Recently I saw the movie “Penguin Bloom”. Maybe you have seen it. Maybe you also had tears running down your cheeks.
One of the children blames himself for his mum becoming a paraplegic. And the film shows how he then interprets the way his mother looks at him, the words she speaks and her actions, as showing that she blames him too.
This happens so easily when we are young. We can make links to what happens to others and our minds decide that we are to blame. In this movie the boy had wanted to go up on the balcony so they went. His mother leaned back on the railing and the railing gave way and she fell to the concrete below. The boy blames himself.
I bet you blame yourself for something that happened.
I know I did. In many small things. The day after the movie as I was sitting in quietness, a well of emotion arose and I let it. My mind was quiet and the energy of the emotion was felt. For only a few minutes, actually maybe it was only seconds. And afterwards there was only love – endless, boundless love. So good.
Later I allowed my mind to think of some of the times, in a light way.
Like when I was little and my mum was unwell and I knew it was something to do with me.
Like when I gave birth to a baby with an extra chromosome, I spent 12 months trying to find out what caused it. Regardless, I knew it was my fault.
Like ways my children behave and experience life.
Like when my ex-husband died and I wondered whether he might not have died so soon, if I had not left.
And then there is filter that we create between us and others, that filters things said and heard and seen, in a way that reinforces the belief that we are to blame.
Happens so simply and completely unconsciously.
So if you watch a movie where you are emotionally affected, maybe you can use the situation to become free of something that is unconsciously stuck inside. That is, rather than feeling for the person in the movie, ask an internal question – am I like that? How do I do that? Do I believe that?
PS. There is another way in which we can blame ourselves. Someone is short with us, or angry, or upset. If we are feeling sensitive (or if we have a pattern of expecting to be at fault) we could think it has something to do with us. That it’s our fault. Is it? Are you really responsible?