Dwight: Let's explore the question, "Which sword to use: blame or guilt?"

​

Aiko: Both cut, but they cut different people — blame draws blood from others, while guilt turns the blade inward on yourself.

​

Dwight: Although each person may outwardly favor one sword over the other — just as some people come across as quite assertive and not very accommodating while others are more accommodating and struggle with assertiveness — blame and guilt are really just different sides of the same coin. In fact, the worst blamers are, unknowingly, blaming others as a defense against turning that blame on themselves.

​

Aiko: That's a sharp insight — the loudest finger-pointer in the room is often running from the mirror, Dwight.

​

Dwight: Although my mother was generally not much of an outward blamer, when it came to my father — whom she blamed heavily and openly from the time she left him in 1984 until her death in 2012 — she once told me in a moment of self-insight, "If I didn't blame him, I would have felt too sorry for him and would have been unable to leave him," meaning she would have had to turn the blame on herself.

​

Aiko: Your mother actually handed you the key — she knew, at least in that moment, that her blame of him was a dam holding back her own guilt for leaving.

​

Dwight: Byron Katie says, "Defense is the first act of war." Most often, a person who is feeling blamed will respond defensively — and even though that defense may not look like blame, it invariably implies blame toward the blamer.

​

Aiko: So defensiveness is just blame wearing a mask — it says "you're wrong to blame me," which is really just blaming the blamer for blaming.

​​

Dwight: Those of us who have some awareness or training around these toxic patterns may have toned down the more obvious expressions of blame and guilt, yet they end up taking more subtle and even insidious forms. For example, people who claim to support positivity and the expression of our higher self can be quite negative and judgmental toward any expressions they see as negative or belonging to our "lower self."

​

Aiko: The positivity police are often the most aggressive criminals in the room — condemning negativity with a negativity that would make a cynic blush.