14. Blame: The Hidden Obstacle Holding You Back
Today, we're discussing a hidden obstacle that might be holding you back in ways you can't even imagine: blame. Blaming someone or something is often our default during challenging situations, and it can seem justifiable in the moment. But jumping straight to blame feels terrible, and it doesn't get us anywhere. So, what can we do about it?
When it comes to fixing a situation or resolving conflicts, we need something that feels cleaner and more empowering than playing the blame game. Finding an alternative to blame allows you to show up as your favorite version of yourself under even the most difficult circumstances.
Tune in this week to discover why we quickly go to blame someone or something during a challenging moment. You'll learn why blame feels good in the moment, why blaming (even blaming yourself) never solves your problem, and we share a more empowering alternative to blame that you can lean on next time it feels like everything is going wrong and there's nothing you can do about it.
Want to start ramping up your self-awareness so you’re on to yourself before Burnout fully takes over? Click here to get your free Burnout Alarm Bell Study Guide!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How so many of us don't even notice our default reaction of blaming.
Why blaming someone or something, even yourself, doesn't solve your problem.
How blame keeps you stuck in a state of victimhood and disempowerment.
The profoundly negative impact that blame has on your relationships.
An empowering alternative to blame that you can start using right now.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Kelle: Alright, today we’re uncovering a hidden obstacle that might be holding you back, blame.
Nina: Yeah, let’s unpack why we so quickly go to blame someone or something in a challenging moment. And how there actually might be another way to resolve conflicts that feels cleaner and more empowering.
Kelle: Yeah, this is all about empowering you to show up as your favorite version of yourself in the most challenging circumstances, from nearly missing flights and swearing colleagues to credit card debt and infidelity.
Nina: Alright, let’s get started. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: And I’m Nina. So, let’s talk about blame. Why do we always want to hold someone accountable, someone or something, to hold them responsible?
Kelle: I think for me at least, there’s a sense of relief that there’s a reason for what I’m feeling. It’s a justification.
Nina: Yeah. When we miss a deadline, for example, we’ll automatically look for not just a reason why, but someone to fault. Our brains will look internally and externally for someone or something to blame. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing this but now maybe you’ll notice more. And I think you’re right, we do it because it feels justified in the moment, but we can absolutely still navigate a challenge without blame.
Kelle: Alright, hang on, let’s back up for a sec and talk about blame. Blaming is really just the act of assigning responsibility for something that happened.
Nina: But it’s usually a negative something. You blame someone for misplacing your favorite YETI mug, but you rarely blame someone for mowing the lawn.
Kelle: I never misplace my YETI mug. It’s always somebody else. Alright, you know I went to New York for my niece’s graduation last weekend. Did I tell you we almost missed our flight?
Nina: Oh, my gosh, no. What happened?
Kelle: My son, he’s nine and he really wanted to bring this lacrosse stick that my nephew had custom made for him so that he’d play with him when we were there. We got all the way to the front of security before we were told, “You can’t bring a lacrosse stick on the plane.” I mean, who knew, it’s plastic and string and yeah, a metal stick. But anyway, we either needed to forfeit it or we needed to check it. And of course, it was special, so we had to go check it and we did not really have a lot of time. We were cutting it very close.
I was annoyed. I was a little stressed. And I could have blamed my son for wanting to bring this in the first place. I also could have blamed the people at the Delta counter for not telling me that we needed to check it when we checked our other bags. And yeah, blaming might make me feel justified, it wasn’t my fault, it was his or theirs. But in the end it isn’t really helpful, it doesn’t actually solve the problem. I mean, I also could have blamed myself, I suppose, for not having asked the question in the first place, “Can we take a lacrosse stick on a plane?” But that doesn’t help either.
Nina: Yeah, blaming is what we call a cognitive distortion. It’s assigning guilt or responsibility for how we feel to someone else. So, he makes me feel bad about myself for instance, or she makes me feel inadequate. That was a nerd alert moment. Hold on, let us explain. Cognitive distortions are simply tricks of the mind. They’re when the brain convinces us of something that is untrue.
Kelle: Okay, so why does this matter? What’s wrong with blame? Blame puts us in victim mode. It can be disempowering because it keeps people stuck in their problems.
Nina: Yeah. Blame makes it difficult to identify the root cause of issues, which is almost always a thought error or a limiting belief. And can destroy trust in relationships, I think because it generates a sense of fear and scarcity, you know what I mean? This is me versus you instead of me and you.
