Hey Reader,

Something goes wrong, and before you've even had a second to think, you already know whose fault it is. Yours. The apology is halfway out of your mouth before you've checked whether you actually did anything at all.

I want to name that, because most of us don't even see it happening. We just call it being responsible, being the woman who owns her part. But there's a difference between honest accountability and quietly assuming that every hard thing traces back to something you did or didn't do.

This week on the How To Love Yourself No Matter What podcast, I sat down with my mentor Maggie Reyes to talk about internalized blame. The kind that has you carrying weight that was never yours to pick up in the first place.

You were trained for this, you know. Raised to keep the peace, praised for being easy, taught to make sure everyone around you was okay. So of course you reach for the blame first. It was handed to you long before you had any say in it.

One thing Maggie said has stayed with me all week. When a thought insists it's all your fault, you get to ask what else is also true. Not to wriggle out of anything. To finally see the whole picture instead of the small, punishing sliver of it you've been staring at.

Because blaming yourself for everything doesn't make you good, and it doesn't make you responsible. It keeps you small, and it keeps you stuck in the moment it all went wrong, replaying it, when the thing that would actually move you forward is remembering you still have a choice about what comes next.

The question Maggie kept circling back to is a quiet, almost radical one. What if it wasn't you?

Listen to the episode →

Or listen right here

So consider this your permission to put some of it down. The next time your mind races to make it your fault, you're allowed to stop and ask what else is also true. That isn't letting yourself off the hook. It's telling yourself the truth for once.

P.S. If you've spent years quietly sure that you're the reason it all went wrong, this is the one I want you to hear. You are not the only one. I promise you that.

xx Amanda