In this episode, we welcome back Craig to talk about the natural human defense mechanism that is Blame. While we use is similarly to how we use rationalizing, blame is more of a way to defect then it is to justify. To get a better understanding, they start with what is blame, and what are the effects of it. They dive into how blame is a big part in marriage or any close relationships and then wrap up the show with ways you can avoid the blame game.
Tune in to see Blame Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- The show starts off by looking at “What is Blame”?
- Similar to rationalizing, blame is a defense mechanism that people will put up.
- What are some of the effects of Blame?
- Blame Shifting and escaping responsibilities.
- Psychology Today has an article about 7 consequences of blaming others.
- What could be the origins of blaming for a person?
- Blame is a big part of marriage or any close relationship.
- So how you avoid blaming others?
- Blaming is the emotional reaction when something bad happens.
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Episode #183 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hi there I am Chris Gazdik since 1995, a mental health and substance abuse therapist. And we’ve got him back for his rotation. He’s right over there. Mr. Craig Graves. How are you sir? Doing good, man. That’s good. Chris. You see here, man. Thank you, sir. You have landed at, Through a Therapist’s Eyes where we talk about myths and stereotypes disseminate a lot of information about mental health and substance abuse.
We give you personal insights directly from a therapist and personal time in your car or your. See the world through the lens of a therapist here, but Bri, be aware that this is not the delivery of therapy services in any way. This is through therapist eyes where you can contact us contact@throughatherapistseyes.com.
We interact with you. We engage with you. It’s a good way to connect with us. A five-star reviews are important. I thank you really for internationally hanging with us, growing with us, learning with us. It’s, it’s, it’s really been a fun journey to, to continue with you guys. And you know, we love doing it, but [00:01:00] it helps us to get those five star reviews, really to pop up whatever the techno people tell us that is helpful apple iTunes, you could do some reviews on there as seriously helps us to, to go.
And we’ve got the merchant button. Now you had mentioned, we talked about the hat that I got made. You got to get the jigsaw puzzle. I’ve been talking about the jigsaw puzzle. Wow. Yes. Neil’s brainchild. It’s, it’s a, it’s a jigsaw puzzle to go up to a thousand pieces, maybe 500. You could do it as a kid puzzle, but it says on there you know, let’s figure this thing out together, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s the, the phrase, the jigsaw think I’m going to get one from a lobby. That’d be cool. That’s pretty neat. I think so. So this is the human emotional experience and we do endeavor to figure this thing out together. So let’s, let’s rock and roll, man. We’re, we’re going to talk about blame tonight.
Which I think is it’s funny because it’s, it’s one of those ones. I’ve got several ones that are sort of conceptual in basis and it applies to [00:02:00] most all of us. I mean, I have said several times, I really design our shows when I’m prepping and thinking about the show to, you know, to apply to as many people.
And, you know, there’s some like we do tonight who doesn’t. Engage in blaming others. Right? How does it operate? You know, what effects does it have? Where’s it come from. Why do we do this? How to avoid it. Those are some of the things that we’re going to be. We’re going to be talking about tonight. So pretty excited about this one on top of last week, we had the rationalization show where’s that last week Neil gave me a head nod.
Rationalizations, why do we rationalize things so much? But you know, kind of, so I thought two in a row would be a nice play off of that show actually, because, you know, tune back to last week and then tune to this one, you’ll see how they kind of coordinate together a little bit. So let’s get your stuff out there.
Mr. Graves. You are now the bonafide, Mr. Unbeatable mind coach. What is that? How do they find you give them some contact [00:03:00] info?
Craig Graves: Yeah. Speaking of blaming, it’s a it’s mindset training. It’s, it’s kind of life coaching based on mindset. And so we go through a lot of standard stuff that that other coaches would, but we use the power of our minds to help us get ahead.
Wininyourmind.com is my website and you can find out more information there.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, you’ve been enjoying it. Yeah. I like to say fun. I like to say guys, you know, he had like a, was it like a year or two years training during the show picking up all the mental health facets. And that’s a,
Craig Graves: we learned a lot on the show, you know, and you know, coaching’s a lot like leadership and I’ve been in a lot of leadership positions in my past.
So so yeah, man, that’s great. I love that. I love it. I love that kind of stuff. So
Chris Gazdik: he’s trained certified, ready to go international. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, you can, you can really do some international stuff. Have you had an international coach? E
Craig Graves: I haven’t had an international coachee, but another guy that’s in the program with me.
Yeah. Did [00:04:00] some coaching for me and he’s in Germany. Cool. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty neat. So really, if you’re you’re over the pond and, you know, you want to work with some unbeatable mind mindset coaching, he’s your man. And like I said, he’s trained certified whole nine yards with the unbeatable mind program, but also I’d like to throw in there, like you’ve been dealing with mental health through the show for a while.
So I think that really gives you a bit of an edge and he gives you a little bit of a
Craig Graves: learned a lot here on the show, man. Yeah, for sure. So we know about blamed. You know, there’s a lot of blame people, people blame a lot. It really do a lot, you know, politicians are watching the show,
Chris Gazdik: you know, nice.
Craig Graves: There’s always somebody else to blame
Chris Gazdik: political edge. Yeah. True. Yeah. You’re right. That’s an interesting thing. I mean, how ingrained is it in life? You know, through, through our views with policies and procedures, I would say, you know, at workplace gosh, how much plane goes on when administration [00:05:00] and these evil people behind the curtain making me do stuff I don’t want to do.
And certainly in relationships. Right. You know, we’ll have a little segment on marriage for sure. And a lot of areas and part of what I want you to get from listening here is the, really the effects. Like what does this do in your life? Let me set up a thought process. You might even type in the live.
Right. Like, what do you think this does when you get into a state of blame? Is it good? Is it bad? I mean, I guess you can assume it’s generally bad, but, but getting in touch with like, what does it do to me when I fall into blaming other people for much, most of anything. Yeah, I would, I would say, right, so let’s get into it, man.
Blame is a, you know, default, right? Or different definition to find fault with, to hold responsible, to place responsibility for you know, pretty straightforward. But I thought it was cool [00:06:00] when I dug a little further in what we’re talking about, when really, what is blame, you gotta really appreciate, I didn’t catch you cold with asking you what is blame?
What, you know, I like to catch people cold and you’ve always . get driven nuts by
Craig Graves: Yeah, I’m glad you have that written down here. And
Chris Gazdik: it’s a, it’s coming, I’m catching on somewhere, man. I’m sure you will picking your brain. But I mean, it also is interesting because they came, if you look more into the depth of what is happening, you know, when you have elements of blame kind of at play, it’s also an expression of disapproval or reproach.
And if you think about what is man, if I’m blaming something in my re reproaching them and that word is rebuke, like I rebuke you, you know, you think like, well, I’m blaming Craig for being late today. That’s why we started late or whatever. I’m just making that up. I’m rebuking you [00:07:00] dang. That’s a little harsh, but that’s, it’s a synonym.