Kelle: Yeah, totally. Blaming others can also look like defensiveness. And you know what they say, defense is the first act of a war.
Nina: And honestly, when you don’t blame, you act like less of a crazy person, more rational. When you try to find fault, your brain becomes really committed to finding someone responsible and you sort of act crazy, at least my brain does. Our brains are resisting accepting reality. It doesn’t want to accept that we missed the deadline. In that resistance, we look for someone to blame and we don’t really realize it, but it feels terrible. Why do we do this? Because it feels good in the moment to blame someone or even something else. We feel sort of powerful and it excuses our emotions.
Kelle: Yeah, blame also allows us to sort of control the narrative. If I’m late, I can blame my lateness on traffic. Maybe the person I’m meeting will be less annoyed at me. And can I just say that traffic is never an excuse. What if you just decided that it’s not all these other people on the road that are making you late? You could just decide to always leave in time to be five minutes early, factoring in traffic.
Nina: Yeah. The problem is that blame is very disempowering. We’re not just looking to hold someone accountable for actions, but on default without coaching tools we want them to also be responsible for how we feel. Blaming is that attempt, that subconscious attempt to assign responsibility to our emotions, thoughts, or actions to someone else. And from what we know in coaching, understanding that our thoughts and emotions are our own and that our actions are our responsibility is the start of healing.
Kelle: It’s an understandable mistake. Most of us weren’t taught this growing up, and it’s where we create a lot of unnecessary suffering for ourselves.
Nina: So, this is where thought work and clean thinking come into play. We have to separate out our thoughts, feelings and actions from their thoughts, feelings and actions.
Kelle: Yeah, we parse out what we’re thinking, feeling, and doing from what they are thinking, feeling, and doing.
Nina: What happens when we blame is that we get upset by the circumstances and we assign responsibility to someone else or blame someone else for our feelings. So, when I feel frustrated and I look outside of myself for a reason why, for someone to blame for missing the deadline, my colleague or the client or my email server or whatever. I’m delegating responsibility for my feelings to someone outside of me. And this is really disempowering because if they are responsible for how I feel then basically they have to change and act a certain way in order for me to feel better. And this is when we turn the corner into crazy town.
Kelle: Yeah, because we try to control other people, we try to fix them or change them, which of course we know is impossible, so that we can feel better, and we act crazy. It never works. It never works to try to control somebody else. And our lives when we do this, they become unmanageable, and we become exhausted.
Nina: This way of thinking is a super common mistake. We’re sort of taught that other people create our feelings, and that’s just not true. Our thoughts create our feelings, so notice, are you assigning blame to anyone or anything outside of you for what you’re feeling or even to yourself in a blaming way?
Kelle: Listen, it’s okay to feel sad, to feel down or angry or upset. We never want you to think that those are wrong. All these emotions are part of the human experience, and our feelings are meant to be felt. All of these feelings are valid.
Nina: The subtle difference is accepting and validating your feelings and then understanding it’s because of what you’re thinking.
Kelle: It’s not because of them or it. If you feel angry it’s because you’re thinking thoughts that are making you feel angry. If you feel hurt, it’s because you’re thinking hurtful thoughts.
Nina: It’s accepting that our brains on default go to feelings that aren’t useful, and it doesn’t mean we didn’t create them. So, when I feel frustrated, it’s okay that I feel frustrated. And we want to turn towards ourselves and support ourselves in a caring way like hey, it’s okay that you feel frustrated. I got you. What do you need? That’s my internal talk track.
Kelle: Totally. Just like you would support a friend.
Nina: Then allow yourself to process that feeling, going inward instead of outward blame. It’s such a killer skill to cultivate.
Kelle: Yeah. When you’re in blame, you mix up someone else’s actions with your feelings. So, when someone lies to you, you don’t want to be happy about this. But you aren’t going to help yourself by blaming your emotions on them. So of course, you want to feel sad or upset or disappointed and that’s because of a story you’re telling yourself and you may want to keep that story.
Nina: Yeah, I’m really disappointed that I can’t trust this person anymore, that they lied to me. Those are legit thoughts. That’s a legit story when someone doesn’t tell you the truth. Now, where you do want to assign responsibility is to the other person’s actions. So, this is where that clean thinking tool comes into play. We need to separate our feelings from their actions. Their actions didn’t cause our feelings even though it seems that way.
