It’s Not My Fault, and It Is an Opportunity

Learning to give myself a break so I can actually grow

Hungover 1pm coffee on a roof. This one was my fault.

The most valuable thing I’ve learned so far in my journey of self-recovery is that it’s not my fault.

If I feel depressed, lazy, judgmental, clingy, insecure, indecisive, or impulsive, it’s not because I’m choosing to have the wrong feelings or do the wrong things. Earlier in life, I found ways to solve or escape what felt like overwhelming problems, and those solutions became go-to strategies. They’ve simply outlasted their usefulness.

It’s not my fault.

AND

I’m not a victim. 
I don’t need saving. (I need help, but that’s different.)
The world doesn’t need to be fixed.

I’ve never liked the line, “It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.” It still feels implicating. That “but” is so suggestive. It still feels like there’s a moral judgment of the situation—something is wrong—and I need to fix it. I need to do things the “right” way, dig out of this hole, and erase my pain and deficiency.

Try this out:
It’s not your fault that you fear abandonment, but it is your responsibility.

Fuck. Off.
Are you kidding me??

Another classic line that I find equally unhelpful: “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
I’m in pain and now you’ve added shame. Great!

Both of these obviously have some truth to them, that truth is just wrapped in language that introduces judgment… which compounds the pain and leaves me less likely to take responsibility or stop “feeling sorry for myself.” Anyway, the truth they both contain is:
If my life isn’t what I want it to be, I am the person in the best position to change it.

But the way I now try to view it that feels more empowering and useful is: “It’s not my fault, and it is an opportunity.”

It’s not my fault

Let’s a take a real-life example:
I have struggled with perfectionism for my entire adult life. I only just realized this in the last two years.

Any decision can easily paralyze me.
Countless creative efforts never see the light of day—I either set expectations impossibly high from the jump or fall into despair at the first misstep.
I talk myself out of trying things for fear that I’ll be bad at them… as a beginner.

All of this amounts to stuckness, stagnation, not living. 

I’ve avoided doing things I want to do! It sucks and it’s depressing. Every time I lose steam on a project or talk myself out of an adventure, I both deprive myself of the joy of doing it and compound the feelings of inadequacy that lead me to bail in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle of self-abortion.

None of this is my fault. 

I didn’t wake up one day and decide I was going to overthink everything. I didn’t decide I was going to become indecisive. I didn’t even realize it was going on because I’d find a way to rationalize each moment of missed living:
“It’s stupid anyway.” 
“What’s the point of trying something I’ll never do again?” 
“I don’t care.”

Occasionally I come across articles or podcasts about making decisions or getting things done and they offer me sage tips like: “Don’t overthink it!” or “Don’t worry about what other people think!”
Weirdly, those don’t help. 

What has helped is finding the opportunity amid the self-abortion (I really like this term and I’m going to trademark it).

It is an opportunity

In the fall of 2022, I had a brief, intense, awesome, and confusing ~*thing*~ with this guy. It was the first man I ever felt anything about. (I didn’t really allow myself to feel anything before, but we’ll leave that to the side for now.) There came a point in our ~*thing*~ when expectations and desires and all the rest were really unclear and contradictory. There were also acutely taxing life circumstances on both sides. It was complicated. 

On one particular day, I asked him, “So where are we at?” and was told that I “need too much definition,” and then I was told that, instead of meeting up before he went away for three months, he would call me in a few weeks. I played nice and wished him the best, and then after I hung up I fell into a spin-cycle of rumination. 

I replayed every word, every syllable of that conversation and every conversation we had before. 

Why doesn’t he want to see me? Why does he think I need “definition?” What does that even mean? I just want to see him! 

I thought about leaving him alone but, as I went about the rest of my work day (I happened to be in the middle of leading a bike tour), I mostly thought about calling him back. I conjured every conceivable thing I could say and every conceivable thing he could say back and then every conceivable thing I could respond with… Countless branching possibilities and iterations, over and over and over and over and over... FUCK!

I kept spinning, trying to figure out the right thing to do or say that would fix this situation. I couldn’t just let it be like this, could I? 

I tried to hold every moment of our previous interactions, all possible meanings suggested by those moments, all possible futures, and all possible ways to assure or prevent those futures, in my head at the same time. I needed to know the exact, perfect way to proceed.

It’s the craziest I’ve ever felt.

