Coping is protesting reality and being trapped in the past. The mental states described in The Responsibility Process® reveal this.
Laying Blame is a protest that your current reality isn’t fair. Someone else did this, or caused it, or took your credit. They have to fix it because it didn’t turn out how you wanted it. But that moment has already passed. At best, maybe they might make some future moment more to your liking (but probably not).
Justify is you going global with your protest against how reality has failed you. The world is to blame, the circumstances were wrong, the stars aren’t aligned, or the gods are malign. The world owes you to make right what happened, but it’s not going to.
Shame turns the blame into yourself, with an admonishment of “do better next time.” You can work on “what do I do now that I screwed up” that gets bogged down in what you ‘should’ have done then. It’s only after escaping that trap that you begin to move forward into the present again.
Obligation brings that land of “should” out of Shame and turns into “have to” and “ought to.” You redeem your poor past performance that didn’t get your desired outcome by doing what you think some external scorekeeper requires of you.
Trapped in the Past
In each of these mental states, you’re coping with reality as it is not being reality as you desired. Your focus is on what happened then and how it felt, not what you’re going to do now.
Only by owning your power to accept reality without moving to cope, and accepting your feelings without letting them drive you to cope, can you access your full power and ability.
Anything else keeps you stuck with the past, blocked from your ability to respond fully.
Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
— Eckhart Tolle
There are plenty of things that protest can impact. The past isn’t one of them.
Accept reality, stop coping, and respond. Now, in this moment.
You can do this. I can help.