We know this is true when you think of lining up 10 different people and telling them the same lie, they will have 10 different reactions, and why? Because they will all have their own thoughts about the lie, 10 different brains telling 10 different stories based on 10 different life experiences.
Kelle: Yeah. What’s empowering here is that the feeling in your body is uniquely yours and valid, and that the other person is accountable for their actions.
Nina: So, let’s say your spouse racks up credit card debt. They should be held accountable for their actions and the consequences, not your feelings. Any emotion you feel because of that is from the story in your brain, and you may want to keep that story, you don’t want to feel happy about it. But when you take responsibility for your feelings and hold your spouse accountable for their actions, you don’t seek so much validation or closure because you’re managing your mind and emotions yourself.
Kelle: Yeah. This can be applied to the biggest of things like infidelity and small things like missing a flight or a deadline and you’re looking for someone else to blame. So, start by separating out their actions and your feelings. Hold them responsible for their actions and yourself accountable for your feelings without blame.
Nina: So, we coached a client a few weeks ago whose direct report had a tendency to swear and use expletives a lot.
Kelle: Yeah, that was fun.
Nina: Yeah. And every so often they would actually yell, “Eff this,” at work and this made the client feel a little angry, a little unsafe, threatened, and disappointed, all of it. Now she had to separate out her thoughts and feelings from their actions and realize that her feelings came from her thoughts.
Kelle: Yeah. She could then hold them accountable for their foul language. “Hey, it’s not appropriate to yell, especially that word here at work. And if that happens again here, there are consequences,” for example. And know that any emotion she feels comes from her thoughts, not their actions.
Nina: Yeah. Say you have a friend who’s chronically late. One of my best friends, Jenny, used to be like this when we were young. We’d laugh and say she lived on Jenny time. I feel like we all have a friend like this. I love you, Jen, love you, love you. The story you tell yourself about your friend’s behavior, maybe she’s always 15 to 20 minutes late. If you get upset, it’s because of the story you’re telling in your head. So instead of blaming her or blaming yourself, you can check in and say, “Man, this is upsetting me, and that’s okay.” And then, who do I want to be in this situation?
Maybe you set a boundary based on your needs. If she’s more than 10 minutes late from now on, you don’t wait, you change plans. And this boundary can come from a really loving place. You can take the blame out of it but on default our brain wants to blame them for our feelings, to hold them responsible for our feelings because our brains want to feel secure and justified. But that’s just really disempowering, it’s not a useful framework to navigate the challenge.
Kelle: When you’re waiting for someone to be late. Totally. So, it’s not that challenges don’t exist. It’s that you’ll feel calmer and grounded and confident and stronger when you approach it from, who do I want to be here and take responsibility for your feelings and use these tools.
Nina: Instead of someone or something else is to blame.
Kelle: Yeah. If you just notice your brain wanting to blame others or yourself, the more disempowered you are. You’re looking to blame someone for your feelings but really you just have feelings and that’s okay. Instead, we just notice your feelings, get into acceptance, allow them to be there, nothing has gone wrong. Then decide who do I want to be?
Nina: This is also a great tool to use with your kids, Kelle. Say your kids won’t put the Xbox away and get their homework done, and you’ve asked four times already.
Kelle: That never happens in my house.
Nina: So, let’s say you feel frustrated. I already do. If you feel frustrated, it’s because of what you’re thinking, they should know better, this shouldn’t be happening, they should be listening to me, which are really disempowering thoughts.
Kelle: Yeah, as much as we love it, we cannot control our children or any other people. We can influence them. We can try to cooperate with them. We can be on the same team as them. And those all lead to a different outcome than trying to control them.
Nina: Yeah. The more you try to control your kids or anyone, the more disempowered you will feel. I had to take that really slow. But so again, step one here, take responsibility for your feelings. It’s totally understandable you feel those feelings. And then two, process those feelings. And then three, hold your kids accountable for their actions, not your frustration, and then ask yourself, who do I want to be here?
Kelle: This is so good, and this gets you out of thinking that you have to blame someone for how you feel.
Nina: When you find yourself blaming someone for how you feel, it often makes things worse. I think part of this blame game might come from the shame we feel about our feelings. It’s bad to feel angry. It’s bad to feel rage, especially for women. It’s bad to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and anxious.
