Have you ever blamed anyone else for what you think? Maybe your parents for the set of beliefs they modeled, a friend who gave you a piece of poor advice, or religious leader who fed you some notion that didn’t work out so well?
You will hear people say things like, “I can’t help the way I think – I was raised this way.” “I worry about money all the time just like my mother did.” “I can’t help feeling guilty – my religion told me I’m a sinner.” “I spent eight years thinking I needed to get a degree because my parents thought it was important; now I’m unemployed with 100k of student loans to pay back and nothing to show for it.”
Blaming other people for our own irrational thinking keeps us stuck in the trap of victim mentality, locked in the pain and suffering of fear-based thinking. Think of how many people you know who are miserable because they keep perpetuating old, outdated thinking. They think like their parents and can’t stand it, but instead of deciding to think differently, they just settle for living a less-than-satisfactory life, complaining and blaming everything in their past for creating their present unhappiness.
Think about your own thought-patterns for a moment. Do you have certain habitual ways of thinking that you’ve blamed on other people? The easiest way to spot these patterns is to think of the times when you least like yourself – maybe when you are nagging or complaining, criticizing or judging, turning a cold shoulder or people-pleasing, over-reacting in drama or shutting down your feelings. I encourage you to take some time to explore where your thinking reminds you of someone else, places in your own mind where you have taken on a certain mindset and continue to feel victimized by that way of thinking.
The truth is that you are not a victim. You have never been a victim. Therefore, nobody has ever had the power to cause you to think or believe a certain way; you have always had access to authentic power, innate intelligence and your own Internal Guidance System – all of which support you to choose how to think for yourself. Now, whether or not you listened to, trusted and followed your own knowing about what to believe is another matter, as well as water under the bridge at this point. The point today is that you have – and always have had – the ability to think for yourself.
Right here, right now, you can take 100% responsibility for your own thoughts, knowing that you have the ability to respond differently inside of yourself if there is any area in your own life that you wish to change. You can start by cutting yourself some slack for taking on other people’s way of thinking in the past, because you likely didn’t know that you had the power to think differently at the time. Next, it is a simple matter to choose to think differently from here on out. Stop blaming others for what you think and take full personal responsibility for your own ability to choose your own thoughts. Say, “From now on, I have the power to choose my own thoughts.” And taste the freedom…
Action Step ~ Let go of blaming others for your old thought-patterns and take 100% responsibility for choosing your own thoughts. Declaration: “I have the power to choose my own thoughts. I now take 100% responsibility for what I think. If I don’t like the way I think about something, I have the ability to change my mind.”
Additional Support: Listen to this closed-eye process on taking full responsibility to choose your own thoughts; please refrain from driving while listening.