Blame: Our Addiction To It and What To Do Instead

This is an automated transcript and may contain minor errors.

Michael: Hello everyone and welcome back to Upbuilding the Self. I am Michael Sloyer and I am here with Hari Prasada. It's really great to be here with you, Hari. It's great to be with you. Thank you. So today we have quite the task in covering the topic of blame. I know you've said that you're both nervous and excited to get into it.

And I think that's translating to how I'm feeling right now in this moment. But I hope we can do it justice and that a lot will come from it. You shared. Right before we were recording that one of your goals for our conversation is for people to have a completely different relationship with blame by the end of this episode and I'm excited for our audience to have that.

I'm also excited for myself to have that. So yeah, very grateful to be here with you today

Hari Prasada: Beautiful.

Michael: Yeah.

Hari Prasada: I was telling you that I feel a kind of nerve wracking energy around this subject more than other podcasts because it is so tricky. It's such a tricky subject to navigate and there's so many facets to it.

And yes, as you said, we really want to do justice to this and we can also revisit in the future, but that we really want to do justice to it.

Michael: Excellent, so let's get started with what is blame and what is so important about talking about this topic. Blame is when

Hari Prasada: you ascribe fault to someone else and it comes typically with some anger, but it's the ascribing a fault to somebody else.

That is typically accompanied by anger. Now, it doesn't necessarily always apply to somebody else, but to

Michael: somebody. Why is it so important that we have an entire podcast episode on this? Because we're doing this

Hari Prasada: all the time, and we are not aware of how it's impacting our quality of life. What do you mean by that, impacting our quality of life?

Our consciousness, our well being, our relationships. And most of all, our journey to becoming who we really are, the true self, the core of us that is free and loving, and which experiences the kind of fulfillment that we all long for.

Michael: So we've set the stakes here. It is something that affects our consciousness, our relationships, and our ability to be our best and truest selves.

So why do people blame? I think we all

Hari Prasada: seek a sense of justice. And, uh, that's sort of on the good side that we want to see there's an order to things. There is a way in which the world operates fairly and when people step out of the bounds of that, we feel the pain of it. So in the most generous reasoning, I think it's that there's a much less glamorous reason why we blame, which is.

The ego, the ego has to see I am right. Somebody else is wrong. I am good. And somebody else is bad relative to me. And if I don't get my expectations met, if people don't all revolve around the way that I think things should be, then they're going to get it. And if they don't get it. At least I have my way of clinging to a reality that is mine instead of being shared, even if there's no justice externally, I will harbor the blame.

I'll cling to my reality that I'm right. They're wrong. They should have done this. They didn't do this. How bad I can't believe they did do this and it's propping ourselves up. in a way that makes us feel good. There is a kind of taste to the anger that's associated with it. It's tempting. And it makes us just feel like things make sense that I have an order, at least in my own world, even if the outside world doesn't make sense.

And at the end of the day, it's really about the two things that the ego is. Completely dedicated to controlling and enjoying, controlling and enjoying. Those are really the two primary functions of the ego. Now, why is that? I want everything to fit what I want so that I can then be happy. I can enjoy. So I control and then I will be happy.

I enjoy. Everything revolves around me. That's the ego.

Michael: So you've said this is happening all the time. Oh yeah. And. I think when we decided on this topic, I was thinking, often our topics are pretty controversial and there's a lot of different angles to them and maybe you should look at it this way, maybe you should look at this way.

And when we initially decided on this topic, I was thinking, that's not really how blame is because it's very clear that this is kind of an ugly word and I shouldn't do this. That's how I was feeling. But then maybe 10 hours after we decided on the topic, I had this experience with. My partner where a few days ago I had asked her if she would get some bananas because we ran out of bananas And I asked her at the time should I go get the bananas or are you gonna get the bananas?

