Cut The Blame Game
| Kim Tapper
Coaching is all about awareness and responsibility: the more awareness you have, the more responsibility you take for your life and consequently, the more exciting and purposeful your life can be. Most of us like to imagine that we are already aware and in control of our lives, yet we allow copious situations and excuses to keep us from what we want. We permit these circumstances (or people) to have power over us and we spend so much time focused here playing the blame game that it becomes a place of inertia. Sound familiar?
Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Think about that for a minute. Too often we try to fix what’s wrong in our lives by standing embroiled in the broken places desperately wishing things were different. To create change you first have to gain a new level of consciousness, a new perspective, enabling you to generate constructive ideas from this place. This is where art comes in.
Art (be it a painting, a poem, a performance...) transforms our consciousness by offering us different views, different perspectives. Have you ever seen a movie with a character that inspired you to take action? For example, Mary Tyler Moore’s characters that headed out to tackle new frontiers and carve out their niche in the world inspired many women. Famed but fictional character Atticus Finch has been held up as a model for our justice system and equality for all, inspiring thousands of people for generations. A painting can pause us in our tracks and take our breath away – why? Why does it speak to us?
So if you are someone feeling stuck or trying to break a current pattern, consider going to see some art with the intention to open your perspective and see something new in the world and therefore, in yourself and the situation. Empower yourself by allowing yourself the opportunity to explore and by recognizing you really do have the power to change your circumstances. But it all lies within you to make the choice and to be open to seeing things differently.
If you’ve read my articles before you know this is a constant theme for me. As a life coach for over 10 years I have seen countless people stuck in the blame game rut. Those who successfully break free took the time to try something different, to see something different, to be inspired by something different – all for the sake of creating change inside their own minds and thus, changing their actions and circumstances. It doesn’t matter if you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, a bad relationship, or a family matter that’s difficult. Create awareness of your own role in this situation. Take responsibility for the ability to change something. Seek beauty and truth in the art around you and let it inspire you towards new possibilities.
Here are two poems by the magnificent Mary Oliver to help inspire your journey:
Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983.