MOTIVATIONAL MOMENTS /  STOP PLAYING THE BLAME GAME                                                                        

One of the first things that I learned when I truly entered into a relationship with God is that I had to stop playing the blame game.  I had to stop pointing the blame and accepting responsibility for the things that had happened in my life and all that I didn’t do in my life up until my early 30s and even beyond for the rest of my life.

One of the most comfortable things I had found in blaming others is that it relatively easy and comfortable to point away from the self and assign the blame to another human being, a group of human beings, churches, schools, jobs – whatever represented anything or anyone other than Yvette.  But to turn the blame on self, rather accept the fact that the blame lies with the self and belongs to the self is a horse of a different color, let me tell you!

To say the least, having to look at self is not pretty.  Looking at self does not afford one the luxury of having variety in the scenery or different focal points – you are it, baby!  Like the late Michael Jackson sang, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror; I’m asking him to change his ways.”  When you are staring at self in the mirror, it is the reflection of self that dominates the perimeter of the mirror.  You may catch a glimpse of background objects, but you are the featured attraction. 

“Nowhere to Run” was one of my favorite songs by Martha & the Vandellas when I was growing up, but it wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties when I realized the words of the song, “Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide,” aligned with a statement that a friend had shared with me:  Wherever you go, there you are!

As a child, I used to visit one of my best friend’s regularly and one of our favorite games was hide-and-seek.  my favorite place to was to hide was in the closet in her mother’s room.  My friend’s mother had a walk-in closet in her bedroom with one long rack on the back wall that she hung her coats.  Well, that was my spot.   Every time we played that game, that was the first place I would go hide.  And every time I would go hide there, that’s where my friends would find me.  I remember I used to say, “Why you always gotta find me?”  “Because you always hiding in the same place.” 

As a ten year old child, the experience of playing hide-and-seek bared little significance for me, other than playing with my peers, but to view it from and adult perspective, my experiences of playing hide-and-seek is a clear illustration of one of my familiar and favored definitions of insanity: trying the same thing expecting different results.  

The same behavior I exhibited in playing hide-and-seek was the exact same behavior when I was ‘hiding out in my own mind” – trying to find somewhere to hide and people kept finding me in the same hiding place.   Would things have been different if I had discovered what others already knew - that my so-called “hiding place” was actually a public forum? I would like to think things would have been different, but if it were not for my life’s experiences – both good and bad – I would not be the person that I am today.

I challenge you to stop playing the blame game!