Like are you planning on doing some shopping where you can go get them? But I'm also happy to get them and I was trying to be the good guy by offering it up and and then she said no I'll get them and then I guess she forgot for a day or two and the way that I then asked her again If she had gotten the bananas, even though I knew for sure she had not gotten the banana because I know exactly where they were and I was just like, oh man, this is actually a very, very important topic to talk about because even in something as harmless and I didn't feel so strong.

I didn't need the bananas. This is as low stakes as it could get. And I still saw something of blame creeping in a relationship where It's actually very toxic and this is my whole life being in relationship with this person.

Hari Prasada: I really appreciate that. I also think Enough of those tiny little innocuous blames can build up to something much bigger, and it can start to tint the nature of the relationship on both sides, because on my side, it's like, hey, this is all adding up.

And then on the other side, the person is experiencing something that's being transmitted some energy of

Michael: blame that has built up. As I was thinking about how nuanced this all is, another question came to mind of, well, how do we hold people accountable for things that they are responsible for, while not going in to this toxic blame that we're talking about?

Hari Prasada: Yeah, I mean, accountability is necessary. We have a whole podcast about why that's so important and how to really approach it in a mature, beneficial way. Accountability is not about blame. It may not be exclusive of blame. It may have some inclusion of that, but it doesn't revolve around blame. And unfortunately, The way it's been leveraged is really revolving around blame.

And that then creates a negative association with accountability, which creates all kinds of problems. So when we think about accountability, what we want to get closest to is the objective reality, which means I may not hold the keys to that. I may need other inputs. I may need the input of the person that I'm tempted to blame for not being accountable enough or in the way that I was expecting.

It depends on the situation. But the point, what doesn't depend is I'm always trying to get at the most objective truth and I'm asking myself, what am I not seeing? And I'm trying to go there. Then when I see there is responsibility on the part of somebody else or there's responsibility misconduct or something didn't happen that they really needed to follow through on.

All these different varieties of things that we blame for, we approach it in a way With compassion and with care. And we'll talk more about this. This is really crucial, but the essence is When you are going to lay blame you have to do it in a particular consciousness. You can't just have carte blanche It's not just well that person is deserving of blame.

So here we go. I'm on my IORs. No way That will sour everything. When there is legitimate blame, then we have to see, okay, how do I approach this in the most beneficial, caring way possible? And accountability means care. It means I am responsible for something. I'm responsible to other people. I'm responsible to other stakeholders, including those that I may be blaming or may be worthy of blame.

So how do I Take care of what is within my domain and who is my domain.

Michael: I really appreciate this question that you just prompted us with, which is what am I not seeing? It's striking me in this moment that When we're tempted to blame, that's a really powerful question for us to ask ourselves before we decide to not only take any action, but even go down a specific train of thought.

So just to go back to the banana example again, I can imagine before I decided to engage a second time on the subject, just giving myself a second to think about, well, what am I not seeing? What might have happened or what other responsibilities does she have? Or, what's so bad about this? Do I really need this?

How much of an impact is this having? So just taking that pause to really think about and give the other person the benefit of the doubt before engaging. Personally, I find that

Hari Prasada: extremely helpful anytime I'm tempted to blame. I think it's. Necessary. It's really necessary. And the nature of blame is that it's very emotional.

Whether we see that or not, we may fancy we're not such emotional people, but it's emotional and it's sort of an irrational emotional impulse until it's logically thought out from a grounded place, not divorced from the heart, not divorced from emotion, you know, But without the kind of raw intensity. And this can happen in big ways, and it can happen in small ways, and it's still emotional and impulsive, and until we examine, and we examine not with the view to justify, not with the view to say, see, I'm right, look, I examined it left and right, backwards and forwards, until we examine With a very clean consciousness with the desire to do what's right to do what's best for everybody, including my own self, then we're in danger.

We're in danger of going into darker consciousness of fear and anger and self righteousness and egotism and that coming out in our relationships.

Michael: When you say that it's emotional, what do you mean by that? Because I can imagine a lot of people do do some introspection, some examination. They look at a situation, and it was the other person's fault.