Right? So off the get go. When I thought about what is blame, do you think Craig people really know what they’re doing with those added words? When they’re blaming somebody for something to do you think people think about rebuking them or being in reproach of them? Like that’s, those are terse words,
Craig Graves: you know, I’m not sure they think about those words and, you know, specifically, but I think there probably are times when your rebuke is appropriate, but, you know, and I think rebuke and blame, maybe different things, you know, if I’m trying to think of a good example in, in, in, one’s not coming to mind, but people do make mistakes and sometimes it’s appropriate to call people out for those mistakes.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting
Craig Graves: thoughts. Yeah. Right. I think there are situations though, where we, we try to deflect the attention on ourselves [00:08:00] and we blame others when we had a part in. In, whatever it is,
Chris Gazdik: which is why I’m going to pull a Neil here in a little bit in just a second. So you can get ready to Neil. I mean, the, you just transitioned us, but I don’t want to transition yet.
The reflecting, the redirecting, this is where we talked about last week, you know, rationalizing, so blame as a defense and blame in much of the ways that we talked about, you know, just last week, but to stay here for just another moment, right? Like they are different words, rebuke and blame. But if you look at the definition that we just talked about, hold responsible for it to place responsibility for, right.
Like, is it good? Is it bad to blame somebody? Well, hold on. It’s not all bad because you bring up a point that I would sprinkle into the show. Isn’t it appropriate to do that? Sometimes
Craig Graves: it is. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. [00:09:00] You’re going to hold people responsible for. Sometimes something they did to you or something that you’re going to hold them accountable to, or an agreement that you and I made let’s go there.
Right? Like you and I made an agreement we’re going to record on Thursday night, about 5 30, 6 o’clock let’s just say you didn’t show up. Well, is it not appropriate to like, say, Hey Craig, we had an agreement. You didn’t come, you know, can I rely on you to set a time next time that we’ll we’ll do this while I’m blaming you.
Right. Kinda I’m holding you.
Craig Graves: I mean, what’s the definition of blame again? I mean, there’s some accountability there too, right? If I don’t, if I don’t call and don’t show up then, Hey man, what happened? Were you in a car accident? It could be, could be something that legitimately happened. Nah, man. I was just hanging out to the house, watching football or the definition can beer
Chris Gazdik: to find fault with the whole responsible to place responsibility for, yeah.
So there’s some elements that
Craig Graves: maybe by [00:10:00] definition blame is, but I think about blame B and something that could be, or is my fault, but I’m trying to project that on to somebody else.
Chris Gazdik: That’s not what the definition says, but I think you’re right. The way we understand the process of blaming somebody.
Absolutely incurs that connotation, but it’s all that.
Craig Graves: Well, maybe, maybe it’s maybe the definition has changed. Seems to be. Some words, are there definitions are being changed, just blaming such a common thing. Now we’ve, we’ve changed the, the the
Chris Gazdik: terminology. It’s why I like words and talk about definition a lot in the beginning.
So cause what are we talking about? A lot of times people have an understanding of something and, but subconsciously or in our culture, there, there are multiple. Components even
Craig Graves: the operation on. Right, right. Yeah. You know, I’m trying to think of a good example of something that’s not, that’s not political.
That [00:11:00] that would be a a blame scenario.
Chris Gazdik: Well, like I said, I can’t blame you for not showing up on time or you can blame your employer for not giving you.
Craig Graves: And I was on time by the way, but yeah. But yeah, I get it, you know? So I don’t, I don’t know. I think that, but I think that blame when I think about blame, that definition sounds legit in some ways.
But when I think about blame, I think about it as a bad thing, because I think about it I’m deflecting my responsibility in this situation on to somebody else.
Chris Gazdik: Right. So that’s a good transition. Neo, do you, do you remember talking last week, you know, about rationalizing? I mean, we spent we took a pretty deep dive on.
Exactly what you’re talking about. And my brain was really thinking about that and how that really correlates in much the same way when we’re blaming.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And I, and I think it goes back to what Craig said is that the negative connotation,
just like when someone, when you hear someone that’s rationalizing, it it’s become a negative connotation.
I think blame has gone the same way. Where to me, when you guys see the C say blame, I’m thinking of my two kids. Cause I know my [00:12:00] oldest, he never gets the blame. It’s always his little brother’s fault, of course. And so that’s that negative, but there’s a lot of
times when, you know, each kid has had situations where they need to be blamed for the situation because they were responsible for what happened. But then it goes back to what Craig said that negative connotation, because the oldest is trying to deflect the blame to the youngest.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a perfect example. You must be living in my house. Like we, we make, we make jokes. Cause we got ghosts. Lizzy. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Graves: Yeah. And I think that’s, I think maybe the kids, maybe the kids is a good example because you know, if you’re, if let’s say when your, when your boys grow up and they got a curfew, let’s say they’re driving cars, the curfew’s midnight, you know?
Let’s say one boy’s out by himself. He didn’t come home by midnight. So then that’s a rebuke, Hey son, where you been, you know, you gotta, you gotta midnight curfew right now. Those boys are together and miss curfew and they come home and they say, well, well, I told him, I told him he needed to get home.
He, but he didn’t listen. And that’s why we’re late now my fault. It’s his fault. That’s, that’s what I think [00:13:00] about when I think about.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s, it’s a perfect little.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And I think younger kids are great exempt because it’s not as serious as say when
adults pass blame at work or something like that. So you kind of see the, like you said, if, if luke and Mason were out at night and they came home late, it’d be, Mason would be like, well, Luke wanted to go to taco bell to get a slushie, wait, you’re driving. It’s your responsibility to get back by midnight,
Craig Graves: the kid, the kid examples. So maybe you’re working on a project at work, you know?
And you know, you miss a deadline. It’s not my fault. I told Neil to have the presentation ready. and he didn’t And it’s not, it’s not my fault it’s Neil’s fault.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. But Craig didn’t give me the information for that presentation. So that’s,
Chris Gazdik: and then when you go back and forth with double binded blame, that’s not a real term.
I just kind of made it up, but you can get into, and we’re going to talk about here blame shifting, you know, that’s the formal term for it. You’re shifting. But, but. double binded When people in our complicated adult lives go back and forth with [00:14:00] that, not wanting to take responsibility on a team, not wanting to take responsibility for something that you did not being accountable for a commitment that you had, or an obligation that you had.
And, and yeah, and those, those are where it isn’t a kid kid thing, it’s it? This can be a serious, serious, he
Craig Graves: can be. And on the other side of that though, rebuke is the parent who say, Hey, you guys weren’t humbling time. Or the boss is saying, Hey, ask you guys to complete this project by this. You know
Chris Gazdik: what happened?
And we can, we’re going to get touch on marriage. If we have, as we go, when this, when this enters into like serious relationships, as, you know, employee, boss, or partner business partner to business partner, or husband to wife, you know, these can get pretty sticky. Now you’re rebuking. You know, when you blame your spouse, did you realize you’re rebuking.
