Stop Blaming Others For Your Unhappiness: It’s A Stepping Stone!

As I continue to strengthen my commitment to my emotional availability, it’s ever so clear that the lion’s share of courage is needed to relinquish our knee-jerk impulse to leave our experiences to chance but not a catalog of choices we make in life. Indeed, for some of us, we are the sum of our daily choices, month-to-month, year-to-year, relationship-to-relationship, and job-to-job. (Did I leave anything out? Chuckle.) 

It can often feel like life is happening to us rather than for us.  Once you stop blaming others for your unhappiness (something scary but productive can begin to happen), you tap into your power to change yourself, better understand your needs, and how to meet those needs without getting distracted about dealing with YOU by finding fault in everyone and everything. 

Yes, unhappiness is an uncomfortable feeling. In contrast to avoiding our negative emotions (e.g., by numbing out with self-defeating behaviors like reconnecting with an old flame who mistreated us, flying into an unhealthy rage, lashing out at others, overeating, becoming complacent about positive change), we can use them as a motivational tool on our journey to transition through positive change.

(Side Note: This is a Flashforward Post)

When You Stop Blaming Others For Your Unhappiness, It Becomes A Bridge to Better Things in Your Life

When we blame other people, life, and even ourselves, we emotionally oppress ourselves instead of taking action steps to address our discontent. We can liberate ourselves when we use the negative feeling as a guidepost to identify what is missing and learn how to meet our needs in healthy ways. In other words, it’s an opportunity to gain clarity about what we truly want. 

With this approach, our unhappiness becomes an important life lesson rather than an all-consuming stumbling block. It becomes a healthy negative emotion that you can use. This is an important step in becoming more emotionally available.

When you stop blaming others for your unhappiness, you create the space to focus on your feelings of unhappiness. Yes, you have permission to even have a brief cry if you need to because that can create a pathway to emotionally connect with yourself.

Then once you are in touch with “the feeling,” you can do the work to identify what you need to improve your mood and get unstuck. We can begin to use this negative feeling to become a metaphorical bridge or stepping stone over the troubled water (i.e., the person or circumstance we give too much power away to).

In the natural sense, modern bridges ¹ are physical structures that allow people to cross over to desired locations without blocking passageways. Its function is to help us overcome an obstacle that would otherwise be impossible.

Interestingly, back-in-the-Neolithic-day, our primitive ancestors would construct bridges with fallen trees and also use stones to form stepping stones to get over physical obstacles. We can apply this concept to help us overcome tough times and unhappiness. 

While starting up my computer to put the finishing touches on this post, my screensaver displayed a beautiful bridge called The Bacunayagua Bridge ², the highest bridge in Cuba. It stands 360 ft above its valley floor, and because it has such a breathe taking view, it’s considered one of the seven wonders of Cuba.

It sits high, offering a bigger-picture view of the valley below. Unhappiness is a life valley that we can work to overcome if we learn to change our belief system and see things differently from a higher spiritual perspective.

The pathway to becoming more emotionally available entails learning to use our adversities as signals to learn to meet our needs in healthy ways. It is also about allowing our mistakes to make us stronger rather than devastate us.

You need to change your vantage point. Overly focusing on others doing us wrong distracts our energies from dealing with us (e.g., why we obsess about people mistreating us, dogging us out, taking advantage of us, and not valuing us).

Why Do We Assign Other People Blame for Our Dissatisfaction?

Research on why people assign blame shows that another motivating factor for pointing the finger at others is that we are motivated to protect our public image ³ and divert attention away from ourselves (Lozano, E. B., & Laurent, S. M., 2019) ². 

When you blame-shift, your locus of control transfers from internal to external (we focus on the outside) versus the internal locus of control (your thoughts, feelings, and behavioral responses).

When the focus is “out there,” we inadvertently set ourselves up to be rescued by someone or something. This pattern is a significant feature of emotional unavailability- the magical belief that someone or something will save the day and confer us with the solution to our problems. Then, “Viola!” we can walk and twirl into the meadows of happiness. It ain’t gonna happen!

Yes, people may play a part in the offenses that come. In an ideal world, folk would be decent and accept responsibility for their jacked-up behavior. However, we can’t force accountability. If they acted up and showed their arse, the burden or responsibility by default is theirs to own (but that doesn’t mean they HAVE to own it). 

But we can’t demand, “You must accept responsibility for being a jerk to me or else!!!” You can prefer they were a more decent human being but ixnay on the irrational demands (that’s what keeps us grounded in our emotional distress).

So, in this post, I challenge you by asking, are you willing to stop blaming others for your unhappiness and use it as fuel to catapult you into a better mindset and better circumstances? We don’t need to preserve our image and go on a justice crusade at the cost of our sanity. This is a prime reason to stop blaming others for your unhappiness. Instead, use it as fuel to get, be, and do better for YOU.

It’s Not About Them; It’s About Your Responsibility to You!

The School of Life was diligently teaching me that the roots of my unhappiness were not just about others doing me wrong but, more importantly:

1. I was making choices (good or bad) about how to respond to these unhealthy situations- in relationships and at work.

2. I was too hasty to formulate irrational and unhelpful conclusions about myself, others, and life when things were not going my way.

3. Unhappiness has value; it offers discomfort. The trouble we feel can be a tool to bridge the gap between our dissatisfaction and desires. The unpleasant feeling can motivate us to learn to meet our needs healthily and not settle for less than what we deserve.