They did not do their responsibility. So yeah, they deserve to be blamed. And they feel like, as you kind of addressed, that I'm not being emotional, but I'm laying blame because there really is blame here. Well, how open am I to

Hari Prasada: exploring and to doing so in a grounded peaceful way. I think that will reveal a lot.

Blame is very emotional. It's very emotional. It's the whole, see, see, this person did this thing. Oh, it's very emotional

Michael: and it can take over the body. And it's a little sick because we get some juice from it. Even if it's something is negative, that's happening to us. There's still some juice that we're getting.

I'm actually glad that this happened because now I can feel a certain way. Totally. There's

Hari Prasada: adrenaline. There's a kind of aliveness. Like we've talked about with anger and they're very tightly tied as I mentioned in the beginning It's typically accompanied by anger now It doesn't have to be accompanied by anger and anger is not always a bad thing Anger can be accompanied with a high consciousness But we have to do our homework, and we don't like to do our homework because it takes away the ego gratification.

And in our emotional place, we just want to cling to my vision, and I'm right, and I'm good, and God, these other people, ugh! Even in small situations, even when it's a small irritation, still it's emotional, and we don't do our due diligence.

Michael: So this is one of those things where, as we always reference Gabor Maté's TED Talk about the power of addiction and the addiction of power, how we need to see what's right with something before we see what's wrong with something.

This is definitely one of those things where we need to see what it's giving us. Because all of us on some level know that blaming other people or blaming anyone is not a good thing. But in order for us to be able to work through this, we really need to get on a very deep level what it's giving us.

Absolutely.

Hari Prasada: And it's propping up our egos. It's making us feel we live in a world that revolves around us, where things make sense to us, and we can get the hit of self righteousness and the kind of taste of anger that is, like, enlivening in some way. It makes me feel alive. And that's

Michael: very, very dangerous.

So let's now move very specifically into the cost of blaming. So let's start with on our relationships. What is the cost on our relationships? The cost

Hari Prasada: in our relationships is that One little thing can create a disconnect and the more little disconnects, the bigger that disconnect grows and eventually we could wind up in a place where we're really divided in our relationship.

And even if not, we have something hanging over the relationship that doesn't belong and which is actually stifling us, and it's felt. We may not have thought enough about it, we may have suppressed because it's uncomfortable and we want to avoid it, but it's there and deep down we know it. That's a big, big problem in most relationships, what to speak of intimate relationships, where there's so much more that's shared and there's so much more intensity as a result.

Michael: Yeah, I was having a conversation with a client earlier today, and the topic was around his avoidance of having hard and difficult conversations, and he was seeing how he always, rather than addressing things early on, lets it fester because he's trying to keep the peace. And keep the relationship intact.

But what happens over time is that his resentment and he's a leader within his own organization. And so there's a hierarchy and people are working for him in addition to working with him. But there's a clear hierarchy there. So what happens is there's a lot of resentment that he has towards the people that are are working at his firm and They feel that.

They feel that disconnection. So it's not, even though he's trying to hide it, he's also not hiding it, and it's coming out over time. It's extremely common.

Hari Prasada: How many people can relate to that? I mean, so common. And the thing is, There are situations, there are many situations where a person may not be ready for what you have that you're blaming them for.

In other words, having the hard conversation may not be possible. That's also quite common. But then what are you going to do? Are you going to sit and simmer in the blame? That's a choice. So what is the effect on ourselves? Yeah, we're simmering. We're not actually well. We think we're well. We have a fanciful notion of being good, being alright.

Sometimes we even say, well, I'm surviving. And we pat ourselves on the back for surviving. That's not what anybody wants. We all want to be thriving and not in an imaginative way, in a very actual way. And when we have this blame that we hold on to, it just robs us of fulfillment. It robs us of real connection with ourselves and with others.

It's the opposite of meaningful and beneficial. And unfortunately, what ends up happening is a mentality develops. And for most of this, this, this is already well cemented so much so that it's almost impossible to remove. I don't want to paint such a stark picture that everyone becomes discouraged, oh no.