Oh, hold on. I don’t know that we want that there. So that’s a little bit of [00:15:00] foreshadowing. So the main point here is like, we talked a lot about last week. There’s a lot of self-defense and we took a deep dive. So I’m not gonna spend much more time on talking about how it relates to rationalizing things, because we took a deep dive last time tune into that one and then come back to this one because man, you’re defending yourself.
I don’t know a lot of psychological dynamics come into that when you’re really engaged in a relationship with somebody. And the concept that we’re talking about here, blame comes in in the mix and just listen to when we get to like the effects, right? Hey, that sounds like a good transition. What effects come from this?
What does it really do in the life that you have with somebody? The partnership? Well,
Craig Graves: it creates this distrust and you know, you’re not going to trust that person on
Chris Gazdik: point as always. Yeah. Big big impact. I think that’s all my list somewhere destroys your ability to be [00:16:00] trustworthy or to be trust, you know, to extend trust when you’re, it’s such a negative force when you’re doing this defending of yourself or shifting as we’re going to talk about, man, you, you, you just, you really destroy the dynamics that you’re talking about being out of contact or connection or in tune.
That’s what we want to do in relationships. You just throw a hammer into the ranch, a hammer, and a wrench into the wheel. How about that? Yeah. So what is blame shifting? I did, I did have this did word come from psychology today? I haven’t used. The psychologist or psychology today sites in a little while.
So it was actually kind of cool to land on some of those when I was thinking about these things and actually they brought up the idea of the term blame shifting. I heard it before, but it fit with what I was thinking about with responsible rationalizing. And we talked about last time and basically it’s, it’s emotionally abusive [00:17:00] behavior use strong language when they were talking about this idea of blame shifting
Craig Graves: and what is blame shifting?
Okay. So many, you’ve got a definition there,
Chris Gazdik: Basically to escape responsibilities. That’s what we’re talking about gets even weirder when it’s, double-blinded, you’re doing it to me and I’m doing it to you. And we just kick that back and forth bull cost. That’s a lot. Well, that’s usually the
Craig Graves: way it goes, right?
I mean, it can,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, it can, but interesting. Is it usually the way that it goes? I don’t know that it is. Particularly when you get into abusive relationships and they’re not really shifting it back and
Craig Graves: forth, maybe abusive relationships or are different, but like, Hey
Chris Gazdik: boss, employee, you know, your employees, you know, when there’s a power structure, either formal or informal power differentials and marriage has had a lot of struggle with that.
That’d be a whole show in and of itself when there’s power differentials, when you’re in a relationship with somebody, you have to learn how to share power, give [00:18:00] and take back and forth. You know, you have the idea this time. I have,
Craig Graves: you know, if, if some, if some money to lay some blame out there, who’s going to say, yeah, you’re right.
Yeah. It was my fault. You know, most people are not going to do
Chris Gazdik: them so much back in the shutdown could be that they’re going to shut down. They’re going to run. They’re going to avoid. And if it happens enough repetitively, they’re actually in abusive relationships going to start incorporating. I do screw things up.
I’m really not a good communicator. I don’t know what I’m doing with parenting. You’ll start incorporating. I’m a really bad employee. Bottom of the heap here on this, I got to pick it up. Something’s wrong with me? It, it can get pretty
Craig Graves: deep. Yeah, I guess it could be, you know, I think probably the way I would envision that though, is somebody to blame somebody who defends himself and lays, you know, blames the other way.
And that’s probably the start of most arguments
Chris Gazdik: a lot, you know? It’d be interesting to see what kind of percentage of arguments are started with this kind of [00:19:00] thing. I think you’re, that’s an interesting thought. So blame shifting though, you know, abusers have difficulty taking responsibility for their problem.
Projection. We talked about that on the show, I think before projection, chin of the blame, right? Towards relationships that people have a difficulty, you know, putting this on to their partner, they don’t know they’re doing it, but they do it blame shifting or blaming the victim is a form of, you know, switching and making the other person feel crazy.
I was just talking about that. So this blame shifting thing, you know, an example of that is gaslighting. And I know you think that’s only in abusive relationships, but we’ll kind of like play games a little bit with people, you know, I mean, I’ll consistently have an issue in marriage. Let’s just say, you know, maybe start spinning it in a way to take the pressure off of me.
I think people me definitely fall into strong examples of this with abusive relationships, but I think people have a hard time. Doing what you help people to do [00:20:00] to be mindful of themselves, to do self-examination to really look at, like you said, how many people say, oh, maybe I do have something there that I need to look at it in our simple little example, you’re probably going to be like, avoid the topic of being late, which you weren’t, but avoid the imaginary topic of being late.
Well, I wasn’t really that late. I was just, I ran into some traffic or whatever, whatever, you’re not shifting it back at me, but you’re trying to avoid the hurt that we feel when we’re blamed. So blame shifting can be really, really troublesome, really, really depth. The, when you get into that effect, that’s just one effect.
So yeah, I made the point. This can be way more common than what you think of as the super destructive forms. That we’re kind of talking about with abusive relationships, but when we’re this article, I’m curious, I’ll fly through this other effects and then I’ll do my own list a little bit. [00:21:00] But I found this to be a little convoluted in the way that they were talking about the psychological kinda aspects of blame.
And then I got to thinking about why am I feeling that way with their examples of the effects of blame. And I got to thinking, you know, this is difficult or we’re taking a deeper dive on this. This is depth D this is like the emotional experience. When you’re in a blaming situation, I was just reflecting on the weirdness that this is, if you really look at it closely, the why am I doing this?
What am I not wanting to face about myself? Why am I redirecting something I may or may not have done or contributed to the problem? Like there’s a lot there. And again, we took a deep dive last week. Listen to their, to their things. They had, you know, these articles, right. Seven effects of blaming kind of thing.
So real quick through it. True self-worth and genuine [00:22:00] empowerment. Okay. You don’t have self-worth or genuinely feel empowered when you’re blaming other people. Okay. So these are the,
Craig Graves: these are the article. These are the things about the
Chris Gazdik: blamer. Yeah. Correct. The effects of blaming.
Craig Graves: Okay. The effects of blaming on the individual who is, who is placing
Chris Gazdik: blame.
Yeah. And usually I have my, my list matches up with what I kind of take a glance at articles with it. It didn’t really this, this time as much, it was interesting in my brain thinking about it. So secondly creates and continues dependency. I had to actually think about it and I added an explanation for this one.
So I, I looked at what that means is looking at self can create anxiety, right? Like we seek distraction. Feel alone and confused and misunderstood. I think that’s what they mean by creates and continues dependency, right. Distracts from self-reflection. Okay. I got that one. That was cool. I think I had that on my list when you’re [00:23:00] blaming somebody else, an effect is you’re distracting from really reflecting on all right.
What is my piece in this? So that one made perfect sense to me creates helplessness and powerlessness. I thought, okay. If you think about it, you’re blaming the other person. Well, you can control yourself. Can’t control the other person, right? So it does foster helplessness. It fosters powerlessness when you’re engaged in blaming somebody else, it’s a different take on the angle.
