Escape the blame trap and reclaim your power to find inner peace

Whose “fault” is it?

When you look at today’s world with its pollution, poverty, starvation, vanishing glaciers, clear-cut forests and bleaching coral reefs, how do you feel? Deep sadness? Numbness? Or maybe even resentment? How do you feel about the idea of finding inner peace when all this is happening? Go deep. Be honest.

It is very easy to slip into something like “Why should I have to find peace amidst all this, when the previous generation (or big business, or political leaders, et cetera) are responsible for these problems?” Feeling this way does not make us bad people. It is just a tendency. But if we wish to cultivate inner peace and support peace in the world, we need to face this feeling so that we may ultimately release it.

Who’s right and what’s real?

There are two sides to every story, as well as that which is really going on. Pointing fingers makes us feel temporarily powerful, as though we are on the “right” side of the fence. But we could become so busy wanting to be right that we forget we all have the same potential for ignorance and greed that block inner and outer peace.

Resentment is one way that our divisive ego-mind keeps us focused on the problem, rather than on solutions. We…