And at the same time, I want to paint the severity of this. And I really want a call to action, because we are so cemented in the mentality of blame that it's almost impossible to get away from it. And then what we end up doing is saying, well, I'm a human being. And we justify that, like, I'm not perfect, I never said I was perfect, I'm human, allow me to be human, let me be how I am, come on.

And we just resign ourselves to the mindset of blame, where everything revolves around me, and when I'm not getting what I want, I feel entitled to be angry, I feel entitled to control, and I don't see how it's all about me. I just live like that.

Michael: So what I hear you're saying is for a lot of people, this is the water that we swim in so much so that we don't even know that it's the water that's surrounding us.

Exactly.

Hari Prasada: Unless we've been working on ourselves like crazy. This is the norm. This is the default. This is how the ego sets up. I want to control. I want to enjoy. Everything that comes in the way of my enjoyment must be controlled by blame. I never thought about it like that.

Michael: This is very fundamental. I mean, I think if people are deeply introspective, they should be able to look at their lives and see, well, when I wake up every day, I'm immediately looking for blame, and then I'm doing it until I go to sleep.

Hari Prasada: Yes. This is a travesty. I mean, it's really so painful. And we don't even know that this is what's happening to us and that we've resigned ourselves to it as if it could be no other way because, well, I'm human and this is normal. My friends do this. My coworkers do this. My boss does this. This is just how you got to function in the world.

It's okay.

Michael: Yeah, and it's needed. You talked about justification. There's a sense like it's needed because if I'm not the one going around being the prosecutor and the jury, like we put ourselves as the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, we give ourselves all the roles and we justify it by feeling like, okay, if I'm not going to do it, then nobody else will.

So there's a responsibility here. Totally. And we

Hari Prasada: do this crazy, crazy pendulum swing. I know, like I've been on this so much myself and really trying to navigate it in a healthier way. But we go from expecting so much from ourselves and we can't fulfill our expectations. And then we blame ourselves.

That's another thing to not wanting to expect anything from ourselves because we don't want to deal with the self blame. And we go back and forth and back and forth. I'm expecting so much from myself. I'm not living up. I don't want to expect for myself. You can't expect from me. How dare you expect from me?

Why do you make me take responsibility? The fact that I'm blaming is good. It's normal. It's human. I don't want any responsibility here. I'm allowed to blame. Just let me blame. Damn it.

Michael: So this, we've talked about the effect on our relationships and the disconnection it causes. We talked about the effect on ourselves and the disconnection from ourself, but also this.

Resentment, the stewing that we experience and therefore we don't actually have access to the qualities, the innate qualities that really make us who we are and make life deeply fulfilling. And what is the effect on the cultures that we find ourselves in, our families, our workplaces, our cities?

Hari Prasada: Yeah, it's so important to think about.

See, we have an internal culture of blame, like, in our own hearts and minds, we're blaming. We have a culture there, and we're bringing that to the broader cultures. We're just waiting for somebody to do something that we don't like. And then boom, we blame and in intimate relationships, we feel very good about doing that because, hey, there are expectations.

You ought to do this. If you don't do this, no one else is going to fulfill these needs of mine. Nobody else is going to fulfill these quote unquote needs, and they're also legitimate needs as well. But the way we approach them is. Very unfortunate and it's not helping us to get them met nor can we put that on the other person as we do just Very very unconsciously or sometimes consciously occasionally consciously because we justify So this is the culture that I'm waiting for people to not meet my expectations I don't know I'm doing this but this is what I'm doing.

And the moment somebody doesn't meet my expectations. I say, oh That's okay. I'm a very forgiving person. Then they do something else. Now I'm feeling the pinch. Now I'm starting to blame. And then they do something else. And it's like, yeah, look at that. See, they deserve to be blamed. But I'm so nice that I'm giving them half the blame that they deserve.