And then they said a can reflect global thinking. So, you know, when you’re blaming other people, you might be falling into, I use the word stereotypes, you know, like if I’m an employer and. Employees just don’t care about the company. That’s a stereotype I might have. So they talked about CRE you know, following global thinking and then lastly prevents or developing resiliency to better handle life’s challenges.
So when you’re blaming somebody else, [00:24:00] you’re not really creating a lot of resiliency. You’re beating your own internal resiliency down. So that’s a weird list. Isn’t it? I mean, how does those things, I see your face. I’m not sure you have to
Craig Graves: check the, I just, you know, it sounds like to me, you could somehow sum it all up in one thing, you know, covering your own ass, you know, CYA.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
I think I said the word convoluted because it’s kinda like there’s some psychological things going on there with some of their points. And you know, to go deeper on that, you really have to check the article out, which you might want to do. Yeah. And it may
Craig Graves: be interesting to read, but it sounds to me like if those things are happening and it’s more on a subconscious level, I’m just trying to get the, I’m trying to get the focus off of me.
So I don’t get in trouble or I don’t look bad. See
why? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, what was, you said this list didn’t line up with yours. So w w what were you
Chris Gazdik: thinking? I was [00:25:00] thinking oh, and they ended up with B, you know, with creating more blame, you that’s, your back and forth was their last thing on their list.
You know, I blame you, you blame me. And we just, you know, go nuclear with blame. I was thinking about this is hurtful. You’re your, the effect of blaming somebody is you’re being hurtful to them, right? The effect of being condescending to a person when you’re really blaming them. Now, condescension is showing a feeling of patronizing superiority.
I’m here, you’re there. And the cameras, you can see my upper, your
Craig Graves: lower. Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of right, right. Yeah. I think so. I didn’t mess up. Yeah. You’re the one that messed up. Yeah. You know, I’m on
Chris Gazdik: point, you screw up. Yeah. So you’re, you’re really kind of falling into some condescension. Yes. What I have next to oh.
And I made the point, oh, I’ll come back to it. This is where judge and jury that the subtitle really comes back. So I’ll circle back there. I also thought, you know, it sets up automatically an adversarial [00:26:00] relationship
Craig Graves: y’all yeah,
Chris Gazdik: definitely. You know? Yeah. I’m blaming you. I’m immediately making you an adversary.
Craig Graves: I’m on the defensive immediately. What do you mean? I wasn’t late. Yeah. You know,
Chris Gazdik: and then lastly I came up with is, is not conducted conductive to truly problem solving. It’s not finding a win-win in our little problem that we have at this moment. You’re you’re you’re going in. I win you lose. I’m blaming you
Craig Graves: and you suck, as you were talking, I was thinking ego, that, that word in my head, you know, you’re protecting the ego, you know?
Cause I didn’t mess up. You did.
Chris Gazdik: And you could see where that goes deep in abusive relationships that can go real hard in a way. It was really a destructive people with massive insecurities inside them. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, do you see their list was, I don’t know. It was like sort of psychologically
Craig Graves: subconsciously.
Yeah. I think all those things are subconscious on that [00:27:00] list. If they happen at all, you know, who
Chris Gazdik: knows? Yeah. And I feel like mine, I was thinking more overt, direct unintended consequences, maybe.
So just think of that whole list of effects. I don’t think you’re thinking about that when
Craig Graves: you blame this one, you just want to get the heat off for you, protect your own ego, but look at what you’re to self, not look bad,
Chris Gazdik: you know, but look at what you’re doing to the other person.
Craig Graves: Well, you don’t care,
Chris Gazdik: but I think you do that.
You want to be a good employer and you don’t want to tear somebody apart. You want to be a good spouse and you don’t want to do these things, but really stop. And maybe even rewind this and listen to those effects again. Cause I don’t think people are intending to do all of that. I think you’re right. I think they’re just trying to see.
Well, Hey. Yeah, but the effects man is can, is can hit people is, can hit hardest. This can be a hard hitter. And again, part of the point [00:28:00] of the show is this happens a lot. It happens all a lot. And maybe soon we’ll be touching on marriage is, happens a lot in close relationships. It’s happens a lot in families.
You know, we’re all grown up we’re kids, but I blame my brother for not doing the Christmas thing. Right. Or you didn’t do the chicken for, you know, who does a chicken for Thanksgiving anyway, I’m blaming you for not following tradition. I mean, we throw this stuff around like a lot and I don’t think we realize it.
And I don’t think that we realize the effects of it. So part of the purpose of the show is to stop, pay attention to this because you could be doing some damage to your relationships. So let me circle back around that, you know, what do you, what do you take here as your catch cold moment? What do you, what do you take from the, the, the title blame is judge and jury.
Craig Graves: Well, I think that when people, if the part, if you mean the person who [00:29:00] is laying blame. You know that he’s, he’s the judge, he’s the jury. You’re guilty. He’s not,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. I feel like that term came to my mind, you know, who wants to be judged in jury? And that expression has a, and we all
Craig Graves: know doesn’t really all want to be judge and jury don’t we always want to be right.
We don’t want it to be our
Chris Gazdik: fault. Yes. And
Craig Graves: yes, I think most people probably operate in that space. And I think the ones who don’t probably Baltar it at times and
Chris Gazdik: you know, I want to be judging jury. Right?
Craig Graves: What do you not want to be judging jury?
Chris Gazdik: No, I don’t think you do either. Cause that has a connotation.
I know.
Craig Graves: Well I’m saying whether you do it or not, it’s a different story, but yeah, we don’t want to take, you know, it’s what makes us look bad. I’m not saying I do that. I’m not saying I blame. I’m not saying you blame or Neil or anybody else, but, but [00:30:00] man, it’s much easier if we do that. Right. And take ownership of the situation.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I would go so far, I’ll just speak for myself. I know that I fall into these traps. It sucks. I don’t like to admit that. I really don’t like to admit that because look at the effects and, and I, but I think that we do all do that. And the expression judge and jury is more crystallized based in the effects that we just talked about.
And nobody really wants to be in that position. I don’t want the power of being judge and jury even literally like in a courtroom is while we have separate separation of power, separation of control, separation of decision-making so that we come together.
Craig Graves: Yeah. But that’s it, man. I think probably that’s a legal thing and you’re right.
We don’t want that. We want the judge and the jury to be separate obviously, but I mean, in our own personal life, You know, how hard is it to admit you’re wrong?
Chris Gazdik: Dairy. It is very,
Craig Graves: you know, it really is when I told [00:31:00] you this story, I’ve told this story on the show about my first marriage counseling
Chris Gazdik: experience.
I just shared that with a friend and I’m like,
Craig Graves: yeah, we’re going to do good. We’re going to get this thing fixed up. Everything’s going to be great. And I was like, wow. After, after listening to the guy, I’m like, wow, I got some responsibilities here too. I got to take ownership of some of this stuff myself.
