Change Your Brain Every Day - The Difference Between Blame and Responsibility

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Responsibility is one of Tana’s favorite words because it’s a word that helped her get through a difficult time in her life. However, many people tend to confuse the word ‘responsibility’ with ‘blame’, which can lead to problems. As Tana and Dr. Daniel Amen share in this episode, the two words have quite different meanings. This concept, taken from Dr. Amen’s upcoming book ‘Your Brain is Always Listening’, explains why those who take on responsibility need to make sure that self-care is always taken into account first before the needs of others. For more info on Dr. Daniel Amen's new book, "Your Brain is Always Listening", visit https://yourbrainisalwayslistening.com/  

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome, everyone. We are continuing on our journey through Your Brain is Always Listening. I feel like I'm on a dragon adventure. Yeah, it's sort of like Game of Thrones. Your Brain is Always Listening coming out March 2nd. You can go to yourbrainalwayslistening.com, download a whole bunch of cool free gifts when you pre-order the book. We've given away almost a thousand packages. So we're going through this journey on helping you identify your dragons, the big emotional issues that you struggle with, and learning how, my dragon. I'm married to you, so that helps tame it. The inferior or flawed dragon, the anxious dragon, the wounded dragon, the shouldn't shaming dragon.

We talked about the special spoiled and entitled dragon. It's not you. It's not me. Sorry, Chloe. She admitted it. I was like, wow. Chloe goes, why wouldn't people want to do things for me? I was like, well, okay then. She's like, I'm awesome and I do things for other people. Today we're going to talk about the most common dragon which is responsible dragon where you feel like you have to be responsible for other people now of course

you have to be responsible or you have more older parents who need you i kind of like this dragon though i mean it has a dark side, but I like responsibility. It's my favorite word. So we just want to focus on the light side of this dragon. Well, and a lot of doctors and nurses have this dragon. And the origin story is when you feel liable for the pain or the situation of others, often because you felt powerless

to help someone you cared about, such as a parent or sibling who was sick. This is just rampant during the pandemic when hospitals would not allow family members to visit sick people or dying loved ones, or you felt insignificant and fixing other people's issues helped you feel significant.

So this dragon's actually caused several fights in my marriage because it gets triggered when you perceive others in need and it triggers back a time when you couldn't help and wish you could and how you react as you tend to fix you tend to caretake you could be codependent you see i'm not codependent i am responsible i am not codependent you are not um it can cause you to do too much for others which is it that's disabling you're enabling which causes them to then not be responsible for themselves and it can actually cause entitlement yes and and i don't like that other people it's a problem for me. So how now, of course, there's an upside to this dragon and you become a helper and right. And I want to, and we should,

we should unravel this just a little bit because we want to separate blame. We've talked about this a lot because this can get raveled up and tied up with blame. Like you tend to have to fix things because you felt like you were to blame for something, but being responsible and feeling like you want to be empowered to help is different than doing it because you feel like you are to blame for something. So be clear about that. Like, and there's like, I'm very, like, I very much have this dragon in a different way. So there's another way that people have this, like the nurse in me, like will be, I've almost jumped out of the

car before because I see an accident. It like i'm i'm the type that will run into the fire or run into an accident and you're like that car is leaking gasoline no and you grab me back and i'm like because the responsible dragon also can be fairly you know like just you have to jump in well Well, firefighters and police officers often have trauma nurses responsible. When I sent the dragon quiz, so you can find out your dragons at know your dragons.com. I sent it to the police chief here in Newport beach. John and I are friends and he goes responsible and judgmental.