Kelle: It’s not, by the way. It’s just what it means to be human. From time to time, we all feel it and there’s no one to blame for it. We can love ourselves and support ourselves and validate and accept ourselves. This is something we’re not taught to do. It’s a new skill for so many of us. We talk more about thoughts and feelings in episode six, so go back and listen if you haven’t already.
Nina: Yeah. So, there’s absolutely nothing wrong if this is all new to you. It’s a huge part of what we do in coaching with clients. And it’s the one simple truth of our coaching practice, your thoughts create your feelings. If our clients can leave our six month coaching program having mastered this concept, we’ve done our jobs.
Kelle: It’s so true. Once this clicks for you, you can navigate all the complicated challenges in your life in a more empowered way, the big ones and the small ones and everything in between.
Nina: Back to blame, when you shift your mindset out of who’s to blame to who do I want to be, how do I want to show up? You navigate the challenge in a sturdier way.
Kelle: Alright, so if someone stole from you, you probably don’t want to be happy. You want to be upset and disappointed that this person broke your trust. And you want to hold that person accountable for their actions. And you can do this in a strong and sturdy way without blaming them for your feelings.
Nina: You can still allow all of the feelings to be there, sad, frustrated, mad, and hold them accountable. When you do it this way, you get through the challenge in a solid way. When we blame them, we feel very out of control. I mean this person who broke your trust is also responsible for your feelings. This mindset would make me spiral. I mean, I don’t know how I’d get out of that one. Terrible. Thankfully, it’s just not true.
Kelle: Yeah. Here’s a bigger example and this one we’ve coached on quite a bit lately, infidelity. It’s just the ultimate betrayal, dishonest behavior, and broken trust by someone you trusted and loved. We wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but you can get through this knowing that their actions have nothing to do with you. Their actions are the results of their thoughts and feelings, and come on, let’s be real, lack of skills.
Nine: Holding that person responsible for your heartbreak, sadness, grief, anger, all of it, is a power sieve, you know a sieve, it strains the water out of your pasta.
Kelle: Wait a minute, is it a sieve or a sieve?
Nina: No, I think it’s a sieve. I always call it a sieve. Do you call it a sieve?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: It’s a power sieve. All of your feelings are valid here though, for real, all of them but we don’t have to blame this person for our feelings and the broken trust their behavior caused. We just hold them accountable for their actions, however, we want to handle that, divorce therapy, boundaries, detachment, going no contact. And then turn towards ourselves and support ourselves going inward. Process those huge emotions and sometimes it helps to work through big emotions like this with a therapist or coach. Allow them all to be there, accept them all, none of them are wrong.
And then consider, who do I want to be? How do I want to be in this relationship moving forward? This is how you do it, this is how you move forward in an empowered way. We just have to separate our feelings from their actions. And what really helps here is curiosity, so I wonder why this is happening. Curiosity helps you understand the feelings under the actions, which is always created by their thoughts. And when it comes to infidelity, I’m guessing there’s insecurity, boredom, loneliness, I don’t know, likely so many more.
Kelle: But all of these feelings are their responsibility. Anyone who blames you for their emotions and actions has it all wrong. This victim mentality isn’t going to help this person heal the wounds that caused their bad behavior in the first place.
Nina: So true. And at the end of the day, sad for that person to live in victim mode and never heal or grow.
Kelle: Yeah, such a good point. When you are blamed for someone else’s emotions, it’s an opportunity to check in, get curious, and come back to this episode. This concept of emotional responsibility goes against everything we’re taught, so it takes practice to understand and cultivate these skills.
Nina: Keep coming back, we will always be here to remind you on repeat about personal responsibility and emotional responsibility. We can help you process those big emotions and show up empowered to big circumstances, not as a victim, but as a survivor, someone who can handle it, big emotions, and all.
Kelle: Well, I love this one so much, Nina, this was a lot. And we want you to take this and run with it and circle back with us.
Nina: Yeah. Tell us what’s happening with you right now, what’s really painful, what you’d love for us to chat about here on the pod, and we’ll seriously do just that anonymously of course, if you wish.
Kelle: When you’re on our email list, you can just hit reply every week and talk to us directly. It’s literally us on email.
Nina: Yeah. We also offer free email coaching once a month. And this week’s email is an invitation to do just that. So, sign up to be on our list for more access to Kelle and me for coaching and questions. And again, if you’re listening to this in real time, it’s the week of May 27th, but we do this once a month anyway, so join the list.