You know, I can’t just lay all the blame on her. Yep. I got some stuff going on too. And I, and I think that people are there was a book that I read. I think it was one of Dale Carnegie’s books and the human beings will try to justify their actions to the end. You know,
Chris Gazdik: we do which again, we took a deep dive on rationalizations.
It goes back to that. I’m sorry to mention that so much, but I think that they really blend in so well together. Go why I followed that up with this topic today. It’s it’s a powerful, powerful trap that I think that we really get into. It’s just
Craig Graves: it’s damaging. Yeah. I think it’s human nature. You know, there was [00:32:00] a, in that book, he used an example.
I’m pretty sure it was Dale Carnegie. And it was probably written back in the thirties. And there was this guy who had killed a police officer and he was trying to justify why he had done that.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow.
Craig Graves: Yeah. It’s just, you know, it’s madness, but in this guy’s mind, he didn’t have any other choice, you know, and he was trying to justify his actions.
And I think that we all do that to some extent.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I don’t know why I’m thinking about marriage so much with this. I think because it just happens a lot in the emotion focused therapy model when you become insecure. With the abandonment or the engulfment respectively bulks back to your ego, like you’ve got to protect yourself almost like you’re in a state of fear, it’s fight or flight, and I don’t want to be crushed by you.
And [00:33:00] so I can’t take responsibility in my fear state. So I’ll
Craig Graves: throw it at. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s hard for people to admit that they are wrong. And I think we live, you know, our society glorifies greatness, and you know, if you make a mistake or a bad decision or do something wrong, then you know, you’re beating yourself up.
Cause you’re, cause you’re not one of the great ones, you know, and stuff like that. And it’s ridiculous, you know? And it plays out on a lot of places in our, in our culture. You know, I’m hearing a little
Chris Gazdik: while I’m gonna use the idea of an anecdote again, to blaming. And I, I came up with, I think I, I came up with humility, you know, being able to do exactly what you’re saying.
We struggle with in a humble way, realize like, dude, gosh, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect. I mean, it’s Facebook. It’s perfect parent. Perfect dad. Perfect mom. I want to be the best employee. I want to be look good with my grass and my [00:34:00] neighborhood. I mean, there are so many pressure points that we put on ourselves.
Like guys, gals, if you hear nothing in this show, understand, this is probably a major takeaway here of allow yourself to make mistakes, eat, lose guard against the idea of perfection. And to a man and a woman and a child and an elderly person. I think we all fall into the trap. I think you’re on point.
Craig Graves: Yeah. Yeah. I think humility is a under, under utilized. Is that a right word? I was going to say
Chris Gazdik: the exact word. Yeah. Yeah. You went much further, you know, we struggling with that word. You know,
Craig Graves: we talked about Jocko, Willink on our show or on the show many times before in the past, when I was, when I was at coach, his book is extreme ownership.
You know, he talks a lot about ego getting in the way, and he’s looking at it from a leadership standpoint in organizations and the lessons he learned in the seal [00:35:00] teams. And when we talk about, you know, organizations and, you know, I guess you could, you could say marriages and, and, and other aspects of life.
You know, you take ownership of, of the issues, but you don’t, you know, you don’t say, oh yeah, yeah. I take ownership. You come with solutions. So how can we prevent whatever happened from happening in the past, you know, happening in the future. And he does a great Ted talk. If you’ve never seen Jocko’s Ted talk.
It’s amazing. I have not. It’s awesome. It’s really good. I might ask you to forward that to him about a situation when he was in Iraq of a, of an extreme ownership example. And so like, you know that, let’s just say, you know, for example, Neil has the volume turned off and he’s not recording. And so you go through a whole show and Neil and Neil doesn’t record, so you’ve wasted an hour and you know, didn’t get anything, whatever that’s never good.
Say, you could say, well, dadgum, Neil, what’d you, you know, what’d you do, [00:36:00] man, you screwed this thing up, you lose her whatever. Or you could say, you know, This is my show. I own this thing, you know, I’m the guy, this is, this is me. How can we prevent this from happening in the future? In the future, Neil, we’re going to make sure that we do a sound check, you know, have a checklist or whatever, which you go into that situation with.
Yeah, I’m the, I’m the leader of this. I take ownership of what happened. Here’s what we’re going to do to prevent it from happening in the future.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s, it’s, I’m actually thinking through, I mean, ever, ever I use personal examples. I don’t mean to glorify anything. Cause I screw this stuff up all the time, make no mistake about it.
But I think that happened with me and you before. And I want to use this as a really good example of our relationship. You know, there was a time when you, you did the background stuff before and I don’t remember what it was, but there was a, there was a, there was a major. And we had to kind of do some repairs or whatever.[00:37:00]
And I think actually you were already on point, you were like, well, here’s, here’s what we’re going to do here. Here’s what I’m going to try to do. Can we, can we rerecord this section or something? And I’m like, oh, absolutely. No problem, man. I mean, this happened, I think, I think I said something like, dude, this is the first time we’ve ever had any kind of thing.
This is, this is fantastic. We’ve been awesome at this. Do you remember that? Am I making that up or I
Craig Graves: think we had a, I think I had sound thing. I think I had a ticker in the background or something. It was a a garage band thing, a Mac thing. I think that’s what you’re talking about as we’re talking is when tick
Chris Gazdik: pick, pick, pick, pick, pick pretty.
Yeah. And we fixed it, we figured it out and it was okay. We could’ve gotten nasty with each
Craig Graves: other about that. Right. Right. You know, and I think in a lot of situations, instead of getting upset, laying blame, letting emotions get involved. It could be a first time thing. It’s a first time that ever happened.
We didn’t see that coming. Right. You know, we didn’t see that coming. [00:38:00] So there’s no use in getting mad and Craig, why’d you miss the show up? Well, you know, blah, blah, blah. It’s just, Hey, this happened, what do we do about fixing it?
Chris Gazdik: And, and, you know, I want to follow that up with again. I said a little bit ago, if you hear anything of this show here, this, and this is a tag onto that, right.
Be allowing of yourself to make mistakes and extend that to the people that you’re working with. Yeah. How about that? Right. Like give yourself permission to not be perfect, but people that you’re working with, like realize they’re going to make mistakes in that needs to be okay. Leadership positions, if you demand perfection, you’re just going to be.
Oh, God, can you imagine that we probably all come across people that seem that way. Yeah. It’s yeah. That’s a tough standard. Don’t don’t don’t don’t do that to
Craig Graves: somebody. Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of problems, Chris, with blame and stuff like that is implicit versus explicit things. Right. So [00:39:00] implicit is something that you assume so explicit are things that you’ve actually talked about.
Yep. So the rules that are actually set, so my implicits and your implicits may be completely different, you know? So if it’s an explicit rule is broken, then that’s got to be talked about
Chris Gazdik: that’s where the accountability comes in. Yes.
Craig Graves: And I, and I hit this with my kids a lot of times because they’ll do something that I think is not proper or correct, but I’ve never actually had a conversation with them about this perfect point.
