Blame

"Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, and try to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.

This slogan is a helpful and interesting suggestion that we could begin to shift that deep-seated, ancient, habitual tendency to hang on to having everything on our own terms. The way to start would be, first, when we feel the tendency to blame, to try to get in touch with what it feels like to be holding on to ourselves to tightly. What does it feel like to blame? How does it feel to reject? What does it feel like to hate? What does it feel like to be righteously indignant.

In each of us, there's a lot of softness, a lot of heart. Touching that soft spot has to be the starting place. That's what compassion is all about. When we stop blaming long enough to give ourselves an open space in which to feel our soft spot, it's as if we're reaching down to touch a large wound that lies right underneath the protective shell that blaming builds."

-Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart p 105