"Looking for a Reason?"

. We delve into the subconscious processes that drive this quest not as a deliberate pursuit of unhappiness, but as a manifestation of preexisting emotional struggles. As we navigate the complexities of these emotional mechanisms, I introduce a mantra that encourages a shift from blame to understanding, shedding light on how perceived malice might just be a misunderstanding or a lack of awareness.

The journey continues as we explore the power of taking emotional ownership, emphasizing that our responses to feelings are within our control, shaped by our past and the unique wiring of our nervous system. I share the profound impact of recognizing our patterns of blame and how freeing it can be to instead address our internal conflicts head-on. Join me in embracing this perspective, and together, let's cultivate a community that values self-reflection and the power of compassion over the ease of casting blame.

Chapters

• 0:04 Understanding the Search for Excuses
• 10:21 Take Ownership of Your Emotions
• 19:42 Blame and Discharging Pain

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

I I want to say welcome, welcome, you made it to another episode. I want to say thank you for coming here. Of all the places that you could be, I want to say thank you for taking the time to expose yourself to something worth learning. That's what we're trying to do here is we're trying to talk about things that matter, and in today's episode of things that matter, we're going to talk about a phenomenon that everybody is familiar with and it's probably why you clicked on this podcast. We all are familiar with, when a person is just sitting around looking for a reason to be mad, or looking for a reason to feel left out, or looking for a reason to feel less than, or looking for a reason to get upset with you. That's why it's called looking for a reason. It's quite annoying how often sometimes people can do this, and this episode isn't here to badmouth anybody. I'm not here to badmouth anybody. I'm here to try to help you navigate what to do in these situations, because it happens a lot and it's quite annoying. So if you have somebody in your life who is always looking for a reason to be mad, I'm going to take the next 30 minutes or so to tell you what I think is actually happening, because I don't think that they're looking for a reason to be mad. What I think I might as well say what I know is they aren't looking for a reason to be mad. They are mad if there is somebody in your life this just happened to a friend and this is why I bring it up is if a person in your life is always on edge and you have to twist yourself and not basically trying to make sure that you remember their birthday so they're not triggered, or you include them in every like thank you message or something along these lines. When you are all twisted up inside yourself because you're worried about how this other person is going to interpret what you say, I want to say I'm sorry, because it's really obnoxious, but most importantly, I really want to say it's not about you at all, and I'm sure you probably have figured this out, but the language that we used to describe this phenomenon is a little bit misleading, because we say they're looking for a reason to be mad, and I'm just going to use that as an example, because that's the one I'm most familiar with when people are one of two things looking for a reason to be mad or looking for a reason to feel left out. And the bottom line here the whole reason I'm doing this podcast is to say people aren't looking for a reason to be mad or to feel left out. They are mad, they feel angry inside them or they feel left out inside themselves constantly, all the time, forever and ever. Amen.

Speaker 1: 4:08

That is why they are seem like they're looking for a reason, but they're not actually looking for a reason. They're already mad. What they're looking for is an excuse. That's what they're looking for. They're looking for an excuse to blame their current mindset on something external to themselves that's happening in the present moment, so they can use that as an excuse to not deal with whatever is happening inside their nervous system, whatever emotional state that they're in. They're looking for excuses to stay in this emotional state. And I do mean this most, like I do most things subconsciously. People are doing this.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Now we can raise our conscious awareness of this and become more aware of when we're doing things like this, but I think most of it is happening subconsciously because people have no idea what they feel. People have no idea what they feel. They have no idea what they think. They just wind up feeling something and then immediately going toward something that's going to make it feel less bad. Right, if we feel anger, we just immediately want to find a way to feel less anger and, as I've talked about before in the Shame and Guilt podcast, that's exactly what's happening with blame is blame is all about discharging pain. That is the only purpose, and so what people are looking for is they're looking for a way to discharge some amount of their pain by turning the blame onto something that's happening in the current moment, but what they're not doing is taking accountability for what is going on inside their nervous system right now. That's what I want everybody to understand and take away from this podcast. It's going to be a real short and sweet one, because I don't think that this is very complicated and I really want to get this message out to folks.

Speaker 1: 6:07

The line that I gave my friend who was struggling with this, because they sent a group message to some family, because there was a party and some people couldn't make it and some people they didn't even like really want around and they forgot to include some people's names in the group text to say, hey, we really miss you, we wish you were here, and then they were twisted about it for a day and a half, because they know that this person is always looking for a reason to feel left out. Now, it didn't matter that this person didn't want to come, wasn't going to come, and made that very clear early on. They still knew that they were going to be upset, and it turns out that they were, I guess. But here's the piece of advice that I gave my friend who was struggling through this.

