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Judgementalism: The addiction to the drug of blaming others, seeing them as guilty and worthy of our criticism and condemnation.
Like an addictive substance or behavior, we engage in using it because it makes us temporarily feel less like sh*t. And like other addictions, when we do use it causes us to feel guilt – consciously or unconsciously. That guilt is so intolerable that it results in our using again by projecting it onto another person and finding them guilty to keep ourselves from feeling it. Then we feel guilty about that and blame someone else – rinse and repeat.
This destructive drug of guilt, blame, and victimhood will continue to wreak havoc on our relationships with others, ourselves, our bodies, money, our jobs, and everything else in our lives until we hit our version of rock bottom and realize there has to be a better way.
How do we even get addicted to guilt and blame in the first place?
It begins with a deeply embedded belief in our collective unconscious mind that we ourselves are inherently bad and guilty. We temporarily took a “detour into fear” as A Course in Miracles puts it – by listening to the crazy-ass ego mind and believing that we willfully separated from God, rejected Him, and essentially told Him to f*ck off. T-2.1.2:1
It never happened because it isn’t possible for us to separate from our Creator. But we don’t know that, so we’re consumed with a terrible fear that we have completely screwed ourselves over and are damned for all eternity because we think we hijacked the power of God.
(The enormity of the arrogance of that belief is also pretty astounding.)
So we basically walk around all day with this underlying and largely unconscious awful, crappy feeling that we’re guilty and bad and shameful and not good enough and we did it to ourselves. That feeling is so intolerable to us that we seek relief any way we can get it – and the pusher-ego in our minds hands us a handful of judgment pills and a cocktail of blame and victimhood and tells us it’s not our fault – it’s our bros who are guilty.
We down it all – projecting our guilt it outward onto others, the world, the body, etc. seeing everyone and everything as responsible for our unhappiness . This allows us to self-righteously perceive ourselves as victims and therefore innocent. We crave this feeling of temporary fake relief, so we become addicted to the “fix” it provides before the guilt kicks in and we have to
call the dealer-ego or belly up to the judgement bar again.
A Course in Miracles offers recovery from the addiction to the cycle of guilt and blame.
When we make the decision that we’re willing to be shown a way of living without this drug, it’s like walking into a 12-Step meeting and asking Jesus to be our sponsor.
He welcomes us in with open arms and introduces us to everyone in the universe of time and space as our brother, the Son of God.
He tells us that the key to recovering from our addiction is the Atonement Principle – the full realization that the separation from God never occurred. The miracle that leads us to the atonement is the shift from fear – which caused our addiction – to love, which heals it. The instrument we are given to work the miracle is true forgiveness.
True forgiveness is reclaiming our perfection and holiness as Sons of God by remembering the innocence and perfection of our brothers when we have a grievance and are judging them. It is the solution when we relapse into victimhood, projected guilt and blame. It detoxes us by dissolving the self-harming effects of our erroneous fear thoughts – transforming them with love.
True forgiveness remembers that we are dreaming an illusion that the ego-mind made up. We forgive the other person or situation because there is nothing to forgive in a dream. We forgive ourselves for believing in the illusion and ask Spirit to help us see the situation differently, and release it to Him to be healed.
The 12-Steps of Recovery modified to reflect the teachings of A Course in Miracles
1. We admitted we were powerless over guilt and blame — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God / Holy Spirit as we understood Him.
4. Became willing to see things differently.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to the Holy Spirit the fact that we have been wrong.
6. Were entirely ready to have the Holy Spirit remove all misperceptions.
7. Humbly asked Him to shift our perception from fear to love.
8. Made a list of all persons we believe we had harmed or who had harmed us, and became willing to see them all as innocent and our judgment as illusion.
9. Practiced true forgiveness toward each of those people, and toward ourselves for believing the illusion.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly forgave it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to change our minds and become miracle workers.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message in our minds to our bros, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The Addiction to Guilt and Blame
Let’s get out of the gutter of victimhood and condemnation. We can heal our addiction to guilt and blame together, by recognizing our oneness as the Son of God we are.
Let’s rock our recovery and reclaim our joy.
I love you.
Kelly
Kelly Russell, The Rock Your Joy Coach
YOU SAY YOUR GUIDANCE ISN’T WORKING:
Is it plugged in and turned on?
