What if the thing you're blaming is the exact thing keeping you stuck?
I spent years pointing at circumstances. The job, the relationship, the economy, the way I was raised. Each explanation felt true because it was true. The circumstances were real. The limitations were real. What I couldn't see was that my relationship to those circumstances was creating more limitation than the circumstances themselves. Every time I said "because of this, I can't," I was handing over the keys to my own life. I was letting external things write my story.
The shift happened slowly and then all at once. I started asking a different question. Not "why is this happening to me?" but "what am I creating here?" Not as blame, not as some toxic positivity that denies difficulty, but as a genuine inquiry. If I'm experiencing this, and I'm the one experiencing it, then somewhere in the chain there's a place where I have agency. Finding that place changes everything.
Responsibility isn't about fault. We confuse these constantly. Fault looks backward at who to blame. Responsibility looks forward at who can act. You can take responsibility for things that aren't your fault. You can be the one who responds even when you didn't create the situation. This is where freedom lives. Not in the circumstances changing, but in discovering that you can choose how you meet them, what you make of them, who you become through them.
I'm not saying this is easy. Some days I still catch myself slipping into the old story, finding the external reason, rehearsing why I can't. But now I notice it faster. And noticing is enough to remember that I have a choice about where I put my attention next.