So I’ll say, Hey, look, here’s what happened. We’ve never talked about it. You know? Just so, you know, if this happens again, it’s going to be a problem. So now we’re on the same page and that’s it. That’s awesome. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a good moment. So there’s a really good teaching moment in our relationship parent child.
Yeah.
Craig Graves: And it could be whatever, it could be a business relationship. You keep going back to marriage, you know, it could be, it could, could be those things too. [00:40:00] I just have used this with my kids recently and recently, well, I mean, you know, they’re, they see they’ve grown, they’re getting, as they get older, you know, there’s things, you assume that there’s things you assume they may know when they don’t.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. You know, the absolutely. So let’s look real quick as a little segment on the origins and whatnot that come out of this. And I, and I thought this was interesting. So a lot of this is, is learned before. Really? I think so. I talk about an overview of mental health. You’ve heard me mentioned before a tale of two tapes, right?
So an overview of mental health is on the one side. You’ve got biological realities, your brain, your maid, your Olympic system, exercise, nutrition, we know anxiety, depression. There’s a genetic reality that the biological body drives how we feel. But on the other side, you’ve got the social and emotional, the primary life relationships, [00:41:00] the primary life events, the daily stress, the grind, all of those sides.
When we’re talking about blame, we’re really on this side, right? So I ended up camera’s in YouTube. You see the audio version is the social side, social, the experiences that we’ve had. Relationships that we’ve had the primary learning from other people is a big part of the origin of blame. You learn how to blame or you learn accountability.
You learn, I have sense of integrity. You learn a sense of self-examination you really learn these things or you don’t. And so you, you had an excellent example there where you’re teaching. I’m not blaming you son or daughter, whichever it was, I’m not blaming you, kiddo. This is new. This is a problem. No problem right now.
Just [00:42:00] don’t do it again. That’s teaching that’s your kids learned from that moment, whether they realized it or not, they learned, oh, dad’s not blaming me. I, he said, I didn’t even know this. That’s awesome. But now we have to abide by that, that we got a new rule. Great. So that’s awesome. The origin of this is really those experiences and relationships.
I feel like also shame thing about shame. We’ve done a show. I think shame sucks. Maybe we haven’t, or we need to, when you’re feeling a sense of shamefulness inside a lot, or with any level, that’s gonna create your tendency to blame other people, because you already feel shameful. You’re already eating a lot of that energy inside.
It stands to reason that boom, that’s going to spit out at the other person and it creates a tendency or a sense of, [00:43:00] of blame for others. So you’re
Craig Graves: saying we, we blame because we feel shame. Yes. Interesting. Yes, because I would say that you could also make someone feel shameful by blaming
Chris Gazdik: an interesting point, and then you probably get the double-blinded shame.
You know, so you create it. Blame creates blame more blame, blame, back and forth, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. And because of that, you’re right. You’re making somebody feel shameful as well as already feeling shameful yourself. And his stuffed just gets kicked around, back and forth. It’s a good point as well as a poor sense of self or self-esteem, that’s another origination similar to shame.
But if you feel poorly about yourself, man, that’s a big order. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Graves: I would say you would blame there to make yourself feel better feeling you feel, you feel bad about yourself already. Yeah. Then you blame somebody else to again, take it off of you. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You’re consumed with self-doubt [00:44:00] and hurt. No.
Casey likes to say hurt people. Hurt people. I mean it, yeah man. A hundred percent. Yeah. That is an origin. For blame, a massive insecurity. As I said, I mentioned the EFT already think about the abusive person. Massive insecurities are going to create massive amounts of blame. This is where its origination comes from a lack of self soothing, a lack of self, a resiliency inside.
When you, when you’re not able to garner yourself into a grounded whole state of self, you’re not grounded, you’re not feeling well. You’re feeling all sorts of things, insecurity and shame and stuff. So when you can’t calm yourself down inside, that is another orientation where it originates from. You’re not well inside.
So you throw it out at the other people and hurt people, hurt people. Interestingly, from the article.[00:45:00]
Well, you actually already meant it. You mentioned that you stole the thunder from the article, you know, feed the ego. You’re feeding ego in your notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the last one on the origin of shame. That’s awesome. From the article. Yeah. I mean, you’re, you’re just trying to see yourself as good.
And you trying to, that is a starting place. When, when these things are kicking off, pay attention to that little list or that this little segment, and then pay attention to the effects of what you’re in danger of doing, and we’re getting to, what do you do to prevent this? Right? Does that sound interesting?
Yeah. Cause man, it’s building inside and that’s coming from you and then you’re doing it to somebody and the effects when you do that, ain’t pretty a lot of times. Unless you’re holding them accountable for something that was an agreement or a, I think there
Craig Graves: is, there is room for that there’s room for [00:46:00] accountability.
There’s room for, I dunno if your rebuke is a bad word, but there’s room for accountability and for calling people out for doing things that we know aren’t right.
Chris Gazdik: I think we’re rebuke even sounds a little terse, but you know, what have you punched me in the face? I’m going to rebuke you. I’m not cool with that.
That’s not
Craig Graves: all right. You probably going to do more than that. What is, what is the definition of rebuke? Do we know that? Is it the same thing as accountability?
Chris Gazdik: Be interesting. Neil, pop that up now I’ll set us up for the next thing. If you’re able to real quick, because we’ve talked about it. Listen to some of the marriage shows and take this piece of blame and pop it in your thinking when you review some of those things, because you know, the, the, the emotion focused therapy that we talk about in episode 11 and 1 0 1, the insecurities are so strong in those close attachments.
That is a setup for that is a, it’s a, it creates the [00:47:00] energy. That results in this horrible blame and blame shifting and double-blinded blame, horrible stuff. I just, I think I’m just going to leave it at that because it, you know, we, we kinda mentioned, you know, creates the defensiveness. It creates the lack of intimacy.
It, it creates the lack of closeness, you know, all that kind of stuff. So what’s a what’s rebuke. W what did we come up with?
Neil Robinson: Rebuke is to express sharp disapproval or criticism of someone because of their behavior or actions, keyword there to me seems criticism. Yeah. I feel like reboot rebuke is you’re
mad at them, and you’re trying to point out what ha what they did wrong versus actually like pointing out the issue and then trying to. Like fix it or guide them. So like rebuke is just purely just the act of like yelling at someone because they did something wrong. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Graves: It sounds harsher than maybe holding somebody accountable. That’s the other word I used? I don’t know. I’m not sure. Yeah. Rebuke sounds. He said sharp.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Sharp, [00:48:00] critical criticism.
Yeah. You know, you mean you
Craig Graves: didn’t
Chris Gazdik: record. Yeah. Yeah. And it, you didn’t see it on the cameras there, but his eyes just glared at me across the room. I didn’t even, that was that moment right there. If we freeze that and hyper analyze that, which we do do, and sometimes that was uncomfortable criticisms.
Craig Graves: There’s there’s a way to deliver. Something to somebody, you know, we kind of disagreed on the sh on the mastermind call earlier this week about how to do that. But you had a
Chris Gazdik: disagreement about it.
