A Spell for Releasing Self-Blame

Do we want to be people who take responsibility? Of course!

And/but, dysfunctional, oppressive systems RELY ON US

to feel personally responsibility for fixing systemic bullshit.

It is WAY past time for us to stop beating ourselves up

for our inability to solve problems

that are sooo much bigger than us as individuals.

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Mentioned:

Brigid Schulte’s book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, And Play When No One Has The Time

Money mindset mentor and author Denise Duffield-Thomas.

Roxane Gay’s book of essays, Bad Feminist.

The Health at Every Size® Principles

An article about Tuca and Bertie Season 3 Episode 2, “The Pain Garden.”

Make Magic:

Oppressive systems pretend to love disruptive, creative expression.

But what they really prefer is that you keep your head down

and work to maintain the status quo.

The next time you’re wondering why you can’t figure things out,

think about the systems around you, and how WE, collectively,

can work on making them better.

Transcript: A Spell for Releasing Self-Blame

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hello, honey bun. Are you a person that is into, like, terms of endearment and nicknames? I very much am. Honey bun is a definite go-to; also pumpkin pie. I call my beloveds pumpkin pie quite a bit. I am just a huge fan of the sweet little nickname. 

So, darling, hello and welcome to today's episode, which is a spell for releasing self-blame. And, admittedly, I'm trying to wrap my brain around how to explain the kind of self-blame I mean, because I realize there are lots of versions of self-blame. We are a deeply self-blamey, self-critical—I don't know—species, culture. It's probably cultural. 

We do it a lot, and I think also we are scared that if we don't do it, then we are going to end up like Donald Trump or Elon Musk or any one of those kind of destructive narcissists in the world. And, you know, there may be something to that. Like, do we want to be people who take responsibility? I think yes. And, at the exact same time, do the dysfunctional, oppressive systems in our world hope we will take responsibility for their issues, their bullshit? Yes. 

When I'm talking about releasing self-blame today, really what I'm talking about is not any longer blaming ourselves for a problem that is systemic, that is, not beating ourselves up for our inability to solve a problem that is much bigger than us as individuals. Yeah? 

So here are some examples of some situations where I think that is exactly what is happening. Let's imagine you are either a single person, or you are living in a two-income household, and it is very difficult to keep up with housework. Like, you are finding it really hard to run your house. 

Maybe the laundry piles up. Maybe the dishes pile up. Maybe you eat way more takeout than you want to. Maybe there's clutter. Maybe things are just a mess. Maybe the yard is overgrown. Yeah? I don't know. 

In that situation, the place most of us go is, "I am so lazy. What is wrong with me that I can't figure this out, that I can't figure out a system for my laundry or for my grocery shopping?" We think to ourselves, "There must be something wrong with me. I am just an unclean person. I'm just a slothful person. I'm just perpetually disorganized. I'm a pig." Yeah?

Now, the systemic reality is that keeping a house is labor, but it's not labor that we count as such. Yeah? Like, in the GDP, the only household labor that counts as labor is the stuff you hire people to do. So [laughs] hire a house cleaner to clean your house. That is labor. But clean your house yourself? That's just an expectation. That's just an assumption, right? 

If there is a two-partner household where one partner is working outside of the home, and the other partner is working inside of the home, only one of those people gets paid, and that is a systemic failure, right? That is based on slavery and indentured servitude and sexism and racism. That is based on the idea that some people's work does not count as work, right? 

So here I am. I'm trying to keep up with all of it. I'm trying to do this second job that is running a home. And I'm blaming myself for my inability to do it. I am thinking, "What is wrong with me? And I should be able to figure this out myself." And the spell for releasing self-blame is to see what happens when we stop making this about our individual selves, when we release individualism, and instead we think about our collective, and its systems, right? 