Kelle: This is so awesome, just go to kelleandnina.com and sign up.
Nina: Cool. That’s all for today, thanks everyone.
Kelle: Alright, we’ll see you next time.
Nina: Yeah, see you next time.
Nina: If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to worry about missing an episode, you can follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you haven’t already, we would really appreciate it if you share the podcast with others who you think would benefit from it, and leave a rating and review to let us know what you think.
Kelle: It doesn’t have to be a 5-star rating, although we sure hope you love the show. We want your honest feedback so we can create an awesome podcast that provides tons of value. Visit ambitious-ish.com/podcastlaunch for step-by-step instructions on how to follow, rate, and review.
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
Nina: Yeah, let’s unpack why we so quickly go to blame someone or something in a challenging moment. And how there actually might be another way to resolve conflicts that feels cleaner and more empowering.
Kelle: Yeah, this is all about empowering you to show up as your favorite version of yourself in the most challenging circumstances, from nearly missing flights and swearing colleagues to credit card debt and infidelity.
Nina: Alright, let’s get started. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: And I’m Nina. So, let’s talk about blame. Why do we always want to hold someone accountable, someone or something, to hold them responsible?
Kelle: I think for me at least, there’s a sense of relief that there’s a reason for what I’m feeling. It’s a justification.
Nina: Yeah. When we miss a deadline, for example, we’ll automatically look for not just a reason why, but someone to fault. Our brains will look internally and externally for someone or something to blame. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing this but now maybe you’ll notice more. And I think you’re right, we do it because it feels justified in the moment, but we can absolutely still navigate a challenge without blame.
Kelle: Alright, hang on, let’s back up for a sec and talk about blame. Blaming is really just the act of assigning responsibility for something that happened.
Nina: But it’s usually a negative something. You blame someone for misplacing your favorite YETI mug, but you rarely blame someone for mowing the lawn.
Kelle: I never misplace my YETI mug. It’s always somebody else. Alright, you know I went to New York for my niece’s graduation last weekend. Did I tell you we almost missed our flight?
Nina: Oh, my gosh, no. What happened?
Kelle: My son, he’s nine and he really wanted to bring this lacrosse stick that my nephew had custom made for him so that he’d play with him when we were there. We got all the way to the front of security before we were told, “You can’t bring a lacrosse stick on the plane.” I mean, who knew, it’s plastic and string and yeah, a metal stick. But anyway, we either needed to forfeit it or we needed to check it. And of course, it was special, so we had to go check it and we did not really have a lot of time. We were cutting it very close.
I was annoyed. I was a little stressed. And I could have blamed my son for wanting to bring this in the first place. I also could have blamed the people at the Delta counter for not telling me that we needed to check it when we checked our other bags. And yeah, blaming might make me feel justified, it wasn’t my fault, it was his or theirs. But in the end it isn’t really helpful, it doesn’t actually solve the problem. I mean, I also could have blamed myself, I suppose, for not having asked the question in the first place, “Can we take a lacrosse stick on a plane?” But that doesn’t help either.
Nina: Yeah, blaming is what we call a cognitive distortion. It’s assigning guilt or responsibility for how we feel to someone else. So, he makes me feel bad about myself for instance, or she makes me feel inadequate. That was a nerd alert moment. Hold on, let us explain. Cognitive distortions are simply tricks of the mind. They’re when the brain convinces us of something that is untrue.
Kelle: Okay, so why does this matter? What’s wrong with blame? Blame puts us in victim mode. It can be disempowering because it keeps people stuck in their problems.
Nina: Yeah. Blame makes it difficult to identify the root cause of issues, which is almost always a thought error or a limiting belief. And can destroy trust in relationships, I think because it generates a sense of fear and scarcity, you know what I mean? This is me versus you instead of me and you.
Kelle: Yeah, totally. Blaming others can also look like defensiveness. And you know what they say, defense is the first act of a war.
Nina: And honestly, when you don’t blame, you act like less of a crazy person, more rational. When you try to find fault, your brain becomes really committed to finding someone responsible and you sort of act crazy, at least my brain does. Our brains are resisting accepting reality. It doesn’t want to accept that we missed the deadline. In that resistance, we look for someone to blame and we don’t really realize it, but it feels terrible. Why do we do this? Because it feels good in the moment to blame someone or even something else. We feel sort of powerful and it excuses our emotions.
