defensiveness.
May. 19th, 2012 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evileToday's thought from Hazelden is:
To err is human; to blame it on the other guy is even more human.
--Bob Goddard
We are on a path that leads us to become better people with greater insight and stronger character. A central theme on this path is learning to take responsibility for ourselves, our mistakes, and our choices as we deal with our situations. We can make progress on this path by noticing our defensive reactions when we make a mistake or when someone criticizes us. Our old ways were aimed at shifting the blame or counterattacking to get someone else off our case. Now we are learning how to take on the blame when it honestly belongs to us.
One of the first things we need to learn in taking responsibility is that there is no shame in making a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. But some people don't accept responsibility for them, and others do. We have much greater respect for someone who does. Admitting when we were wrong doesn't mean speaking in vague generalities, saying that "mistakes were made." It doesn't mean saying, "Yes, I did this, but only because you did that." It means saying what we did or didn't do and laying the facts out there for us and others to deal with. When we can do that, forgiveness almost always follows shortly.
Today I will hold back my defensiveness and admit the facts as they are.
To err is human; to blame it on the other guy is even more human.
--Bob Goddard
We are on a path that leads us to become better people with greater insight and stronger character. A central theme on this path is learning to take responsibility for ourselves, our mistakes, and our choices as we deal with our situations. We can make progress on this path by noticing our defensive reactions when we make a mistake or when someone criticizes us. Our old ways were aimed at shifting the blame or counterattacking to get someone else off our case. Now we are learning how to take on the blame when it honestly belongs to us.
One of the first things we need to learn in taking responsibility is that there is no shame in making a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. But some people don't accept responsibility for them, and others do. We have much greater respect for someone who does. Admitting when we were wrong doesn't mean speaking in vague generalities, saying that "mistakes were made." It doesn't mean saying, "Yes, I did this, but only because you did that." It means saying what we did or didn't do and laying the facts out there for us and others to deal with. When we can do that, forgiveness almost always follows shortly.
Today I will hold back my defensiveness and admit the facts as they are.
You are reading from the book:
Wisdom to Know © 2005 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the permission of Hazelden.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-19 06:27 pm (UTC)If you find yourself in that situation with certain people, the thing to do may be to keep the admission of fault to yourself in those circumstances, and work on your own stuff to quietly rectify the situation, or at least prevent a future occurrence.
Taking responsibility for one's own experience is easier when other adults around you are taking responsibility for theirs, or at least not expecting you to take responsibility for their experience. (Kids need to be cut some slack here, but they can learn, over time, to do it themselves.)
(Yeah, it all gets back to that Burner mantra for me, at least that's how it's been going for the past 20+ months or so....)