He said, sort of fits a blaze. Right. But I remember you saying to me, why do you do that? I'm like, because someone has to. So it's very important to soothe this dragon, but also to empower this dragon. Right. But know when you do too much,

when you become a fixer, you decrease the other person's ability to grow. Super important. Hand up is great. Hand out, not so great. So when you're trying to help people, this comes from personal experience with my family, which I write about in my book. It's really important to, and I learned this because

my mother was codependent and thought she had to fix everyone. She had the responsible dragon, the dark side. And she had a mother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Right. A brother who was a heroin addict. A father who was quadriplegic. So she had to fix everybody. She had to take care of everybody but she also had this tendency to want to bring people into our home and help everyone who were dangerous to a little girl and so that can be a problem so because of her my responsible dragon is like nope you got to help yourself i will help you help yourself but i will not fix you so you you just, you know, like,

you're not going to fix. I'm not going to, I'm not gonna be more invested than you are. That's a very important point. And a lot of therapists, if you do the work, they will really be helpful. But if you don't do the work, they are not going to do it for you. Now there is an upside to this dragon. All the dragons have an upside. You get to help, you get to be in charge and have others in your debt. You also get to be part of a community that you're creating. Good deeds reduce physical pain. Helping others is altruistic, which actually decreases stress. So doing things to help others often gives you a sense of meaning and purpose and helps stress.

So how do we tame this dragon? Self-care is critical. I say this all the time in my practice. Have you ever been on an airplane? And what's the first thing they say on an airplane? If the cabin pressure goes down and the masks come down from the ceiling, put your mask on first so that you will be breathing to help others. And in the New Testament, Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. So if you're not loving and caring for yourself, you will not be your best in loving and caring for others. And one thing I would add to this one, which we already said, but I want to just add, it's part of taming this dragon, is understanding the difference between blame and responsibility. Because you choose to be responsible and have the ability to respond does not mean you need to focus on blame.

So try to disconnect those two. Well, quite frankly, I could have had a blaming dragon. Blame is the worst hallmark. It's the number one self-defeating behavior when you blame other people for how your life is turning out. And even though you were victimized as a child, I refuse to be a victim. You are not a victim. I will not be a victim.

But even blaming yourself too much can really cause you to just curl up and be paralyzed with, you know, it's not a good thing. Well, and self-care is so important for everyone else around you. I'm working on a book for next year called You Happier, the neuroscience of feeling good based on your brain type. And in the introduction, there is a quote from the video, Why Be Happy by Dennis Prager, where he actually says happiness is a moral obligation. And I guarantee they will say yes, because it's how you impact others. So self-care is so important. Healthy boundaries. We're a huge fan of Henry Cloud and

John Townsend's book, Boundaries. And Boundaries is actually love and logic, the parenting program that you and I both love. It's really about setting healthy boundaries. I don't do things for people who are disrespectful to me. And it's about not rescuing. Notice we just talked about responsibility. It's about not rescuing people. It's about letting them pay the consequences for their behavior. Right. And also another way to tame this dragon is to really know, are your relationships balanced?

And our friend, I was just with him last night, John Townsend has a book called People Fuel, where he talks about evaluate the people in your life with the seven C's. And so the first C is coaches. you know, who do you have? So hopefully we're one of your coaches or mentors, comrades. So close friends and loved ones, we're comrades, casuals. Those are your casual friends, colleagues, coworkers, care, people who are dependent on you. So Chloe and Alizé and Amelie. Chronics, well, these are people that just always have an issue and you just know. And contaminants, people who actually desire to damage you. And you need to move those people out. And so you limit the chronics and you draw strong boundaries with the contaminants.

It's like, this is a hard boundary. You can't cross this boundary. Right. And if you're not balanced, if you don't have coaches or comrades or casuals, those become work for you to do. The movies that the responsible dragon love are movies of healing, like Awakenings, one of my favorite movies of all time, or Ordinary People, The Doctor, Patch Adams. And the meditations or affirmations to say every day, if you have this dragon, Loving others as myself means taking care of myself so I can love others. I love helping others as long as I'm helping them become competent and independent. Yes. Yes. It is better to give than receive as long as giving does not create unnecessary dependency. I share the load with others so I don't become

overburdened and burned out. Like half the doctors in our country today are struggling with burnout. I do what I can and trust others to God's care. Love that. So that's the responsible dragon. Which dragons do you have? Go to knowyourdragons.com and to pre-order the book or order the book if you're listening after March 2nd. Go to Your Brain is Always Listening and you can download some incredible free gifts, including a coupon for a free bottle of Happy Saffron, our favorite song. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics,

use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.