And it keeps going. That's the culture. We just are accustomed to blaming. All the time is we've been talking about. So bring that into the larger context of a family, an organization or a geographical location or community. And then you just get this poisoning of the well, that is unspoken. Where now everything is tinted, like I mentioned, our relationships get tinted with this now, the broader culture gets tinted and you have enough individuals gathered doing the same thing now that becomes the waters that we're swimming in this.

You mentioned they have this color of blame and it's no wonder that at the national level, it's blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, and between political parties, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. And we get a kick out of it or we rail against it, but we're doing it ourselves.

Michael: Yeah, this image of water being tinted is very powerful.

I was doing a mini science experiment with my. Three year old. He's four now, but he was three at the time. We're dropping in some blue food coloring into some water and then some yellow food coloring into some water and watching it turn green and you know, when you do that with the water, the water is, unless you have some seriously high tech tools, the water is tinted.

There's nothing you can do about it at that point. And so that becomes The water that everyone is swimming in, and unless serious, serious measures are taken, that's how it's going to stay.

Hari Prasada: I really

Michael: appreciate

Hari Prasada: that.

Michael: And it

Hari Prasada: creates so much fear, because nobody wants to be blamed. So then people are afraid of being blamed.

And unfortunately, that creates more constriction, and less freedom, and less fulfillment. So it's all going in the same direction of less freedom, less fulfillment, and more fear. And then people don't act their best. And then we're surprised and we blame them for not acting their best. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

And this happens at all scales.

I've been looking forward to this. Exact point in our conversation, because I'm feeling now that it's, it's a good time to move away from the costs and the ugly side of all of this, which I've hope we've done it justice and really laying that out very clearly and move into what we really want to offer people a hopeful message and also hopefully practical strategies to work through this.

Michael: So, And we've already started to allude to it here, but let's start to go to that place of healthy alternatives and the things that we need to become aware of in order to make those healthy alternatives even possible. So the irony is,

Hari Prasada: Michael, I think so much of what we've been discussing is actually the healthy alternative.

Why I say that? Is because we're generally so blissfully unaware of the way we're blaming and the consequences to our blaming and the medicine is becoming aware of the way we're blaming and the consequences to that and then, do you really want to choose to keep going like that? Do you really want to choose that?

It's a conscious choice. You have to be responsible for your actions. So, um, I've been sharing this a lot recently. When there's a will, there's a way. Now, we also have limits to that, but there's an amazing amount that determination can bring to the table. When we realize what is happening, Oh my God, I don't want to be like this.

I don't want to blame anymore. Let me be free. Of course, there are situations where we still need to blame and we do that very conscientiously and we'll come back to that in a moment. But I don't want to be a person who blames. I don't want that to be a central feature of my life. And I have to admit first that it is, before I can make it not.

So the first step is seeing, and it's like I always bring up the Alcoholics Anonymous or the 12 step programs. Admission here is critical. Stop denying. Admit, yes, I'm addicted to blaming. That's what I do. I'm a recovering blamer. That's what I do. But let me start recovering. Let me start recovering. So the determination has to be there from the awareness.

That's the first thing.

Michael: Yeah, when you said I'm a recovering blamer, I don't think any of us are recovering blamers yet. We're hopefully going to get there, but for now, I am Michael, I'm a blamer.

Hari Prasada: Well, even in AA, that's the humility, right? In AA, people don't say, I'm a recovering alcoholic. I mean, they may say that, but the typical refrain, the more standard refrain is, Hi, my name is Hari Prasad, and I'm an alcoholic.

Regardless of how long you have been sober for. Exactly. Even if you've been sober for 40 years. Hi, my name is Hari Prasad, and I'm an alcoholic.

Michael: Okay, so step one, awareness. And really being very clear with ourselves that this is something that we're not above. That this is something that is a part of our life and has been a part of our life for our entire lives.

Hari Prasada: Yeah, and seeing the impact of that and making a choice. No, I'm determined not to be a blamer. I'm determined not to be a blamer. So that may be even a step two, we could say, is making that determination based on step one. And then from there, how can we conduct ourselves when we enter into situations where we're tempted to lay blame?