Well,
Craig Graves: when I did I think about, about, you know, if, if Neil failed to record, you know, you could say, Neil, what are you doing, man?
Good, great. Please spend an hour on here. You’re doing this. I can’t believe you didn’t record. Or you might say, you know, Neil, you normally do a great job, man. You know, I appreciate you coming in here doing what you do, get the shows published on time. But this time we, we, we didn’t record and that’s, that’s a bit of a problem, you know, here’s how we’re going to fix it.
Good.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s not a rebuke. It’s not really a criticism. You’re leveling out. [00:49:00] Problem-solving you’re, you’re, you’re approaching a win-win you’re really kind of avoiding blame there a good bit in the way that, well, actually interesting. You’re not avoiding. Accountability part of blame, but you’re avoiding the criticism.
You’re avoiding the tear them apart, you know, rip at them, be
Craig Graves: aggressive. Yeah. You know it, and if Neo continues not to do this to record, and then maybe it gets a little bit Sterner. It’s a different conversation. Two weeks in a row. Yeah. Yeah. That happens. That’s another example from my parenting life. You know, I’ll tell my kids nicely.
Hey honey, about putting your dishes in the dishwasher. Okay, dad. Hey, you know, I asked you to put your dishes in the dishwasher an hour ago and they’re still, they’re still on the sink. Y’all I’ll do it. Sweetheart, this is the third time I’ve asked you. And those dishes are still in the sink. You’re in
Chris Gazdik: my house.
There put those
Craig Graves: dishes in the seat. Gee, dad, you don’t have to be so many.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
seriously. It’s [00:50:00] so true. So how do we avoid this? Let’s hit the last segment here because we, I think you’ve, you know, you stuck with us this long. You’re realizing the effects you realize where it comes from a little bit. It’s not coming from a good place. It’s not coming with good effects. Right. So how do we really avoid this?
And here, I think we’re talking specifically not about the accountability, not about the explicit, you know, agreements that we have not about those types of things. We’re really talking more about, you know, this, this harsher rebuke kind of kind of components here. So this is where, and it was interesting.
The first parts come from the article, last parts were from my brain, but I liked that they used the same word. I like to talk about anecdotes to. Some of these concepts that we talk about and was just as a side note bunny trail, I love that they use that same language, whoever wrote this particular stuff.
Cause it, it was like, yeah, that’s right on. I love that because when you think of these harmful effects emotionally, [00:51:00] such that we’re talking about shame or such that we’re talking about guilt, such that we’re talking about today, blame and rationalization. What’s the anecdote. Well there, their anecdote was con compassion.
Yeah. Yeah. There there’s was compassion and, but mine was humility. Right? So,
Craig Graves: so the antidote to blame is compassion.
Chris Gazdik: Having compassion for the other person, even when they did screw up, you compassion. Perspective kills any kind of rebuke, it kills any kind of condescension. It kills any kind of, I’m a winner, you’re a loser, any of those shifting
Craig Graves: strategies, right?
You’re right. And I think that’s probably what we use in the examples. Just a cycle to go about the wrinkles, the dishes, you know, when you first say that you are being compassionate,
Chris Gazdik: it’s tough being a kid. It’s tough to remember these things that you have to do all the time. And this day yesterday,
Craig Graves: it’s probably going back to maybe [00:52:00] legitimate issues that you’re having with somebody, you know, versus just laying, laying blame and, you know, just to deflect it off of you.
Yeah. Does that make
Chris Gazdik: sense? It does. And that’s why I came up with the anecdote being humility, because I mean, if you’re humble and you come at a situation we’re picking on Neil, Hey Neil, I really, I’m not as organized in the beginning of the show. And I recognize that. And I’m the host of this thing. And I, I, you know, I realized that I needed to have maybe a checklist to help you so that you actually push the record button, man.
Yeah. He,
Craig Graves: he always, humility is always a good thing, you know, and, and expressing the fact that you’re not perfect either in these kinds of situations is, is, is a good strategy. It’s really big, you know, it’s really big
Chris Gazdik: and you immediately set up, you don’t have to be perfect kiddo. Yeah. Even though I came to you three times today, I still don’t expect you to be [00:53:00] perfect.
You might, as a matter of fact, a little strategy with parenting, I do often. I like to make sure whenever I’m reprimanded, we’re not, I won’t say it that way. Not whenever every now and again, I might get a good moment. I’ll put it that way, but I purposely try to let the kid know whether I’m dealing with Aaron or Adam.
Listen, I matter of fact, just the other day I told Adam, I know I fail you all the time. That’s that’s what I said to my kid. I fail you all the time and I, I do my best. I really tried to be the best dad that I can be. So I, I, sometimes I come off too hard and I don’t say things well or right, but I need you to know, man, when you were late for school, that’s causing a problem for, for me and boom, boom, boom.
And we went into the conversation that we’ve had many times over, but that, that does set up. Okay. You don’t have to be perfect. I’m dang. Sure. Not perfect. So I’m not going to expect that your perfect.
Craig Graves: Yeah. But I think there is a line [00:54:00] you have to draw eventually, you know, maybe you, you can’t fire your kid, you know, but if, if Neil fails to record and you’ve had, and you’ve talked to him about it five times, then maybe you got find a new producer, you know, it’s not like I’m saying, oh, you always be nice and there’s never any consequences and stuff like that.
There’s definitely consequences.
Chris Gazdik: Definitely not talking about being Pollyannish really naive and passive. Right. Right. I don’t in my therapy work with people. Very rarely. Will you ever hear me kind of advocate for suggest directly? Sometimes I do that. Anything that’s passive? I won’t say anything, but pretty much I’m not going passive on, on stuff, but I’m not going aggressive either.
Right. You know, what’s in the middle of passive and aggressive. Usually people just don’t even think about this word. What’s in the middle of passive and aggressive, aggressive, and passive, or the extremes. Where do we want to be right in the middle, you know, by chance the dash in the middle. [00:55:00] Between the two.
Yeah. That’s all the time. It’s assertive. Okay. Assertive. In fact, it might even be on my list. I’m not sure being assertive is what we really want to get to. Right. I’m asserting this issue. I’m asserting this limit. I’m asserting that we had this agreement, but I’m not being passive in laying down about it.
Right. I’m not going to be aggressive, which can we say blaming somebody is to be aggressive.
Craig Graves: I think you can. Yeah. You know, I think it’s a lot of them delivery, you know,
Chris Gazdik: I understand in conflict, realize, and crystallize in your mind is the way I thought about this realize and really crystallize in your mind that there is.
And I use this word, I put it in all caps there. I don’t use these words. Forever everyone. No one knows permanency kind of words, but actually thought a little bit about it. And I put that word here, realize and [00:56:00] crystallize in your mind that there is always a percentage of ownership for the conflict, extreme ownership.
Yeah. You go, what do you mean? Go, go real quick, go a little further.