So instead of "what is wrong with me?" what is wrong with the system? Well, the system doesn't acknowledge household labor. It doesn't acknowledge the time, the energy, the expertise it takes to run a household. Instead of "I should be able to figure this out," it's like we should be able to figure this out. How do we figure this out? We have to have conversations, and maybe I need to have a conversation with my partner. Maybe I need to have a conversation with myself.

I could be having a conversation with authors like Brigid Schulte, who wrote this book that's so great, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time. I think that's the subtitle. Right? And she talks about, like, why is it so [laughs] hard to do all of this? Like, there are studies. There are people who are actually looking at it, right? So I begin to connect with those people who are seeing the system for what it is, and then I stop blaming myself for the system's problems. Yeah?

Let me give you another example. This example has come out of Crucible. So maybe you heard—because I was talking about it quite a bit—I'm running a program right now called Crucible, where people are taking an idea that they've had for a really long time. Like, they've been wanting to write a book, or create their own podcast, or maybe they're an entrepreneur who is wanting to create a new offer, right? 

It's very exciting. It's so fun to support creators. And I know in our busy world—see, for example, what I was just talking about—that we're trying to run these little nuclear households without much support; that we are, all of us, just overwhelmed with the amount of work it takes to live in late-stage capitalism in the 21st century. It is—it's just a lot. Right? 

And I know that when these ideas are not becoming a reality, it is almost always because the person with the idea is finding it really difficult to claim the time and energy and courage to bring the idea to life, that is, the person keeps putting the idea on the back burner, the person wants to work on it but, like, doesn't have the energy, and the person is afraid. The person is afraid to bring something new into the world, right? 

And I know this from my own experience, and from supporting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And here's the thing. [laughs] If you ask a person with an idea like this that's been on the back burner forever, "Why? Why haven't you brought this idea to life yet?" very often, you'll find so much self-blame woven into the answer. 

It's like, "Well, I'm just not disciplined enough. I'm just lazy. I'm lazy, and I haven't made it a priority. Oh, I have terrible time management skills, and I never have the time because I waste my time."

It is heartbreaking how much self-blame is woven into our reasons for not bringing a dream to life. And the self-blame, it will not surprise you, [laughs] I'm thinking, to know the self-blame further tamps down on, further obstructs the idea's progress, right, because here I am believing I just don't have what it takes. 

I don't have what it takes to bring this idea into the world, and so even when I get a burst of enthusiasm around it, like, "Ooh, that's a great idea for a character in my novel or, ooh, that could be a wonderful offer in my business," right, that enthusiasm gets extinguished by, "Ugh, but I just don't have the discipline it takes to actually sit down and write this thing, or I'm barely keeping up with all the work I have now. How could I possibly create something new?" Yeah?

So in Crucible—a little sneak peek—where we start is by learning to honor ourselves and our creativity; learning to treat ourselves, I love to say, like a golden goose. I got this from Denise Duffield-Thomas, this idea that each of us is a golden goose. We have inside of us the ability to birth creations of incredible value, yeah? Golden eggs. We have that ability, and we must treat ourselves as such. 

Like, you are a magical creature. Do you treat yourself like a magical creature? Probably not. [laughs] You probably do not treat yourself like a magical creature, because that is very inconvenient for the system. The system prefers that you are a cog in the machine, right? The system prefers that you keep your head down, and work to maintain what is already established around here. That is what the system prefers. 

It pretends that it loves disruptive creative expression, but does it really? I don't know. Does the system want you to get together with your friends, and demand affordable care for your young children so that you can write erotica or found your nonprofit? No, not really. Right? The system would love for you to figure out how to keep caring for your kids, and then, do you know, whatever in your spare time. 

So here at the beginning of Crucible, with all of these people ready to take action on an idea, what we are discovering is that maybe the hard part is not even bringing the idea to life. Maybe the hard part is making room in the life for the idea; is claiming the time and the energy and the self-esteem, like, the self-valuing, the self-honoring that we need in order to bring the idea to life. And when that is difficult, though it's tempting to say, "What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?" the spell for releasing self-blame is what is wrong with the system? 

