I want to talk about self-blame.
There are so many things I've discovered about myself.
Things I've thought,
Said,
Or done my whole life without even realizing it.
These patterns become part of us.
So familiar,
They go unnoticed.
But once we begin asking for awareness,
Once we truly seek to understand ourselves,
These things start to surface.
So I want to share a story.
It's about the moment I realized just how much I was living with unconscious self-blame.
While I was in Bali,
I decided to take a little day trip.
I rented a scooter and planned to ride it up to the rice paddies in Sidemen.
I'd lived in Cambodia before and had spent plenty of time on a motorbike,
So I felt comfortable.
But the trip did not unfold the way I had hoped.
The first issue was not having a phone holder for my bike.
It made using GPS nearly impossible.
I had to keep pulling over to check directions,
Which started building tension in my body.
As I rode further,
The roads became curvier and the hills got steeper,
And that just added more stress.
By the time I reached Sidemen,
I was too overwhelmed to even enjoy it.
I found this beautiful little cafe for lunch,
But instead of relaxing,
I could feel more and more anxiety rising in my chest.
Eventually,
I realized the most loving thing I could do for myself was to just turn around and go home.
It was disappointing.
I'd driven an hour and a half to get there,
So of course it felt like a waste.
But I've made a commitment to myself to listen to my body,
Even when my mind doesn't like the decision.
And my body was clear.
I needed to go home.
On the way home,
I stopped at a roadside shop and thankfully found a phone holder so I could use GPS.
That helped so much.
After about 45 minutes on the road back,
I felt my nervous system starting to soften.
The tension was melting and I could breathe again.
My body was telling me I made the right decision.
And that's when the thoughts started.
I heard myself say,
Why did I even do that?
Then I remembered I did a similar trip back in Cambodia and it didn't go well either.
Why did I make the same mistake?
But then,
A second part of me stepped in and said,
Hey,
That's not fair.
If I had known this trip would have gone like this,
I wouldn't have done it.
I didn't know.
It wasn't a mistake.
That was just a choice I made based on the information that I had.
And in that moment I realized,
I've been doing this my entire life.
Not just with trips,
But with everything.
If I ate at a restaurant and didn't like the food,
I'd blame myself and say something like,
Why didn't I pick the other place?
If I dropped off my laundry at one shop and then walked by another that charged less,
I'd think,
Why didn't I wait to check the prices?
Hindsight had become my inner courtroom,
And I was both the judge and the punished.
But here's the truth,
That's not fair,
And I would never speak to a friend like that.
If a friend made a choice that didn't go as planned,
I wouldn't say to them,
Why did you do that?
Instead,
I'd reassure them,
And I would show them compassion.
So why was I denying that same compassion to myself?
That moment changed me.
It was the awareness that I needed.
And without it,
I would have kept slipping into that same unconscious pattern,
Never realize how much I was quietly shaming myself.
This is why awareness matters.
It's the key to change.
You can't heal what you don't see.
And it's the seemingly small things,
Like a quiet pattern of self-blame,
That once brought to the light,
Can change your whole relationship with yourself.
Every time I catch one of these patterns and bring it to awareness,
I feel a little safer,
A little softer,
A little closer to myself.
I offer this story to you in case you're walking your own path towards inner safety.
If you've ever blamed yourself in hindsight,
Or spoken harshly to yourself after things didn't go as planned,
Maybe this will help you pause.
And offer yourself something different next time.
If you have a story about self-blame,
Or a realization that shifted your inner self-talk,
I'd love for you to share it in the comments.
Thanks for being here.