Craig Graves: The book I referenced earlier, you know, we might read that one in our mastermind next. Oh man. I might read it and get pissed off because nobody else has
Chris Gazdik: it is the way that it goes. Isn’t it? That’s a little insight, Chris. You’ve never read a book, man. Oh man. He blames me. He shames me in our meetings, man. The way that we need to foster this belief is, is self-examination. So when you’re thinking about, you know, the, the, the reality of the reality of.
Crystallizing in your mind, the reality of really understanding that there’s always a percentage when you’re in conflict with somebody. [00:57:00] I mean, it might be 95, 5%. I don’t know. You know, you punch me in the face. I guess I could probably think about, you know, 5%. I may have said something terse or used pushed a button.
And I know that I know better to do. Sometimes it’s very, very small percentage, but I would say when there’s a conflict, man, there’s, and, and that requires self-examination, which absolutely destroys any level of blame. That’s how you avoid this. You learn to self examine. Okay. When in conflict search for a win win, it’s a simple concept.
You’ve probably heard that before, but think about it when you’re really going at a win-win, rather than a win, lose. I think most people know what I mean by that. You’re not going to fall into blaming the other. How are you going to help them win in this conflict that we’re in or this situation that we fallen in?
You know, if, if you’re blaming them, you’re not going to win. They’re not gonna, you’re [00:58:00] not going to get a solution. So you’re just, like we said, one of the effects you destroy intimacy, you destroy connection, you destroy problem-solving. So if you’re in a win-win mentality, that’s going to prevent you from blaming instead of blaming focus.
Here’s a cool word. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Curiosity, be curious. Think about that. If, if you show a curiosity with what’s, what’s going on, I’m curious, Craig, you know, you’ve been late like three times in a row. Just curious. What’s going on, man? Like, is everything okay, let me check this out with you.
So being curious is a great way to level. I’m not blaming you. I’m inquiring. I wanna know. I wanna, I really want to understand here, you know, what’s going on, Courtney talks about on their show multiple times. Do you remember Craig, as she said, what was her phrase, [00:59:00] minister to the pain underneath the behavior?
I think that might be word for word.
Craig Graves: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right, right. She talks about that. Husband comes home from work. He’s in a bad mood. He’s going crazy. He was irritable, you know? Okay. Well, minister to that’s her, her language. Think about, be curious about, wait a minute. This isn’t normally the way you come home.
Like you are terser than crap right now. You’re like a little mini. Well, I’m curious. Let me minister what’s let me ask you about your day. Like, did the heck did some dog pee on your seat when you got in the car? Like what happened?
Craig Graves: Yeah, I think that probably comes, you know, I think a lot of emotions probably are masks for the underlying condition, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m acting angry and hateful because I’m, I’m hurt.
Chris Gazdik: It’s called displaced anger,
Craig Graves: or there’s a term for it. Yeah. Or it could be something else, but you know, I’m, I’m as placed [01:00:00] in this way because something else is going on at a deeper level and it’s a protection mechanism or whatever that
Chris Gazdik: it’s hard.
To be curious when somebody is being pretty snare snarky to you?
Craig Graves: Well, it is, but a lot of times I think stuff like that is probably happening. Something else happened. So going back to the parenting example, you know, if somebody is a jerk at school, I’ll tell them, I’ll tell them they could be there’s something could be going on at home.
Maybe that maybe their parents are, you never
Chris Gazdik: know, arguing. I heard talking about that before, you know,
Craig Graves: you know, you never know what somebody else is going through and, and they’re coming, they’re coming to you with an emotion because they got some hurt going on in their life.
Chris Gazdik: So the psychology today thing looked at it.
I missed this when I was, I was frustrated myself when I checked this. And I’m like, of course, yes. You know, you know what prevents blaming somebody recognize that you’re doing it. Yeah. I recognize you’re about to go off a cliff. Yeah. Self-examination [01:01:00] humility. Pause. Pause. Yeah. What am I about to do to this other person?
Craig Graves: That’s right. There’s a quote. I know I’ve talked about Frankl on the, on the show before something about the space between the, of the event and the reaction. I forget what he says about a fight and I’ll try to look it up real quick, but yeah, if you can create a, if you take a breath or whatever, just a little bit of space between throwing that out there, you
Chris Gazdik: know, make all the difference in the world goes a long way.
So reflecting on the purpose that the blame offers you, I thought that was interesting. You know, do you want to just, when do you want to just be right? You know, what is your purpose? Why are you telling this person, you know, what they’ve done is wrong or blaming them in some way? What really, what are you trying to gain?
And that self explain self examination will prevent you from, from doing that most of the time, a self. We talked about that, making mistakes [01:02:00] avoiding global thinking. That was another weird one. I’m like they loved global thinking and his article, like, okay, look for your contribution to your own suffering again.
It was that, that subconscious, psychological thing they were talking about, like, okay, to avoid blame Craig, I’m going to look at my contribution to my own suffering. It’s like, how do you, what, but it was worth mentioning because cause again, it gets to that. Self-explanatory look for how you can be more constructive.
And it’s a good statement. I loved this one. Be vulnerable. Yeah. I missed that one in my thinking when I was giving my thoughts on this vulnerability prevent. You from blaming the other person?
Craig Graves: Well, I think you touched on earlier. Hey, I’m not perfect. Either exact mistakes to tell your kid that I did this when I was young.
Yes. I missed the deadline on
Chris Gazdik: vulnerability is so disarming. [01:03:00] It’s nice. You know, the person’s already probably feeling like, oh, I screwed up. Dad did tell me already about the candy wrapper, you know, but when you’re vulnerable as a parent or as a boss or, you know, in a position, it disarms that person, they can now come to you.
You’re approachable. So vulnerability is I really liked it. They have that on their list. Developing assertive communication. I mentioned that actually, I didn’t have it on mom at Lisbon. I talked about it and then being aware of negative self-talk and criticisms to yourself. Because when you’re stuck on self criticism.
Oh yeah. It comes from an ugly place. And you’re going to throw it at the other person.
Craig Graves: The stories we tell ourselves. Yes. Yeah. Red. Did you
Chris Gazdik: get
Craig Graves: your, I did. I found it. So Viktor Frankl man’s search for meaning, we’ve talked about that on the last show. I think I did with purpose, right?
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’s the purpose principles and
Craig Graves: passion.
Yeah. Yeah. Franklin said between stimulus [01:04:00] and response, there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s one hell of a way to end the show. I think today, frankly, I don’t, frankly, frankly, I don’t think we could say frankly. Oh, I did.
Ah, frankly, Frankel. You said it perfectly. Absolutely. Man, listen, I hope you got this. This is a really common theme that people really do experience in your lives. It is all the time happening sometimes in very small ways, sometimes in really big ways. I really want you to think about the effects that you have when you’re engaged in this and then really kind of match up with how can you really work to prevent this from happening in your life?
As much as possible. Didn’t talk about it, but occurs to me as I’m saying right now, this is going to happen. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re going to blame. I don’t want you to be perfect with this either [01:05:00] and get, but give yourself some grace have a great week. We will see you guys soon. Take care.