Being there for your kids - Nix the Blame Game

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

     When something goes wrong in your life, it's easy to fix blame, either on yourself or on others. While you may be right, how helpful is the blame game? Usually, it just stirs up hard feelings. On this podcast, I encourage you to nix the blame game. Go away from awareness of your performance. Try becoming meta-aware. That is, look around the circumstances to understand context and perspective on what just happened. The blame game is a common pattern that mentalligent psychotherapy (MPT) addresses in my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Buy your copy at amazonbooks.com. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ Blessings, Dr. Jon

I'm Dr. John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. I have a thought for you. Try to nix the blame game. You've heard the old saying that there's plenty of blame to go around. Well, that may be true, but is it at all productive? I encourage my patients to nix the blame game altogether. Blaming, whether on self or others, focuses on individual performance to the exclusion of context and surroundings.

Try trading in aware for meta-aware. Expand the contributing factors to put the event in perspective. When patients become meta-aware thinkers, they've taken the zoom function to their perspective on life and used it to zoom out. Performance thinkers zoom in to capture only their performance. Meta-aware thinkers zoom out to look at the bigger picture and also to capture many more contributing factors to their situation.

Joe's boss stormed into his office with a handful of papers. You call this a proposal? What is wrong with you? He threw the pile of papers on Joe's desk, huffed and then turned to leave. A boss? Joe tentatively offered. By end of day, the boss grumbled as he left Joe's office. While obviously less than an optimal exchange between Joe and his boss, Joe breathed several times deeply as he replayed the events in his head. His strategy freed his mind to think, wow, that's not like the boss. He's usually more even-tempered. I wonder what else is going on. Joe is practicing what he had learned in therapy. He was learning to trade in his excessive self-blaming focus on his performance. He expanded his thinking to the level of meta-awareness and captured the bigger picture. With that context, Joe was able to hunker down and revise his work proposal to his boss's liking by end of day. personally, I was ranting at my then 12-year-old daughter back in the day. With a little attitude, Rachel put her hands on her hips, looked me straight in the eye and responded, who peed in your

corn flakes? I was so taken aback that I paused and then started laughing. She was right. I was taking stuff out on her that wasn't hers in the first place. I apologize to Rachel, and we worked it all out. Out of the mouths of babes, be open to mirror awareness thinking. It can come from the most unexpected sources. To find out more about meta-awareness to expand your healing journey, buy your copy of my new book, The Healing, Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path of the Good Life. If my comments stir questions of your own, contact me through my website at www.org, or email me at john Robinson-0.0.bilsouth.net. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist and author of Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting,

and my new book, The Healing, Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Blessings, Dr. John. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, is available online at Amazonbooks.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMP-I-N-C.com.