Oh well, the system has me overloaded with responsibilities. The system doesn't make adequate space for most people to create. The system doesn't encourage me to experiment, to figure out what my creative process is, and what works for me creatively. Yeah? There's a lot wrong with the system. 

And then also instead of, "I should be able to figure this out," we should be able to figure this out, and that's why I built Crucible. It's like, OK, maybe it's just too much to ask individuals to be able to do this on their own, but maybe together in this counterculture, maybe together we can do it. 

And, hey, we had our first coworking session together yesterday, and eight people showed up to work for an hour on their thing. And why did we show up? Well, we showed up for ourselves, but we also showed up for one another. Yeah? Anyway, it's very exciting and, yes, I will almost definitely run Crucible in the fall, so if you're having FOMO, don't worry. You can come join us in the fall. 

All right. One more example, and this example is so near and dear to my own heart. This one probably needs a whole spell all to itself, so maybe that will come someday. But here it is: blaming my weight for my health issue. This is the "I just need to lose 10 pounds" phenomenon. Maybe you scoffed at 10 pounds. Maybe you were like, "More like 30." But, you know what I mean, the idea that your health problem, my health problem is the fault of being overweight. 

Oh my gosh. OK. I have coached so many people, including myself around this one. And, let me tell you, there are so many health problems that get attributed to, blamed on those 10 pounds: low back pain; knee problems; blood pressure problems; menstrual problems; fatigue problems.

There is this fabulous episode of Tuca & Bertie. And Tuca & Bertie is this animated show about two young adult birds that are best friends. They're played by Ali Wong and Tiffany Haddish. And the show is a creation of Lisa Hanawalt. There's this episode of Tuca & Bertie, where Tuca the Toucan, who is played by Tiffany Haddish, she's had menstrual pain all her life, like, crippling menstrual pain. 

And when she goes to the doctor, disgustingly, predictably, the doctor's like, "Yeah, you just need to lose 10 pounds." And then they have this [laughs] like wonderful montage song about "just lose 10 pounds, just lose 10 pounds." It is this way that the system weaponizes fat phobia; that the system exploits our hypersensitivity to, quote, unquote, overweightness; that the system blames us and asks us to blame ourselves, our weight for our health problem.

So rather than taking responsibility, investigating like, OK, "What is going on here?" the system is like, "Oh, you know, the problem is actually you're fat." Oh my gosh, I just feel rage bubbling up in me as I talk about this righteous anger to how many tearful conversations I've had about this; how much shame and self-blame is in this "just lose 10 pounds" bullshit.

So instead of "what's wrong with me? I'm overweight," no, "what is wrong with the system?" What's wrong with the system is that it is fucking broken. What's wrong with the system is that conditions that affect women, conditions that affect people of color, these conditions are under-researched and under-understood. That is the issue. 

Friends, I was having all this pain in my ankles and knees and hips. Like, I would go for a walk, and my legs would just ache. And my allopathic, my western doctor, was like, "Ah, you probably need to lose 10 pounds, and here's a prescription." OK. I was like, "Nope, not taking this prescription, and let me talk to someone else."

And so I talked to another man who is an osteopath out of network, right, supposedly practicing some more progressive medicine. He tells me the same fucking thing: "You probably just need to lose 10 pounds." Finally, I found someone, a woman who did some postural analysis with me, and then used a bunch of different tools and techniques that she had to begin to help me with some misalignments in my spine and legs. 

And she and I shared this tearful moment. Like, it brings tears to my eyes right now because when I told her that the people I tried to ask for help before had told me I needed to just lose 10 pounds, her eyes filled with tears, and she held both my hands, and looked at me in my face, and she was like, "No, absolutely not." And I said, "Oh, I know, but I have gained weight."

And, everyone, I want you to know, I am fully aware how the system is fucking with me, and yet the system still fucks with me. And actually like knowing the system is fucking with you, and still feeling it [laughs], that's where we feel like bad feminists, right, like Roxane Gay says. 