Even writing about it now I feel so bound up and torn and twisted. I want to see him. I want to figure out what happened and fix it.

Ultimately, I decided I had to call him. I couldn’t figure out the right thing to say, but I had to say something. I couldn’t keep myself so imprisoned and tortured. I had to take a chance and speak from the heart. It scared the shit out of me.

I called him, heart racing. I got his voicemail.
I left an off-the-cuff message of things that I think were pretty reasonable and tempered.

He called back.
He raised his voice at me. He said he was getting “freaked out” by me, which is to say: he called me crazy. He said I needed to see other people.

It’s the only time in my life that I’ve been physically unable to speak.

From the ashes…

The initial experience of that day was awful.

Obviously, I did the wrong thing:
I didn’t get what I wanted and, as a bonus, I got called crazy. I really hated everything about how that felt.

BUT

I made a decision contrary to my normal operating style. I cut short my overthinking and let it rip.

I knew I couldn’t control how it would go if I called him back. I also knew that I might actually die if I kept running those frantic doomsday loops inside my head. I saw this initial opportunity to break the cycle and I took it.

The important thing here isn’t what I did, it’s what I noticed.

I noticed the cycle and I noticed the option that was outside of the cycle. I didn’t really think, “I’m going to break the cycle!” but I did notice that the cycle was cycling and there was an option that fell outside of its repetitive, punishing path. I didn’t have to stay teetering on the edge of regret and fear, living and reliving countless moments that had already been and would never be. I could just take a leap and try something in the present. I might die, but that would happen eventually no matter what.

That recognition, that opportunity, allowed for a momentary diversion from regularly scheduled programming. I felt like absolute crapola for months afterwards because I really liked this guy and that was a moment of abrupt disconnection, but it broke something open. 

I started reading tons of blogs and books and listening to tons of podcasts and talks about perfectionism, trauma, codependency, growth mindset, reparenting, and many other domains of psychological/emotional healing and wholeness. I started going to therapy. I went to a cleansing ceremony with an Apache elder wherein she barked at me while I jumped over a frying pan of burning sage and screamed at myself and cried (I have since decided that her techniques, while extremely helpful in breaking the dam, are not conducive to the self-compassion I would like make a daily practice, thank you). 

I moved from self-consciousness and self-policing to self-inquiry and self-awareness.

Not only did I seize the acute opportunity to exit that ruminative hurricane, I realized a long-term opportunity in the devastation that followed:
I could continue to overthink. I could resume destroying myself over not perfectly navigating the infinitely complex minefield that is interpersonal intimacy. 

OR

I could continue following the opportunity to get to know myself. 

Why do I think I need to be perfect all the time? Why do I think perfection exists?
Why do I think I need to be perfect to be accepted?
Why do I take on responsibility for how everyone feels in every situation?
Why is making a mistake or asking a question unacceptable?
And yet, why would I rather figure out how to make something my fault than honestly express my feelings?

This is not exactly a fun road. It’s not, like, “comfortable.”
But it does something.

To put it simply, it’s allowed me to see myself as a real life human being. A little boy who figured out how to get a sense of worth from doing things “perfectly.” A sensitive, caring boy who just wants to get out here in this big ass world and learn things and love people and be loved back. And THAT has allowed me to open up some compassion for myself. It’s allowed me to understand the perfectionistic tendencies instead of judging and resisting them, and thus allow them to rest without spiraling out into self-abortion (dude it’s a good word).

No, it’s not “all better.” 
Everything isn’t fixed (nothing is actually broken). 
The project isn’t complete. 

Cycles and patterns shift slowly, but I’ve allowed myself to taste the opportunity for understanding and growth. I’ve allowed myself to put down the self-implication and the white-knuckled second-guessing and feel the opportunity to live freely. 

And I’ve thus glimpsed the real opportunity: 
I can keep doing this!

When I inevitably (probably in a few minutes) once again find myself over-thinking something and playing out disaster fantasies, I can simply look into it. I can ask what I’m afraid of and whether I’d rather stay stuck or test that fear.

I can keep showing up for myself.
I can keep finding out about myself and letting go of shame and perfectionism.
I can keep moving in directions that feel free, not merely rejecting what makes me feel wrong.

I can keep spiraling up.

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Two quotes that I think tie the room together:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.”

– Anthony de Mello, Awareness