Kelle: Yeah, blame also allows us to sort of control the narrative. If I’m late, I can blame my lateness on traffic. Maybe the person I’m meeting will be less annoyed at me. And can I just say that traffic is never an excuse. What if you just decided that it’s not all these other people on the road that are making you late? You could just decide to always leave in time to be five minutes early, factoring in traffic.
Nina: Yeah. The problem is that blame is very disempowering. We’re not just looking to hold someone accountable for actions, but on default without coaching tools we want them to also be responsible for how we feel. Blaming is that attempt, that subconscious attempt to assign responsibility to our emotions, thoughts, or actions to someone else. And from what we know in coaching, understanding that our thoughts and emotions are our own and that our actions are our responsibility is the start of healing.
Kelle: It’s an understandable mistake. Most of us weren’t taught this growing up, and it’s where we create a lot of unnecessary suffering for ourselves.
Nina: So, this is where thought work and clean thinking come into play. We have to separate out our thoughts, feelings and actions from their thoughts, feelings and actions.
Kelle: Yeah, we parse out what we’re thinking, feeling, and doing from what they are thinking, feeling, and doing.
Nina: What happens when we blame is that we get upset by the circumstances and we assign responsibility to someone else or blame someone else for our feelings. So, when I feel frustrated and I look outside of myself for a reason why, for someone to blame for missing the deadline, my colleague or the client or my email server or whatever. I’m delegating responsibility for my feelings to someone outside of me. And this is really disempowering because if they are responsible for how I feel then basically they have to change and act a certain way in order for me to feel better. And this is when we turn the corner into crazy town.
Kelle: Yeah, because we try to control other people, we try to fix them or change them, which of course we know is impossible, so that we can feel better, and we act crazy. It never works. It never works to try to control somebody else. And our lives when we do this, they become unmanageable, and we become exhausted.
Nina: This way of thinking is a super common mistake. We’re sort of taught that other people create our feelings, and that’s just not true. Our thoughts create our feelings, so notice, are you assigning blame to anyone or anything outside of you for what you’re feeling or even to yourself in a blaming way?
Kelle: Listen, it’s okay to feel sad, to feel down or angry or upset. We never want you to think that those are wrong. All these emotions are part of the human experience, and our feelings are meant to be felt. All of these feelings are valid.
Nina: The subtle difference is accepting and validating your feelings and then understanding it’s because of what you’re thinking.
Kelle: It’s not because of them or it. If you feel angry it’s because you’re thinking thoughts that are making you feel angry. If you feel hurt, it’s because you’re thinking hurtful thoughts.
Nina: It’s accepting that our brains on default go to feelings that aren’t useful, and it doesn’t mean we didn’t create them. So, when I feel frustrated, it’s okay that I feel frustrated. And we want to turn towards ourselves and support ourselves in a caring way like hey, it’s okay that you feel frustrated. I got you. What do you need? That’s my internal talk track.
Kelle: Totally. Just like you would support a friend.
Nina: Then allow yourself to process that feeling, going inward instead of outward blame. It’s such a killer skill to cultivate.
Kelle: Yeah. When you’re in blame, you mix up someone else’s actions with your feelings. So, when someone lies to you, you don’t want to be happy about this. But you aren’t going to help yourself by blaming your emotions on them. So of course, you want to feel sad or upset or disappointed and that’s because of a story you’re telling yourself and you may want to keep that story.
Nina: Yeah, I’m really disappointed that I can’t trust this person anymore, that they lied to me. Those are legit thoughts. That’s a legit story when someone doesn’t tell you the truth. Now, where you do want to assign responsibility is to the other person’s actions. So, this is where that clean thinking tool comes into play. We need to separate our feelings from their actions. Their actions didn’t cause our feelings even though it seems that way.
We know this is true when you think of lining up 10 different people and telling them the same lie, they will have 10 different reactions, and why? Because they will all have their own thoughts about the lie, 10 different brains telling 10 different stories based on 10 different life experiences.
Kelle: Yeah. What’s empowering here is that the feeling in your body is uniquely yours and valid, and that the other person is accountable for their actions.
Nina: So, let’s say your spouse racks up credit card debt. They should be held accountable for their actions and the consequences, not your feelings. Any emotion you feel because of that is from the story in your brain, and you may want to keep that story, you don’t want to feel happy about it. But when you take responsibility for your feelings and hold your spouse accountable for their actions, you don’t seek so much validation or closure because you’re managing your mind and emotions yourself.
