Self-Blame Only Lives In Your Thinking, Not In You

If you have read many books, done therapy, tried numerous courses, and still feel like something is wrong with you, this one is for you. So often the tiredness underneath perfectionism is not a sign you need to try harder. It is a sign you have been working from the belief that you are a problem to be fixed. This is a gentle track for softening self-blame and for the quiet exhaustion of never feeling good enough. Not another technique to add to the pile. Just a different way of seeing what is actually going on, so that the pressure to keep improving yourself can start to loosen. Come as you are. There is nothing here to get right.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. I'm Lindsay. Before we start, Just know that there is nothing that you need to get right here. You don't need to clear your mind or do this well. Just let yourself arrive and be present. So you may want to listen to this track in the style of a meditation or a relaxation, Or you may want to listen to it as you take a walk. So if you prefer to be still, Find a position that feels comfortable sitting or lying down. If it feels okay to you, Close your eyes. Just let them close and soften. And if not, Just soften your gaze somewhere in front of you. And if you're walking, Just see if you can have a relaxed gaze as you move. So whether you're walking or being still, Let your breath just be however it is. You don't have to change it or deepen it, Just notice that you are breathing and that it's happening on its own. Let your shoulders drop a little, Just let your jaw go slack and loosen. We hold so much in our bodies without realising. So if you're sitting or lying, Just notice the weight of your body being held on the chair, The floor, The bed, Just holding you up. And that you don't have to do anything to be held. It's already happening. Or you may just be noticing the breeze on your face as you're walking. So as you listen, I want to offer you something to notice, So not to fix, Not to work on, Just to see. So if you're someone who has spent years working on yourself, Reading lots of books, Going on numerous courses, Trying all the different techniques, There can be a quiet thought running underneath all of it, And the thought is some version of, There's something wrong with me that I need to fix. Because you've tried so many things and none of them have quite stuck. So the mind decides that the problem must be you. Something deeper, Something harder to reach, Something that makes you the exception. But just notice for a moment another possibility. That the fact that nothing's stuck is not evidence that you are broken. It might just be that you've been trying to solve the wrong problem. So most self-help books, Techniques and practices, However good, Carry the same implied message underneath, That there's something in you that needs fixing, That you are a project to be completed, To be continually worked upon. And so improving yourself becomes some kind of full-time job, And the result is not peace, It's pressure. More to remember, More evidence that you're not quite there yet. So just sit for these few minutes and know that you can put all of that down. There's nothing to fix here, Nothing to improve. Let yourself feel what it's like not to be working on yourself even for the moments of this track. So I want to show you something simple and the simplicity is the point, It is the power of it. So there are two things going on in you all of the time. One is the track of thought, The inner narration. Often it's a critical voice, The one that judges, The one that says do more, Be better, You're not enough, That has you going over and over in your mind, Past mistakes. And notice it's the same voice that pushes you to improve and to change, And then also talks you out of it and berates you for it. And underneath that, There is another track, The track of life. The living itself, The same intelligence that's beating your heart and digesting your food right now, Without you managing it. It is running you all of the time. And the thinking just narrates over the top of it and makes it seem complicated, Makes it seem like there are things you have to do to be okay. So I'm going to give you a small example from my own life. So for years I told myself that I should walk every morning. My mind knew all the reasons that this was really good for me. And it would push me. You really must. You really must get on with this. It's so important for your health. And then it would talk me out of it. You haven't got time. You're far too busy. It's raining. Where are you going to fit that in? Back and forth it went. And underneath it was this familiar hum of self blame. I'm not committed enough. What does it mean about me that I can't keep going? This up. I'm just not disciplined enough. And then one day, This same information just landed differently within me. Not from the pushing voice, But from somewhere deeper within me. Oh, I can fit that in. I would enjoy that. And I have walked most mornings since. And when I miss one, It's totally okay too. So nothing needed fixing. The pressure I was innocently putting on myself was the thing creating the resistance to it and the feeling of there being something wrong with me because I wasn't doing it consistently. That was all. So here's a metaphor that I hope will help to illustrate this. So imagine that you're standing really close to a painting for years, So close that all you can see is just one brush stroke and you keep analyzing it and trying to work out what's wrong with it and how you could have done it better. And then something just helps you step back just a few steps and you see the whole picture and you realize that there is nothing, Never anything wrong with you. You could just see that from where you're standing. And from here you can see how beautiful it is when you are not analysing it and just letting it be. So you are not the brushstroke you've been worrying over. You are not the critical voice. That is the thought track, And it's not who you are. The life underneath it, The thing living you, That is who you are. And it was never broken. It couldn't ever be. So just stay with a moment longer with that idea that what is living you was never broken. And notice something about self-blame, That feeling of not measuring up, Of not being enough, Of it being your fault somehow. Notice where it lives. It lives in the thought track, Only there. It's a thought about you narrating over the top. It is not in the life track at all. The heart beating, The breath rising and falling, The body moving, None of that is blaming you. There is no self-blame anywhere in nature. A tree doesn't think that it should have grown differently. It's something that only a human mind does, Only the mind. And the mind offers it up as if it helps, As if blaming yourself is how you stay on track. Be a good person, How you make sure you keep improving. But notice what it actually does. It keeps you listening to the mind. It keeps you close to that brushstroke, Certain that something is wrong. Because thought is a habit, A conditioned subjective habit running the way it always has. It's not a true report on your worth or on how you're doing. So when the blaming thought comes, You don't have to turn towards it and believe it and you don't have to argue with it. You just need to see it for what it is. A thought. Energy passing through you, Bringing a feeling with it, Not the truth of who you are. So here's something I'd love to offer you to reflect on. What if the only place, And I mean the only place, That you need improving is held in a thought, Held in the mind, Nowhere else? What if the only place that blaming yourself, Being hard on yourself, Is held in thought, Not in you and not in the life underneath. So for the next little while, You don't have to do anything at all. No monitoring, No improving, No catching your thoughts. Just rest here in the track of life and let the thinking narrate away in the background if it wants to. And notice if you can that the exhaustion of trying to fix yourself is not asking you to try harder. Self-blame is not asking you to keep blaming yourself. It's asking you to stop going in that direction. That's why it feels bad. To turn towards this instead, Towards just living, Without treating every feeling as a problem to be solved, Or as you as a project to be fixed. So as we come to the end of this track, Just let your breath deepen a little bit, If it wants to, And start to feel the weight of your body again, Of whatever's being held by whatever's underneath you, Or just allowing yourself to enjoy your walk if that's what you're doing. And when you're ready in your own time, Just open your eyes. So there's nothing that you need to do with any of this, Nothing to work on, Just maybe a small loosening of the idea that there is something wrong with you and that that something wrong with you is only ever held in thought because there is nothing, Absolutely nothing wrong with you outside of a thought believed. So thank you so much for being here and for listening.