Dating back to before your earliest memories, these may well be the most soothing four words ever put in row.
“It’s not your fault”
Since you first felt them, they have been music to your soul.
Feel their power. Repeat “It’s not your fault,” to yourself 3 times and feel the stress begin flow from your body.
Perhaps no four words in history of man have been the cause of more relief and more grief.
For there are certainly times in every life when we needed to hear these words and they were, without question, appropriate.
That time when you closed the car door and your baby sister was trying to get her hand out. Not your fault. No malice there.
The power in these words is magical and it’s just that magic that make them so damned insidious as we grow up. For regardless of whether you were hit from behind while waiting at a red light, or you got drunk and ran over a neighbor mail box, you still long to hear the magic words, “It’s not your fault.”
The child inside us wants desperately to be relieved of guilt and responsibility.
The good news is if you did run over the mailbox, drunk, it’s going to be pretty difficult to find the bigger idiot who will tell you that its not your fault. So, for the most part we’re safe.
But wait!
Along comes a clever marketing genius who recognizes this needy child inside each of us and “Shazaam!!,” the era of “It’s not your fault” marketing is born.
You’re bankrupt, and it’s not your fault.
“Your fat like a circus elephant, but hey, it’s not your fault.”
To which the inner child, goes, “Phew… thank goodness! I was starting to suspect I might be involved.”
I imagine there is actually relief when some nice looking spokeswomen assures you that the only reason you accidentally became 187 lbs overweight is you didn’t know not to eat 38 dozen Twinkies and drink a 12 pack of Pepsi a day.
Seems the science came in and no one told you! Oh! Those bad, mean people.
Actually, they’d tell you something more like it's the air mixing with protons in your vegetables skin that's causing fat cells to accumulate. Or that it’s all cortisol causing it (which isn’t true by the way).
But wait, the fact that people use and abuse these magic words to entice you to buy things—while less than noble in my book—is not the most serious problem.
The Real Serious Problem with “Not Your Fault” Thinking
When you, I or anyone wants to desperately to be relieved of guilt that we buy into “It’s not your fault” when it—even partially—is, there’s something much more devastating happening here than the loss of a few bucks.
Think back to a time when these words were used appropriately in your life. To a time when the event, the slip, the slide the crash, really wasn’t your fault.
What was the real message being told to you?
“It’s not your fault.” = You had no control in the matter.
In fact, you couldn’t and shouldn’t have even done anything about it. It’s was not and is not within your power.
See it? Do you see the frightening message your not just hearing but your buying into when you accept this death sentence of your personal power?
Let me see if I can make it any more crystal…
When you buy into the belief, concept, excuse that “It’s not your fault” that you’re out of shape, broke or whatever it is, you’re not just releasing guilt your releasing all your power.
You’re accepting the ultimate victim role and have effectively neutered any power, control or influence you may have had going forward in the situation.
If it’s not your fault your 20 pounds overweight, and you believe that. How can you do anything about it.
Now get that I’m not talking about what your mind—as you know it—for your thinking mind may want to argue this.
I’m talking about what the message, the directive that your subconscious—the core that drives you—is following.
It takes but a few minutes of study on the power of suggestion, the strength of your subconscious mind and belief system to know that it’s far more powerful than all the willpower and discipline you could muster for a ten minute sprint.
My advice to you: Next time someone tries to lull you to sleep with these four magic words, you stand up and yell at the TV man or woman:
“Your wrong! You are wrong!”
“I am at this precise point in my life because of the choices I’ve made so far. My successes and my failures are of my own doing. And I know—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that I have the power to create my life exactly the way I want it to be.”
So there!
Take that Mr. marketing wiz!
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The Joy and The Horror of These Powerful 4 Words