Speaker 1: 6:59

I have a mantra that I swear by because it's made me a much happier person, and it's you've maybe heard of it never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance or the way I used to say it. People are a lot dumber than they are mean, and I really believe that to be true. I really think people are more are dumber than they are mean. Or, if you want to say it nicely, never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. What that means is never attribute, like something that you, that injures you, to maliciousness, to a willful act against you for the purpose of hurting you. We ought to never assume that over someone being ignorant and there being unintended consequences or some kind of accident or some kind of forgetfulness. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. And the reason that this is important and works for this exact issue is because I live by that, I swear by that and it helps me so much because it helps me to not take things personally and I think everybody ought to live by that. I think it makes the world a better place.

Speaker 1: 8:22

So when I live by that, if there is somebody else in my life that is always looking for a reason, then I can just say at any point in time I can say to them never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. And you can just swear by that and say you know what? I know that my intentions were good. I know that my intentions were fine. Their interpretation of my intentions have nothing to do with me.

Speaker 1: 8:52

And the fact is, if they are mad or looking for a reason to get mad at you, looking for a reason to feel left out or to feel upset or to feel like you're bullying them or whatever their thing is, it's because they already feel that way deep down inside. They're already mad and they're looking for an excuse to discharge their pain. And you are not a punching bag. You are not a place for them to discharge their pain. If they want to blame you and like for me, I'm at a place where, okay, blame me whatever, bye, I don't care, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, unless we're actually really close friends. If we're actually close friends and you try to blame me, this has happened a couple of times, kind of recently, where I have a huge, huge issue with accountability and if anybody tries to blame me for something that was like I see as solely on there or even primarily on their shoulders, you can promise I will not take any accountability for things that I do not believe I should be held accountable for. I will make sure that I pointed out clear as day Nope, this is on you and these are the reasons is on you and the reasons that it's not on me.

Speaker 1: 10:21

I get very, very adamant about that, but you don't have to. You can literally just say never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. Live by that and then, when other people are looking at you to dump their pain on you by blaming you for whatever emotional state that they are constantly living in, you can be totally hands free. You can be totally guilt free, totally walk away from that and feel great about it because you didn't do anything wrong, and you know to never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. And that's really the message that I had today. I know this is a extremely short one, but I would just be repeating myself over and over and over again if I were to make this much longer. So there it is.

Speaker 1: 11:23

When people are looking for a reason to be mad or a reason to feel left out, what you need to understand and maybe this is you, maybe you're the person who's always upset, maybe you're the person who's always being left out, maybe you're the person who is always like feeling like the victim, like people are always picking on you or being mean to you, and if that's the case, I mean I've been there, absolutely. I've absolutely been there, and the only way I was able to get out of that mindset was to get sober. But if so, step one. If you're not sober and you're in that mindset, then get sober, because that's the biggest help that you can possibly come up with. But if this is you, you need to recognize that you are mad or left or left out or feeling guilty or like whatever the emotions are that you tend to pin on other people is just the way that you feel, which is not your fault. It is not your fault. We feel a certain way about ourselves according to our interpretation of the way that we were cared for or not cared for as children. So it's not your fault, but again, it's your responsibility because you were the only person able to respond to the nervous system that you have, which is what's telling you that you're worthless, or people are mean to you, or people leave you out, or nobody loves you, or whatever bullshit is going on through your head. You have to take accountability for the fact that you live consistently in a state that is so bad that you haven't even recognized that. You are walking around every day looking for ways to make that pain slightly less. This is why we use, this is why we drink. This is why we self-medicate because of that pain.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Blame is a version of self-medication. It is a temporary one. We take it PRN anytime that we get the chance. Prn is as needed in medical jargon like for charts but we'll do. We take it as needed and whenever it's there and available and convenient, we'll just throw the blame at something else because it discharges the pain. It makes us believe that we have a reason to feel the way that we feel outside of this is just the way that it feels to be me. Because that's a shit answer, isn't it? But it's the honest answer. It's the only real answer. The only real answer is it's shitty to be you.

