by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

In a few days, Super Bowl Sunday will arrive. Sadly for me, my Buffalo Bills won’t be playing. I’m not blaming them, though.

Most of us assign blame based on adding together degree of intentionality and harm. Said another way, Blame = Intent + Harm. To me, the Bills did not intend to lose the crucial game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Additionally, the harm to me because of that loss consisted of a few days of disappointment. At this point, I’ve pretty much fully recovered.

Some people will blame a person, a group of persons, or even themselves for extensive periods of time. Their blame can lead to disrespecting the blamed person or persons to such an extent that they spend a great deal of time throwing insults at the blamed person, and it ends up diminishing the blamers’ quality of life. Therefore, we might want to consider whether we would be wise to transform some of our blaming to a more peaceful understanding.

As I thought about writing a post about this, word came to me that talented superstar Taylor Swift will be attending the Super Bowl. Then it occurred to me that one of her popular songs is “Don’t Blame Me.” Perhaps a little meditation on the song’s lyrics might be a fun and useful way to explore this issue. So, I invite you to join me in giving this a try.

Meditating On the Lyrics of “Don’t Blame Me”

The first few lines, sung with passion, are:

Don’t blame me, love made me crazyIf it doesn’t, you ain’t doin’ it rightLord, save me, my drug is my babyI’ll be usin’ for the rest of my life

Hmmm. I imagine different people will react to these words differently. Here’s my take.

The character that is being portrayed perceives that she might be blamed for how she acts when she’s in love, which she characterizes as crazy. She doesn’t want to be blamed for this and defends herself by making the argument that the right way to do love is to do these crazy things. Moreover, just like you shouldn’t be blamed for being addicted to a drug, she argues, you shouldn’t be blamed for acting crazy when you are in love. I’m not sure this is a convincing argument, but let’s move on to the next set of lyrics to clarify just what she means by acting crazy.

I’ve been breakin’ hearts a long time, andToyin’ with them older guysJust playthings for me

These three lines tell of her having fun with older guys even though she knows this ends up hurting them. Doing something that can hurt someone, when you know it will very likely end up hurting someone can add up to being blamed for the hurt. However, she does not here claim she intends to hurt these guys. Given the earlier lines, she appears to be doing this because she’s addicted, and therefore, perceives no control over her actions.

The lyrics go on to say,

Something happened for the first time,

In the darkest little paradiseShakin, pacin’, I just need you

For you, I would cross the lineI would waste my timeI would lose my mindThey say, “She’s gone too far this time”

At this point, she sees that some are blaming her for going too far, and it seems as well, that she recognizes her “darkest paradise” has her doing things that may not be sane.

The next stanza, she repeats the first set of lines and goes on to say:

My name is whatever you decideAnd I’m just gonna call you mineI’m insane, but I’m your baby (your baby)Echoes (echoes) of your name inside my mindHalo, hiding my obsessionI once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy

And baby, for you, I (I) would (would) fall from graceJust (just) to (to) touch your faceIf (if) you (you) walk awayI’d beg you on my knees to stay

She seems to be struggling with her emotions. I can certainly relate. The powerful feelings of love can lead us to do some things that strike us as terribly undesirable.

Here, she feels obsessed, and deeply concerned about how she would deal with her love abandoning her. She sees that she would go so far as to beg her love to stay, which is not a desirable situation to find oneself in.

The next set of lines again repeat the earlier ones about asking to not be blamed and asking the lord to save her. Then she says:

I get so high, ohEvery time you’re, every time you’re lovin’ meYou’re lovin’ meTrip of my life, oh

Here, she uses words that imply a drug-like experience (“I get so high,” and “Trip of my life”) to express the feeling of this obsessive love experience. However, with drug experiences perhaps we have some choice to take the drug or not. With some love experiences, we meet the person, start engaging, and before we know it, we’re in love.

The final lines of the song just repeat, over and over again, her pleading to not be blamed because if you are doing love right, this is just what happens.

In my view, when people go through such experiences, if the blaming amounts to a bunch of name calling, and beating oneself up in other ways, than that’s going to make such challenging experiences worse. During such times, people might be calling you names, and you may be calling yourself names, especially if some degree of intention is perceived.

In our society, this is a common experience when what you are doing is hurting others and yourself. Perhaps it is wise to accept that the insults are based on old habits, but not helpful. Perhaps by accepting blame, in the sense of accepting responsibility, would be better. What I mean by this is that we fully observe the internal physical sensations that go with the recognition of the hurt, fully experience this during periods of meditation, along with a sense of confidence that these feelings will spur a search process for creating a better path forward. The search may not immediately produce the results you might wish for, but such challenging experiences through patience and self compassion, might be a more fulfilling path than one that takes to heart the various insults getting thrown around.

My Best,
Jeff

———————————
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.