There are times when you are clearly stressed but you don’t know what is causing your stress. You don’t have a clear direction for writing a worksheet. You don’t feel like you’re really blaming anyone anyway.
The easy way out is to blame it on yourself. That’s usually what we all do. But I invite you to look a little deeper at what’s really going on.
In my experience self-blame is a secondary response to an initial, outwardly directed blame.
She started out with a guilty feeling that occurs when a good cause catches her interest. She wants to get involved with the cause, but doesn’t really want to at the same time. It’s stressful because she feels she should get involved. And she thinks something’s wrong with her that she doesn’t want to.
Where’s the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet in this situation? It’s not obvious. At first she tried a worksheet on the volunteer agency because it seemed so secretive (probably had a secret agenda, according to her). But that was a side issue.
Then she tried writing a worksheet on “getting involved”… “I am scared of getting involved because it will take too much time.” This was an interesting worksheet, where the “neighbor” being judged was the idea of “getting involved.” I love unusual worksheets like this.
She remembered a time in the past where she had gotten involved with a volunteer organization that put pressure on its volunteers to do more. She felt comfortable only giving so much. And she felt like she never met their expectations.
The final worksheet ended up sounding something like this, “I’m frustrated with the organization because it is too demanding of me.”
Now she was able to write a worksheet where the blame lay clearly on another person, the original cause of all this problem. And her worksheet went right to the heart of why she was feeling hesitant to volunteer with this other organization today.
Sure, “it’s all just me anyway.” But if you look closely at what started that self-attack, you may find where you really did believe you were a victim of someone other than yourself. And when you work that Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet, you will be addressing the root cause of your self-attack.
Join us for Open Sessions to discuss more tough situations like this.
Have a great weekend,
Todd
“When you do The Work, you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are.” — Byron Katie, Loving What Is p. 12.
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We are not meant to live stressed lives. Learn how to address the root cause of your stress and find your freedom again. Otherwise, stress will keep accumulating. Learn how to break the cycle of stress here.