Speaker 1: 14:05

If you're one of these people walking around blaming other people, like making them feel bad for not including you in a text message or whatever, your life sucks, and I don't mean that in a judgmental way, I mean it as a statement of fact, I mean it as in the same way that the sky is blue or the grass is green and your life sucks. It sucks to be you. It sucks to be you Not because of the things that are actually happening in your life even, but just because of the nervous system that you live inside of, and I know that this is impossible to comprehend for a person who has never had like a sense of release or relief and safety within themselves, within their nervous system, in their physiology. But it's true, it sucks to be you and you have to find ways to make being you suck less. And if those ways are, throwing blame at somebody else for not being as thoughtful as you think that they should have been. That's your problem, boo Boo.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Throwing blame at somebody else to relieve a little bit of your pain is a very human and like thing to do, but it is in no way beneficial. So you've really got to own your own shit and just recognize that it sucks to be you, and I don't mean that in a judgmental way, again, I mean it in the way of no, genuinely, it's not a pleasant experience to be you and to be alive, be awake every day, whether it's the voices in your head that are constantly beating you down, or whether it's just a consistent sense of fear, a consistent sense of unsafety, a constant nagging of something is going to get me. The other shoe is going to drop. The thing that really makes our lives suck is stuff like that, and the thing is it's low grade, like it's usually not that extreme. It's all these little bitty things that build up and build up, and build up, and if, because it's not that extreme, we don't notice it. So then we go around just blaming other people when the issue is. We actually just feel that way pretty much all of the time. So what you're doing by looking for a reason is you're looking for a way to discharge your pain. That's all that you're doing. So if you are the person who does this and we all do it some point or another, usually when we're younger, and then other times when we get really upset or whatever we're having a hard time or there's been a series of events that put us in a negative headspace. We're all guilty of this.

Speaker 1: 17:01

So don't think that I'm any kind of holier than now at all, because there is not much. I ain't fucked up. That's the only way I've learned anything. A friend asked me yesterday like how'd she get so sad? How'd she get so? I don't know. I went pain, pain, that's it, just pain. I just made a lot of stupid decisions and I thought a long time because I'm obsessive in that way, I saw it a long time about the things that I did wrong and it made me hurt worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 1: 17:31

With my little Cancer Moon, I am quite sensitive, so all the mean things that I say or that I hear are more painful to me than they are to most people. But I also understand that they are necessary. So I'm willing to deal with that pain and that's kind of what I'm wanting for the people who are still kind of stuck in this and if you feel like you're one of those people who is often blaming other folks for like the way they treat you because maybe they're like you're interpreting whatever it is that they do as malicious, when it's most likely just ignorance or forgetfulness it's just, it's not malicious you really need to take ownership of the fact that it is unpleasant being you, whatever your baseline like not good enough thing is whether you are an angry person or whether you're the victim person or whatever it is. You need to deal with that. That's what you have to deal with first.

Speaker 1: 18:31

Stop blaming other people. Stop looking to discharge your pain by throwing at whoever is convenient. You need to own the fact that it sucks to be you, it sucks to live in your nervous system, and start dealing with your nervous system. Start dealing with it head on and getting ahead of the pain rather than waiting until it becomes overbearing and throwing the extra at whatever is around and it can possibly stick, because that's how you lose friends, that's how you make enemies and that's just going to drive you into more isolation and make you feel worse.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So stop doing that and if you're the person who has one of these people in their life. Just don't take it personally. Maybe you do need to cut them off entirely, or maybe you can just keep sticking by. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, and if they want to get mad, let them get mad. If you love them are they an old friend or they got a member of the family or something and let them get mad and just don't let it get under your skin and eventually maybe they'll get over it. Hope so, but that's what I've got to say today.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Like I said, this is a really short one, but now you know what it actually means. When somebody says, or when somebody is looking for a reason to be mad, or looking for a reason to be upset, or looking for a reason to be to feel guilty or looking for a reason to whatever, the actuality is that they just feel that way pretty constantly and it sucks to feel that way, and they're looking for a way to make it suck less. And blame is a way to discharge pain. Reducing that pain means that it sucks less, so they're just looking for an excuse to blame anything in their environment for the way that they already feel. That's what I wanted to communicate today.

Speaker 1: 20:30

I love you very much. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, leave a comment. I appreciate you taking the time to spend time with me and spend time learning something, expanding your mind and trying to become a better person. This is what life is about to me, and I want to say thank you for being a part of this community that consistently stretches themselves and improves themselves and reaches to be a better version of themselves each day than they were the day before. Thank you, you are the lights in the world and remember, stay curious and stay uncomfortable.