Typically, we blame others for our own inability to take responsibility for our actions. We become the victim, and there’s usually a lot of sympathy for the victim. Sometimes playing the “victim card” makes people feel better because they like the sympathy. But too often, they play the role of the victim even though they know there was nothing intentionally done to harm them. Jesus, on the other hand, was a victim of torture and murder. He could have hung on the cross and said, “You bastards are all going to rot in Hell.” Instead, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He said that because if someone does something unloving, then they are not in their right mind; and if they are not in their right mind, how can we blame them and play the victim?
We alone can release ourselves from the past. We alone have the power to move from the past. Only when we are ready to take responsibility for our actions will we stop blaming others. When we are finally free of the blame game, we not only stop blaming others for our pain and insecurities, but we also stop feeling the need to defend ourselves.
Within A Course in Miracles, there is the saying, “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” When we no longer feel the need to defend ourselves, we will no longer feel the need to blame others for anything we go through, and we can finally start to take responsibility for our own lives. We can now leave the past.
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