. It is easy to use blame when we feel hurt, embarrassed, or feel like we don’t have control. When we blame ourselves or others for a situation it creates a cycle of victim mentality (take a look at the last blog post if you want more information on the hero vs. victim mentality).
In Patricia Evans’ book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, she spends the first part of the book exploring the difference between power over and mutual power. When a partner is controlling or verbally abusive, they are often doing so out of their own insecurities and feel the need to control those around them to gain the control they feel they are lacking elsewhere in their lives. We explored the fear triangle last week (prosecutor, rescuer, and victim identities). The rescuer and the prosecutor both tend to try to gain control in different ways when they feel insecure or lacking control, often in the form of control over, while the victim tends to be more passive and view their situation as helpless.
Mutual power is the goal; being on the same page and talking to each other side by side, not over each other. Our goal is to understand each other so that each partner can be the best they can be for the relationship. What prevents mutual power is often that fact that we are asleep to the roles we play within a pattern. In the moment, we don’t always recognize how we are acting. We need to empower awareness within ourselves. To do this, it is important to take time to think about the patterns that are occurring and think about how we feel after we leave an interaction. Once we have done that we can choose to move forward.
Everyone can choose to change, but it takes a commitment to the process that goes deeper than just a decision. We need to learn how to speak in a way that our partner is able to receive it. This takes some playing around with because we all receive information differently so try not to get disheartened when communication patterns don’t change right away. In situations where feelings are involved, sometimes saying less is better. Saying “I feel hurt” can be eye opening because they may not even be aware they were acting in a way that could be hurtful. It can be beneficial to say less in this case instead of laying out all of the reasons you were hurt as that can sound accusatory or aggressive to those who are listening.
Another issue we run into with receiving information is the way that we process that information. Let's use the example of introverts and extroverts. Introverts generally do most of their processing internally while extroverts tend to process externally. When partners process in opposite ways it can be difficult; an extrovert may want to be a part of the introvert's process, while the introvert may assume that the extrovert has come to their final conclusion based on what they are saying out loud even if that is not true. It may be beneficial to journal about what is going on inside to try to work through all of the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. For those who may not like to journal, try recording your verbal processing. You can listen back to what you said and see if there is something that makes sense to you!
If there is one thing that you take away from this I hope that it is to just be honest with what is going on for you. Our society appears to treasure accountability but it usually comes across as transparency. Transparency is not the same thing as accountability though. It is just sharing what is going on, not actually taking ownership for your actions. When we take accountability we are saying that I am willing to do things differently in the future. Being honest about our feelings and taking accountability for our reactions can be so refreshing!
