Think about the last time someone really got under your skin. A driver who cut you off, a colleague who took credit for your work, a family member who said the thing they always say. Did blaming them change anything? In my experience, it almost never does. And yet blame is what nearly all of us reach for first.
I recently had a conversation on the podcast that I did not expect to be a wellbeing conversation at all. My guest is a philosopher who has spent years studying why human beings behave the way they do in groups. We talked about history, human nature and the long arc of our species. But what I took away was something much more personal and much more useful: whether you default to observing people or to blaming them quietly shapes your stress levels every single day.
Blame feels satisfying and achieves almost nothing
My guest put it in one question I have not been able to shake. Have you ever blamed someone and had them accept your blame? Think about it honestly. I certainly haven't. When we are blamed, something in us goes straight to defence. We explain, we justify, we counter-attack, we go quiet and resentful. What we almost never do is say, "You're right, that was me, thank you for pointing it out."
So blame has a terrible return on investment. It costs you energy, it damages the relationship, and it does not produce the change you were hoping for. His description of blame is that the mind treats it as a threat — and a threatened mind is not a mind that is about to reflect and improve.
His alternative is deceptively simple. When something in front of you looks like a mess, instead of asking "who is at fault here?", ask "what am I actually looking at?" He describes himself as defaulting to being an observer rather than a judge, and he is clear that this is a practice rather than a personality type. You can learn it.
Why feeling diminished causes so much trouble
The line from our conversation that stayed with me most was this: show him a diminished human being, or a diminished group of human beings, and he will show you trouble.
His broader argument is a historical one. He contends that human beings spent an extremely long stretch of our history living in small, highly collaborative groups where every single person was necessary to the group's survival, and that something changed when we settled into larger populations and began acquiring and ranking. Once some people were treated as greater and others as lesser, he argues, resentment entered the human experience — and resentment tends to travel towards revenge rather than resolution. I should be clear that this is his philosophical framework rather than settled science, and plenty of historians and anthropologists would argue the details with him. But the human mechanism underneath it is one I recognise from my clinic every week.
Because you do not need to accept a 10,000-year theory to notice the pattern in your own life. Nobody accepts a lower station quietly. Diminish a colleague and you do not get compliance, you get quiet sabotage. Diminish a teenager and you do not get cooperation, you get a closed door. Diminish yourself in your own internal commentary and you do not get motivation, you get resistance and a bad night's sleep.
What this has to do with your health
This is where it becomes a wellbeing conversation rather than a philosophical one. Carrying low-grade resentment is not a neutral mental state. In my practice I see what chronic, unresolved irritation does over months and years: it shows up in sleep quality, in digestion, in how tightly people hold their shoulders and jaw, in how often they reach for alcohol or sugar at the end of the day, and in blood pressure readings.
Blame also keeps the loop open. If the problem is always someone else's fault, there is nothing for you to do except wait for them to change, which means the stress has no exit. Observation closes the loop, because understanding what you are looking at usually reveals something you can actually act on — a conversation to have, a boundary to set, or a situation to step away from.
Stretching your thinking is its own kind of exercise
The other reason I wanted this episode on the show is that thinking hard about unfamiliar ideas is good for you. Challenging your existing belief systems, turning an idea over, sitting with a view you do not immediately agree with — this is real cognitive work, and the research on keeping the brain engaged and challenged across the lifespan is promising, including in the context of reducing dementia risk. I want to be careful not to overstate it: doing a hard crossword is not a treatment. But mental engagement sits alongside sleep, movement, nutrition and connection as part of a genuinely holistic approach, and it is the one most of us neglect.
So read the book you suspect you will disagree with. Listen to the episode on a topic that is not your usual thing. It counts.
How to actually practise observing
None of this works as an idea. It works as a habit. Here is what I suggest to clients.
Start by catching the moment. You will feel blame arriving as a hot, certain, slightly satisfying feeling. That feeling is your cue. Then ask the observer's question — not "whose fault is this?" but "what is going on here?" Nine times out of ten the honest answer involves someone who is frightened, overloaded, or protecting something. That does not make their behaviour acceptable, and this is not about letting people walk over you. It simply gives you a far more accurate picture to act on.
Then turn the same lens inwards, because most of us are harsher with ourselves than with anyone else. My guest made the point that understanding our own impulses — rather than pretending we have banished them — is what makes us whole. Owning the parts of yourself you would rather not look at is not self-indulgence. It is the thing that lets you stop fighting yourself.
Key takeaways
- Blame is almost never accepted. If you want change, observation will get you further than accusation.
- When you feel blame arrive — hot, certain, satisfying — treat it as a cue to ask "what am I looking at?" instead.
- Anyone who feels diminished will push back, including you. Watch for it in how you speak to colleagues, children and yourself.
- Carried resentment is a physical load, showing up in sleep, digestion, muscle tension and stress levels.
- Observing does not mean tolerating poor behaviour. It means acting on an accurate picture rather than a reactive one.
- Deliberately engaging with ideas you disagree with is genuine mental exercise, and belongs in a whole-person approach to health.
At me&my wellness I keep coming back to the same principle: your health is not just what is on your plate. It is how you sleep, how you move, how you think, and how you hold the people around you. A client can have an immaculate diet and still be exhausted because they are carrying three unresolved resentments into every meal. Looking at the whole person means being willing to look at that too — gently, and without blaming them for it.
Want to go deeper on this? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Anthony at meandmywellness.com.au