OK. So, anyway, I knew. I knew that this was fat phobia. I knew that this was inadequate understanding, and willingness to investigate my situation. Like, I knew that, and even still that mantra—"just lose 10 pounds"—it's a drumbeat in our culture. "Boom, boom, boom. Just lose 10 pounds. It's your fault. You're fat. You're fat. The problem is you're too big." Right? 

Like, it gets to a woman. Of course it does. So, again, not "What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me that I can't lose this weight or that I'm gaining this weight?" but rather, "What is wrong with the system? What is wrong with the system?" The system wants me to be able to care for myself, even as the system is demanding that I put everyone and everything else first.

What is wrong with the system? Healthcare is fucked. What is wrong with the system? The system prefers to tell women over 40, "Hmm, yeah, that's just perimenopause. That's just how it is," and refuses to take our problems seriously. What is wrong with the system? The system barely even works for white men. That's how bad it is. Yeah?

And, by the way, if you are a doctor, a nurse in this system, I know that it's fucked for you too, right? How we humans have not been able to figure this out, I don't know—and/but that's the second part of the spell, right? We should be able to figure this out. We should be able to figure this out. Like, how do we do it?

For me, it was finding a healthcare provider who did not tell me to lose 10 pounds; who instead investigated and really looked to see what the problem might be. And, by the way, she has helped me enormously with my leg pain. And, no, I have not lost the 10 pounds. Yeah?

Through that provider, and having that experience, I was able to say, OK, I want to find more helpers like this person, ad so that's what I've been doing. Now, I recognize, acknowledge, am incredibly humbled by how much privilege I have that I am able to go to these out-of-network providers. I realize that I have so much privilege in being able to do that financially, and in having carved out the time to find them, because it's a very needle-in-a-haystack situation, as far as I have found yeah?

Sometimes it can be so daunting to say we should be able to figure this out. And I want to make really clear that in that "we should be able to figure this out," oftentimes over-responsibility still comes in, right? And it's like, well, yeah, so maybe I can find my own out-of-network provider, but how is that actually changing the system?

Well, we all are working to change the system in different ways. So Lisa Hanawalt and Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, in creating that episode of Tuca & Bertie with the hilarious and affirming Just 10 Pounds song, that was a contribution to changing the system, just bringing awareness to this bullshit recommendation. Yeah? That was a contribution. 

This is my contribution. I'm telling you this is bullshit. I'm bringing it up in conversations when my clients, when my friends tell me, "Oh yeah, the problem is I'm a fat ass. I'm lazy. I just need to lose 10 pounds. I need to stop eating, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, wait, this is fascinating, isn't it, that for every health problem, the advice is just losing 10 pounds, even though we have tons of research that shows that weight actually is not the determining factor in most ailments. 

There are communities like Health at Every Size that are pushing back on the system's tendency to make everything about how you are overweight. And we can listen to them. We can join them. We can download their one sheets—and we'll put links to this in the Show Notes, right? But there are people that are working to change the system. How can we figure this out? Well, we just, each of us, got to put our own little drops in that bucket. 

So self-blame, it is a tool of systemic oppression. The system wants us to blame ourselves for problems that are much bigger than us. And the more systemic oppression you face, the more self-blame you'll be asked to shoulder. So fuck that. 

The spell for releasing self-blame is to shift from "what is wrong with me?" to "what is wrong with the system?", and the system being large, like, global, national level, but the system also being the system of my household, the system of my office, the systems of my life. What is wrong with the system? Not what's wrong with me, but what's wrong with the system? 

And the second part is instead of I should be able to figure this out for myself, it's we should be able to figure this out together. And then we got to go find the people who are working on this problem, and join them. I hope this took all the wind out of the sails of your self-judgment and self-blame [laughs], and I can't wait to see what you do with this particular spell, my love. As always, thank you so much for listening, and bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

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