Kelle: Yeah. This can be applied to the biggest of things like infidelity and small things like missing a flight or a deadline and you’re looking for someone else to blame. So, start by separating out their actions and your feelings. Hold them responsible for their actions and yourself accountable for your feelings without blame.
Nina: So, we coached a client a few weeks ago whose direct report had a tendency to swear and use expletives a lot.
Kelle: Yeah, that was fun.
Nina: Yeah. And every so often they would actually yell, “Eff this,” at work and this made the client feel a little angry, a little unsafe, threatened, and disappointed, all of it. Now she had to separate out her thoughts and feelings from their actions and realize that her feelings came from her thoughts.
Kelle: Yeah. She could then hold them accountable for their foul language. “Hey, it’s not appropriate to yell, especially that word here at work. And if that happens again here, there are consequences,” for example. And know that any emotion she feels comes from her thoughts, not their actions.
Nina: Yeah. Say you have a friend who’s chronically late. One of my best friends, Jenny, used to be like this when we were young. We’d laugh and say she lived on Jenny time. I feel like we all have a friend like this. I love you, Jen, love you, love you. The story you tell yourself about your friend’s behavior, maybe she’s always 15 to 20 minutes late. If you get upset, it’s because of the story you’re telling in your head. So instead of blaming her or blaming yourself, you can check in and say, “Man, this is upsetting me, and that’s okay.” And then, who do I want to be in this situation?
Maybe you set a boundary based on your needs. If she’s more than 10 minutes late from now on, you don’t wait, you change plans. And this boundary can come from a really loving place. You can take the blame out of it but on default our brain wants to blame them for our feelings, to hold them responsible for our feelings because our brains want to feel secure and justified. But that’s just really disempowering, it’s not a useful framework to navigate the challenge.
Kelle: When you’re waiting for someone to be late. Totally. So, it’s not that challenges don’t exist. It’s that you’ll feel calmer and grounded and confident and stronger when you approach it from, who do I want to be here and take responsibility for your feelings and use these tools.
Nina: Instead of someone or something else is to blame.
Kelle: Yeah. If you just notice your brain wanting to blame others or yourself, the more disempowered you are. You’re looking to blame someone for your feelings but really you just have feelings and that’s okay. Instead, we just notice your feelings, get into acceptance, allow them to be there, nothing has gone wrong. Then decide who do I want to be?
Nina: This is also a great tool to use with your kids, Kelle. Say your kids won’t put the Xbox away and get their homework done, and you’ve asked four times already.
Kelle: That never happens in my house.
Nina: So, let’s say you feel frustrated. I already do. If you feel frustrated, it’s because of what you’re thinking, they should know better, this shouldn’t be happening, they should be listening to me, which are really disempowering thoughts.
Kelle: Yeah, as much as we love it, we cannot control our children or any other people. We can influence them. We can try to cooperate with them. We can be on the same team as them. And those all lead to a different outcome than trying to control them.
Nina: Yeah. The more you try to control your kids or anyone, the more disempowered you will feel. I had to take that really slow. But so again, step one here, take responsibility for your feelings. It’s totally understandable you feel those feelings. And then two, process those feelings. And then three, hold your kids accountable for their actions, not your frustration, and then ask yourself, who do I want to be here?
Kelle: This is so good, and this gets you out of thinking that you have to blame someone for how you feel.
Nina: When you find yourself blaming someone for how you feel, it often makes things worse. I think part of this blame game might come from the shame we feel about our feelings. It’s bad to feel angry. It’s bad to feel rage, especially for women. It’s bad to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and anxious.
Kelle: It’s not, by the way. It’s just what it means to be human. From time to time, we all feel it and there’s no one to blame for it. We can love ourselves and support ourselves and validate and accept ourselves. This is something we’re not taught to do. It’s a new skill for so many of us. We talk more about thoughts and feelings in episode six, so go back and listen if you haven’t already.
Nina: Yeah. So, there’s absolutely nothing wrong if this is all new to you. It’s a huge part of what we do in coaching with clients. And it’s the one simple truth of our coaching practice, your thoughts create your feelings. If our clients can leave our six month coaching program having mastered this concept, we’ve done our jobs.
Kelle: It’s so true. Once this clicks for you, you can navigate all the complicated challenges in your life in a more empowered way, the big ones and the small ones and everything in between.