My third insight is the focus of this post and is a life-sized Burger King Whopper (with all the fixins’). It took me until my late 30’s to realize this nugget of wisdom about life (sigh: My mother always said I was a late bloomer. LOL).

Rather than stay stuck and play The Blame Game about our poor relationship choices and the toxic work environments we may find ourselves in, it’s more productive to use these experiences as bridges to our desires. This rolls into my next point nicely.

If you are miffed about dealing with, for example, the aftermath of an emotionally unavailable partner (because of the mind games played), don’t blame them. Instead, use it to clarify what you want in your next relationship (or job). It sure isn’t them! I promise.

Shift The Focus From Others Doing You Wrong Back To Yourself

It’s about us learning to change the power base from external sources to internal sources. We can do this by focusing on our role in the problem.  This starts with a conscious decision to give less emotional weight to harping about other people’s faults and shifting attention squarely back to yourself (internal focus). 

We all know the only person we have control over is ourselves. “As above, so below, as within, as without, as the universe, so the soul…” said the legendary wise Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus ⁴.

We must learn to register dissatisfaction as a primary signal in our GPS (Gut Positioning System™). Our spirits and souls know what they want- to self-actualize our dreams. From this helpful lens, it becomes a “spiritual thang,” a divine nudge, communicating that your soul is ready for more growth (and that it’s not The End of The World).  

From a spiritual vantage point, when you use your negative feelings productively, you transform the blame toward others who may have contributed to your pain and unhappiness into a stepping-stone to evolve and pass over to better days (i.e., a peak instead of another valley). 

The sour experience becomes a stepping-stone, a portal that can help you cross over and transition into something better and more fulfilling instead of staying stuck in an unhealthy situation. 

Also, remember, we get to choose if we experience unhealthy negative emotions versus healthy negative emotions when we face adversity. 

We are not accepting emotional responsibility if we allow negative feelings to consume and immobilize us. Also, we are allowing not just a negative emotion but an unhealthy negative emotion to dictate our vibe. Remember that we have emotional options. 

When I frequented EUP (Emotionally Unavailable Partner) Relationship Land, I endlessly blamed the person when they couldn’t love me back, validate me, or respect me. Please, don’t waste time as I did!

My Ride on The Blame Merry-Go-Round

Blame-Shifting manifested into a three-fold problem for me:

1. I would blame the other person for their disrespect, disloyalty, and inconsistency (insert: any variety of jacked-up behavior here).

2. I would fault life, God, and the universe for doling out a particular curse of misfortune, just for me, branded with my name. 

3. I would turn the hatred inward and barrage myself for being cursed by the “Unhealthy Relationship Demons” or the “Life is Too Hard Demons.”

Ironically, this same unhealthy pattern would mirror itself in another life arena. I would find myself in yet another toxic work environment, then go ham on blaming shady co-workers and superiors for boundary violations and mistreatment.

Then, I would ramp it up by blaming myself, wondering, “How in the frick’ did you end up here again? What’s wrong with me? Life must have a hit out to snuff out my happiness.” (A really healthy self-narrative. Don’t cha think? NOT!)

It was a profound lack of insight, acceptance, and emotional immaturity on my part, which contributed to repeatedly missing other life lessons hidden in these adversities. However, in hindsight and present sight, I now see the wisdom of the matter. 

When we blame, the focus is on other people, not ourselves. Also, we are overly attentive to bad circumstances that may or may not change for us (as quickly as we would like). We may be in for a long wait. Don’t hold your breath! But, do use the experience as a spiritual stepping stone to brighter and better days.

Wrapping Things Up:

The dissatisfaction we feel about our lives and relationships can become productive life transition points (instead of chronic emotional pain points that sabotage our goals). I am living this truth out right now as I use my feelings of discontent as a bridge to cross over and transition careers into SEO, digital marketing, and tech. 

I’ve decided to answer the call to pay attention to my discontent and see it as a bridge, a stepping stone to what I want- I urge you to do the same. For me, this means transitioning careers because my need for creativity, flexibility, use of my analytical mind, and constant learning has become greater than my need for the “stability” of a government job.

Not to mention, I love implementing SEO and content creation (can’t you tell from the Love & Life Antics Blog? LOL). 

In November, I put my money where my dreams are and took the leap of faith. I enrolled in a Miami-based Digital Marketing Academy and signed up for a course in SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization/Marketing), which kicks off in January 2023, and I’m excited.

When you stop blaming others for your unhappiness and see it as your bridge and a stepping stone, you will shift your power base from external to internal. It comes down to not giving our power away. 

If you’re unhappy with an EUP or in a toxic work environment, don’t panic! It’s only a signal that it’s time to get clear about what you need and then gently shift the focus to you so you can meet those needs. You cannot wait for others to magic up and solve your problems.

We are responsible for taking life by the reigns and finding solutions to our problems. We’ve got to take responsibility for our own happiness by not giving other people and circumstances too much power to keep us stuck. 

What things are you facing that you can transform into your bridge or stepping stone to meeting your needs? Do tell!

Sign-up for your weekly dose of Love and Life Antics.

If this article has blessed you, please link to it, share it on social media, and email me to share your thoughts, comments, and stories.

If you have a topic or a question on EUP relationships or life adversity that you would like addressed on LALA Blog, please email me at:

References:

1. Bridge. (2022, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge

2. Bacunayagua. (2022, September 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacunayagua

3. Lozano, E. B., & Laurent, S. M. (2019). The effect of admitting fault versus shifting blame on expectations for others to do the same. PLOS ONE, 14(3), e0213276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213276

4. Hermes Trismegistus. (2022, October 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus