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How to stop blaming yourself for everything: 4 tips

How to stop blaming yourself for everything: 4 tips

February 28, 2024

It is clear that if we must be perfectionists with something, that is our own behavior, but there are people who overreach in this. And while some value what they do analyzing their weaknesses and devising ways to improve, others become obsessed with the habit of blaming themselves for everything bad that happens to them .

Stop blaming yourself for all the bad things that happen to yourself is essential to improve welfare, because if you do not get out of that dynamic, there is a vicious circle in which pessimism and the expectation of failure make it impossible to to get better.

Related article: "Theories of causal attribution: definition and authors"


How to stop systematically blaming yourself for everything

In this article we will review some keys to stop blaming yourself for everything and face life with a more constructive attitude . However, remember that every process of personal development and learning has to go beyond reading, so everything will depend on whether you use these ideas to modify the way you relate to your environment and with others.

1. Relativize the importance of guilt

Even if one is responsible for what happened, this does not mean that guilt has to have us plunged into misfortune indefinitely. The only use of this feeling is make the memory of that negative experience last in time and lead us to avoid making the same mistake. If we can learn the lesson, the reasons to continue martyring have no reason to be. In other words, guilt is not a condemnation: it is a learning factor.


Thus, there is nothing that should lead us to think that the simple fact that we feel bad is a reason why we should suffer. In nature, rewards and punishments do not exist beyond the human imagination.

2. Analyze your weaknesses and real strengths

Beyond what one would wish, it is evident that every person has its imperfections. This means, among other things, that not everyone can do anything at a certain time in their life . Some things do, and others only if you have a lot of practice or knowledge.

Remembering this is important, because it provides real information about what is really the fault of oneself and what is not.

In those situations in which a very complicated and difficult to avoid obstacle has appeared, there is only one situation in which one is guilty of what happened: the one in which it was evident that this obstacle would appear , and pride or another form of irrationality led us to meet him. Of course, this changes if the reason why we "complicated our lives" in that way had to do with protecting another person.


3. Reflect on your relationship with the environment

People who tend to blame themselves for everything tend to maintain a low profile in their social relationships. That means among other things that they very easily believe that they owe things to others, they feel "helpless" living at the expense of the goodwill and virtues of others, and they adopt submission roles spontaneously .

The consequence of this is that as the people of their next social circle see that the person has a clear lack of assertiveness and self-esteem, the normal thing is that they obey and make sacrifices for others. Of course, when everyone exercises this type of pressure, it is very easy to fail many times, both by probability and by the stress that this dynamic of social relations produces.

So, to stop blaming yourself is key trace the signs that this phenomenon is occurring in our personal relationships . Even unconsciously, it is very easy that if we start to attribute the blame for all the bad that happens, the rest also do the same.

  • Related article: "Self-fulfilled prophecies, or how to make yourself a failure"

4. Practice compassion

Much of our perception about the world and about ourselves does not depend on the content of these ideas and beliefs, but rather on the attention we give to each of these elements . In the same way that if we only thought about poverty and suffering we would become depressed, looking only at the imperfections of oneself will have a similar effect, with the addition that by locating the problem within oneself, one does not have sense to try to solve what happens: the broken can not repair itself, according to this belief.

Therefore, it is good to practice compassion, which in this case is nothing other than applying to ourselves what we usually do with the world: never forget its positive aspects.

In this sense, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help a lot, since it is based on the acceptance of a very specific series of imperfections and on the work to improve in the rest of aspects.


How To Forgive Yourself - How To Stop Feeling Guilty (February 2024).


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