The Blame Game

Hiya,

Got this through on a newsletter I'm subscribed to from Eldon Taylor. He's a fascinating bloke and has a lot of insightful thoughts. Hope you enjoy...

"There are those who cling to their "right" to blame. I have a friend in
South Africa who is a lie detection examiner. He has a model I like. He
calls it something else, but we'll call it the "bad-luck fortune
cookies" game. So, this is the story of these special cookie
collectors. They go through life collecting all the cookies they can.
Riding on the escalator of life, they will even jump high in the air to
catch one, just so they can put it in their backpack of life experience
and share it later. And share they do. Each evening, whether at home or
in the pub, on the telephone or via e-mail, they tell their friends all
about the cookies of the day. These sharings go like this:

First Person: "Do you know what happened to me today? The clerk in the
gas and grocery would not take my credit card because I left my purse
at work with my identification in it; and she knows me. Heck, she sees
me nearly every day--but she is a real grouch anyway." Second Person:
"That sucks, but do you know what my boss said to me today? He informed
me that I was always late from lunch and told me in no uncertain terms
that I would either be on time or lose my job. He knows that the
traffic is horrible at lunch, and he's always gone more than an hour. I
should just tell him to stuff it!" Third Person: "Your day was nearly
as bad as mine. I had a damn cop stop me for nearly nothing. Everyone
in traffic was changing lanes, and just because I cut in front of him,
he gave me a ticket. That's my third one this year, and my insurance
costs are going to go through the roof as a result. These damn cops
should be out catching criminals, not honest tax-paying citizens."
First Person: "Life sucks. Is your husband still being a jerk? Oh, but
you know, speaking of insurance rates, my insurance company canceled my
insurance just because I was late with their payment. Then the idiot
that ran into me--well that led to a fine for my not having insurance.
And on top of that, they blamed me for the accident, and it wasn't my
fault!"

By now you get the idea. These people gather to share their cookie
stories, and that is largely what their social life is all about. If
you want to have some fun, step up to the cookie keepers and point out
how wonderful life is. You might even explain the blame game and cookie
keeper philosophy, but make sure you have a plan for a quick retreat.
Cookie keepers choose, whether or not they want to admit it, to hold
tightly to the blame game. An otherwise productive and joyful life is
thrown away in exchange for the "Don't you feel sorry for me?"
exchanges. That is another part of the cookie keeper game. To belong to
their group, you must be willing to be understanding and sympathetic.
It's okay to top the cookie of another with a more unpleasant cookie of
your own but not if you fail to recognize the poor, picked-on nature of
the other cookie keeper.

A dear friend of mine grew up in a codependent family relationship, one
of those Melody Beattie so aptly defines in her books such as
Codependent No More. It's the relationship most of us know something
about, for we have heard many of those conditional statements growing
up. They are ones that go like this: "If you loved me, you would ____.
If you had any respect for me, you would not ______. I did this for
you, is it too much to expect _________ from you? I think if you cared
about me, you would______." And so forth. You fill in the blanks.
Beattie sets out several criteria for recognizing codependence. In her
words, "Codependents are the people who consistently, and with a great
deal of effort and energy, try to force things to happen:"

In order to keep these posts easily readable I'll post the concluding part tomorrow.

In the meantime if you'd like to find out more about Eldon Taylor and even download some Free subliminal audios go here:

http://www.innertalk.com/mp3.html#free

for now

Be Inspired

Stu

If you like this you'll probably like my other blog:
http://thechangeyourlifeblog.wordpress.com