We really try to understand the different dynamics at play, we try to understand the suffering of the other people, the constraints of the other people, the difficulties that they're facing, the reasons why they can't come through, they can't meet our expectations, and we empathize with them, and we empathize with ourselves, we don't suppress, we empathize with the impact that they're having on us, Because what you resist persists.

And if you say, I'm not going to blame, I'm not going to blame, I'm not going to blame, it doesn't help. You're just going to end up blaming. But when you say, ah, you know, the effect of this action on me, or the way this person is behaving, it's, it's a little painful. Here's why. And we can feel the emotions of that, but we don't dwell in the emotions and we don't allow them to take over and dictate our actions.

We create space between the emotions that we have to process and then what we want to do with them. That's our responsibility. So we do that very conscientiously, as I mentioned, conscientiously is the key. And we determine what would be a beneficial action. So that would be the next step. Then how do I want to respond to this?

And many times it will be, I don't want to do anything. I've processed the emotions. Okay, that was enough because I can't control everybody. If I have to respond to everything that happens to me, even in a single hour that I would blame people for, I don't think I would have the time to do it, or the energy, or I don't think it would amount to anything.

I mean, certainly in a day. In an hour, there's also plenty that's And usually we're thinking about things from the past and worried about things in the future, so it opens up so much. It's not going to be healthy to try to respond to everything. What we want to do is be aware, be conscious of what's affecting us, empathize with the others, what they're going through, try to understand.

Michael: So I'm wondering if we could just go back to the banana example one more time and think, so what would a healthy process look like as you're sort of laying it out here for that example?

what it looks like is, and you already alluded to this, but okay. There's something that I'm looking for here. How important is it? How much is this really weighing on me? How much is this kind of a strategy for my ego to assert itself and be like, see, I need to get what I want and what people don't listen to me.

Hari Prasada: Of course we also need respect. I mean, that is a genuine need and we need to be heard. So it's not negating our needs. It's just meeting them in a way that's freeing. It's taking the emotional slavery, as Marshal Rosenberg coins it so aptly. It's taking the emotional slavery out of the equation. You're bound to meet my needs, and your life better be for meeting them.

So in the banana example, we see what is it that I'm bringing to the table here?

How important is this? How can I be respectful and see? What would help me meet my need without holding the person responsible? What is my request of the person? Can I get an agreement with them? A free agreement, not one that you have to, and if you don't agree to this, what is wrong with you? How could you not agree to this?

No matter what it is, right? That's there. So with the bananas, it's easy. Like, yes, you don't have to get the bananas, but if you tell me that you're going to get them, be really helpful to know that you're going to get them. And when, what maybe the timeframe is that you have in mind. And if you have too many things going on, I get that we can talk about it or we don't have to talk about it.

I empathize and I'm happy to get the bananas or if I still if I don't have the time, then we'll figure out an alternative. It's okay, but let's dialogue about it. And if it's really weighing on me, then we can talk about that, but not an accusatory blaming.

Emotionally ramped up amped up way. It's it's a free exchange. It's one that's helping us to both feel understood and create deeper connection.

Michael: So the biggest thing that I am taking away from what you shared is that it wasn't actually about the bananas. It was about this feeling of not Feeling heard, being disrespected, even though that's, it's very embarrassing to say that. I asked my partner if she would get some bananas, she said yes, and then she didn't, and now I feel disrespected.

I mean, it just shows how fragile our egos actually are, but it's, I mean, there's a truth to it. And the temptation to blame, and then the subtle way that it was done, it was mostly responding to that piece. And what I'm really getting from our conversation is that if I can see that very clearly there's a way that I will respond, which will be much different from the habitual blaming that we often do.

Hari Prasada: Beautiful.

Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, we can ask ourselves this question. How much is anger a feature in my relationships? How much am I experiencing anger? And if I'm not experiencing so much anger in my own estimation, how much is it just at the surface? Somebody just has to do one thing and then boom.