Nina: Back to blame, when you shift your mindset out of who’s to blame to who do I want to be, how do I want to show up? You navigate the challenge in a sturdier way.
Kelle: Alright, so if someone stole from you, you probably don’t want to be happy. You want to be upset and disappointed that this person broke your trust. And you want to hold that person accountable for their actions. And you can do this in a strong and sturdy way without blaming them for your feelings.
Nina: You can still allow all of the feelings to be there, sad, frustrated, mad, and hold them accountable. When you do it this way, you get through the challenge in a solid way. When we blame them, we feel very out of control. I mean this person who broke your trust is also responsible for your feelings. This mindset would make me spiral. I mean, I don’t know how I’d get out of that one. Terrible. Thankfully, it’s just not true.
Kelle: Yeah. Here’s a bigger example and this one we’ve coached on quite a bit lately, infidelity. It’s just the ultimate betrayal, dishonest behavior, and broken trust by someone you trusted and loved. We wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but you can get through this knowing that their actions have nothing to do with you. Their actions are the results of their thoughts and feelings, and come on, let’s be real, lack of skills.
Nine: Holding that person responsible for your heartbreak, sadness, grief, anger, all of it, is a power sieve, you know a sieve, it strains the water out of your pasta.
Kelle: Wait a minute, is it a sieve or a sieve?
Nina: No, I think it’s a sieve. I always call it a sieve. Do you call it a sieve?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: It’s a power sieve. All of your feelings are valid here though, for real, all of them but we don’t have to blame this person for our feelings and the broken trust their behavior caused. We just hold them accountable for their actions, however, we want to handle that, divorce therapy, boundaries, detachment, going no contact. And then turn towards ourselves and support ourselves going inward. Process those huge emotions and sometimes it helps to work through big emotions like this with a therapist or coach. Allow them all to be there, accept them all, none of them are wrong.
And then consider, who do I want to be? How do I want to be in this relationship moving forward? This is how you do it, this is how you move forward in an empowered way. We just have to separate our feelings from their actions. And what really helps here is curiosity, so I wonder why this is happening. Curiosity helps you understand the feelings under the actions, which is always created by their thoughts. And when it comes to infidelity, I’m guessing there’s insecurity, boredom, loneliness, I don’t know, likely so many more.
Kelle: But all of these feelings are their responsibility. Anyone who blames you for their emotions and actions has it all wrong. This victim mentality isn’t going to help this person heal the wounds that caused their bad behavior in the first place.
Nina: So true. And at the end of the day, sad for that person to live in victim mode and never heal or grow.
Kelle: Yeah, such a good point. When you are blamed for someone else’s emotions, it’s an opportunity to check in, get curious, and come back to this episode. This concept of emotional responsibility goes against everything we’re taught, so it takes practice to understand and cultivate these skills.
Nina: Keep coming back, we will always be here to remind you on repeat about personal responsibility and emotional responsibility. We can help you process those big emotions and show up empowered to big circumstances, not as a victim, but as a survivor, someone who can handle it, big emotions, and all.
Kelle: Well, I love this one so much, Nina, this was a lot. And we want you to take this and run with it and circle back with us.
Nina: Yeah. Tell us what’s happening with you right now, what’s really painful, what you’d love for us to chat about here on the pod, and we’ll seriously do just that anonymously of course, if you wish.
Kelle: When you’re on our email list, you can just hit reply every week and talk to us directly. It’s literally us on email.
Nina: Yeah. We also offer free email coaching once a month. And this week’s email is an invitation to do just that. So, sign up to be on our list for more access to Kelle and me for coaching and questions. And again, if you’re listening to this in real time, it’s the week of May 27th, but we do this once a month anyway, so join the list.
Kelle: This is so awesome, just go to kelleandnina.com and sign up.
Nina: Cool. That’s all for today, thanks everyone.
Kelle: Alright, we’ll see you next time.
Nina: Yeah, see you next time.
Nina: If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to worry about missing an episode, you can follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you haven’t already, we would really appreciate it if you share the podcast with others who you think would benefit from it, and leave a rating and review to let us know what you think.
Kelle: It doesn’t have to be a 5-star rating, although we sure hope you love the show. We want your honest feedback so we can create an awesome podcast that provides tons of value. Visit ambitious-ish.com/podcastlaunch for step-by-step instructions on how to follow, rate, and review.
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
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