You hear it all the time,
“it’s so and so’s fault…they made me do it…they’re the reason we’re in the
mess” and on it goes. It’s a well played out scene with the lamp being broken
as kids are playing in the living room and saying, “the dog did it”. Lately, my
awareness around the need to blame others has been heightened. Perhaps it was
the election that sparked this sense that people have a bad case of finger
pointing but it wasn’t the election by itself as it seems to be happening a lot
lately in other realms.
As I was doing an introduction to a yoga class
the other day, I was commenting on how we really want to listen to what our
bodies are telling us during the practice. If your body senses pain or a
reaction of “I don’t want to do that” then listen and respond from a place of
compassion. We come into our yoga practice to reduce suffering, not to increase
it and paying attention to our internal cues is vitally important to that
process. Although we go to people for guidance, such as a yoga class or a
personal trainer, ultimately it is only you that pushes you.
I have heard
countless times how an instructor “had me do this or that” with the storyteller
then saying that because of it, they got injured or had incredible soreness for
days. I understand and appreciate that students put trust in their teachers.
We assume that they are qualified and will provide the safest possible
environment. We anticipate that they wouldn’t do anything to intentionally
injure or damage us and I believe that this is largely true.
But what
about the times when you go to a large class that has a ratio of 1:15 or more?
How can the instructor know what is completely safe for everyone? What if
there’s just one person in the class that seems to be lagging behind everyone
else, so the instructor caters to the majority? This isn’t a new topic from
me. We need to be the ones who are responsible for ourselves. Period (or full
stop, for my Aussie mates!). We are the ones who ultimately decide what is best
for our body as we are the ones who know our bodies best.
What is a new
topic is how quickly we lay blame onto something outside of ourselves. At times
I just feel like yelling out, “own your own stuff!” and quit assigning blame to
avoid doing so. This is a challenging practice as we often have to swallow a
big lump of pride and admit that it was our own doing, our own choosing that
caused the suffering. Imagine what would happen if people took responsibility
for their own choices more often. If they simply acknowledged that they made a
poor choice, it taught them a lesson and as a result, they have become wiser for
future situations.
The blame continuum can stretch from people who
complain about seemingly everyone and everything, to those who simply don’t want
to own up to something. It all catches up with us eventually. Satya, or
truthfulness is one of the Niyamas in the eight-faceted path of the yoga
sutras. At the close of each class, I end with “May we always know our truth.
May we always speak our truth. And may we always live our truth”. Perhaps
sitting with this idea every day will give us an opportunity to control what we
can and let go of the rest…without playing the blame game.
Own it.