Here we go. That is also very revealing, like all of this should be revealing the state of our hearts and our consciousness that it produces, which is creating the obstacles between us and who we really are deep down.

Michael: There's a word that you've used a couple of times. Which is freedom, and as we think about what's on the other side of it, it feels like that's really the thing that we stand to gain from all of this.

Hari Prasada: Totally. Otherwise, people are just meeting their expectations out of fear. And that's really,

Michael: really unfortunate. So before we close, is there anything else that you want to make sure that we talk about?

Hari Prasada: Yeah, thanks so much. I am reminded of an experience that left a deep impression on me when I was a monk.

There was a senior monk who I admired tremendously and who I gained so much from. I wouldn't be here without him. He's an exceptional person. And he got into a situation where he wasn't so careful about blame. And the consequence of that was, this is really how I feel, unforgettable. His own guru, his own teacher who took responsibility for his Spiritual journey said to him the reason why you're struggling so much and why you're having now a lot of difficulty following these teachings.

is because you're blaming people for your problems. And to his credit, he honestly shared that with the roomful of monks, but it's so hard to do something about that. It's so hard. The ego is so strong and it always wants to come out feeling good about itself. It's only with deep humility. And a real desire to actually serve everybody else and not be so caught up in myself that we can make headway and we can remove the blame and create freedom for ourselves and for one another.

We really care about the people that we say we care about. We should offer them this greatest gift of that freedom in relationship and of being our best. Which is even more important. How can we be our best when we're so much swimming in the blame? It's not possible. And it's always like you just step on one little landmine and boom, we're in blame territory.

It's so, so pressing. It's such an urgent need to see that this is what's happening. And to see when there are innocent intentions, especially that should be the easiest to let go of blame when there are good intentions, when they're pure intentions, when somebody is really trying to serve, it just doesn't match my expectations or when they're trying to do something.

Which is genuinely beneficial, even if I might think another way of being is more beneficial. If in their world, they're doing what is genuinely beneficial or even they're trying, we should have so much compassion, so much forgiveness and really so little expectation. Of course, expectations are always going to be important and we'll have to have discussions and we'll have to see what we can do.

But free discussions where people are inspired, not feeling like, Oh my God, if I don't do this, I'm going to get it. I can only

Michael: reiterate that's the urgent calling here. I'm very grateful for this conversation. I do feel like I have a completely different relationship with flame and a lot of inspiration to be aware of how it's showing up.

And I think because this doesn't take so much convincing that this is something that we should. have less of in our life. What it takes is awareness of how we're doing it and then determination and courage and compassion to not do it in the way that we've been doing it. So my sincere hope for anyone who's listening is that by bringing the awareness of how this is happening into your life, there will be changes in your life immediately because of that desire.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to have the effects on myself, on the other person, my relationships, and the culture that we're a part of together. 100%.

Hari Prasada: 100%.

by seeing the consequences of our blame step 1, by choosing step 2, I don't want to be a blamer anymore. I'm making the determination and by 3, understanding the situation, the different dynamics at play and humbling myself and taking a thoughtful and caring approach to process things and then respond, however, will be best if response is needed.

Thank you. That's what we're talking about here. This is a whole new relationship with blame.

Michael: Thank you for that very clear and inspiring summary. And again, thank you so much for sharing everything that you shared today, because this topic is really rich and nuanced, and it's very complex. And you did it with such ease and grace and navigated us around.

And I'm really looking forward to taking this into my own life. So kind of you, Michael, thank you

Hari Prasada: for guiding this. And I think for all of you, listening. We're so grateful. And let us just always ask this question. What is meant for me to grow here? What is meant for me to grow here?

As soon as I start blaming, I should think, well, what's in this for me, for my growth? How is this beneficial for me? That will do wonders. So I'm really excited for us all to go further on this path where we're becoming our best and We're changing our relationship with blame completely.

Michael: Thank you everyone for listening.