Many of us reserve our deepest blame for ourselves. If instead, we can accept our experience with kindness, we begin to break the inner cycle of violence. This doesn’t mean we give ourselves permission to continue to act in harmful ways. But we don’t condemn ourselves either. Instead, we identify exactly what we’re feeling in the moment — physical discomfort, shame, remorse — and meet our experience with a kind attention.  As we do so, our sense of identity grows beyond a “flawed” self, and we begin to trust our essence as compassionate awareness.  We gradually become more responsible — more able to respond wisely to our present circumstances.

Tara Brach, Creating Peace by letting go of Blame