Excuses or Explanations? (part 1)

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Seth Lusk, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

I think that most of us can agree that we do not like to hear excuses. I also believe that on a conscious level, most people do not want to make excuses for themselves. I know that I don’t, even if I have been accused of doing so from time to time. It is something I have spent a lot of time trying to understand and get a clear grasp of, so that I know for myself when I am giving an excuse, and when I am offering an explanation.
As a kid I would hear this quite often “stop making excuses, Seth.” This statement would leave me feeling misunderstood, frustrated, and a bit angry at times. I was not wanting to make an excuse; I was wanting the person/adult/parent to understand me. I wanted them to understand that I did not take the action that they were so angry about, simply because I wanted to be rebellious, or disobedient, or because I wanted to disregard the rules. I had a valid reason for having done it. I knew there would be consequences, and I was ok with those. What I was not ok with was the person believing I had taken action out of malicious intent, or to blatantly ignore rules. I wanted the person accusing me of being a disrespectful, disobedient kid to understand that I was really trying to make the best decision. I wanted to know how and why this was not the best decisions so that I could learn from this, and know why and how to do differently in the future. I was not learning anything except that what I did was “wrong” (but I did not know why), and I should not do it again (but I did not know why, or what I should do differently the next time, because I did not understand them, their perception of what I did, and what the desired outcome was.)
I wanted understanding of my intention and reason. I was not wanting to excuse myself from any consequence (although I did often believe that the consequences, I faced were extremely exaggerated due to their misunderstanding of my intentions. This always sort of rubbed me the wrong way). I also wanted full understanding of what exactly it was in my behavior that they felt was upsetting, and why, so that I could know what decisions to make in the future while taking this in consideration. I get that for most adults at that time, thinking that a kid was searching for these sort of complex answers was not understood. It was all about “just do what I say” back then (from the adults). Adults were not being taught how to communicate to children and listen to their needs and wants. It was just about children respecting authority by not asking questions and doing what they are told. Only, for me it was not this simple, because doing what I was told was terrifying for me if I did not understand the “why” or desired outcome fully. If I did not understand these then inevitably the way I would go about ‘doing what I was told’ would not be what the adult giving the instructions intended.
So, I grew up surrounded by this confusion of what making an excuse actually meant. I grew up confused by how to go about gaining understanding so that I could follow instructions and create a desired outcome. I was also very confused about what taking responsibility for my actions meant. The model of this that I was being presented with, was just not adding up. I grew increasingly frustrated and defensive as a child and teenager, and this only led to more and more “consequences” that I felt like did not make sense.
This meant that as an adult I wanted to explore this even deeper. I did not want to be ‘defensive’. I wanted understanding. As a life coach, I really dove into understanding the big misunderstandings that were at play here. And, believe me, there are MANY misunderstandings. The more I investigate this, work with my clients on it, and gain understanding of what is TRULY going on in the realm of excuses or explanations, the deeper the misunderstandings go.
So, here in this article I want to begin to break through some of these misunderstandings, and clear up for you all, how to recognize if you are making an excuse or if you are offering an explanation. There is a big energetic difference here, and when we understand more of why we are prone to make excuses it becomes a bit easier to see this difference. Let’s start there.
You see, there is an explanation as to why we make these excuses. The explanation is not an excuse. I promise. If you remember in my previous article about burnout and overwhelm, we have 2 parts of our brain. We have a primitive part, and we have a more evolved part that is called the Cerebral Cortex. The explanation for our desire to make excuses lies in the primitive part of our brain. This part of the brain has programming within it from thousands upon thousands of years ago. It is programming that was designed to motivate us to do things that increased our chances of survival. This means things like seeking food, warmth, shelter, the safety of a group, to reproduce, conserve energy, avoid uncertainty (because it might kill us), and to seek comfort (in the form of pleasure) whenever possible. Our primitive brain was quite ingenious thousands of years ago when it figured out that seeking pleasure, and creating an internal reward system for finding it (dopamine) would drive us to want things that increased chances of survival (food, warmth, sex, etc..). It also made sure that the body is not in constant distress. Which, thousands of years ago was the majority of the human experience.
Thousands of years ago, all of these drives really served us as a species. Today, this translates into a lot of misunderstood urges, reactions, and behaviors that do not fit with the context of our modern world. They are creating physical and mental disorder for us now, because food is not scarce, shelter and safety are not scarce. But the brain evolves slowly. Our world is evolving MUCH MUCH faster due to us chasing our urges for certainty, safety, and security as humans. The brain cannot keep up with the context of life evolving around us, and we are not being taught how to account for this discrepancy. This is leading to a lot of “overing” behaviors (overeating, oversexing, overporning, overtelevisioning, overinterneting, overshopping, overeverythinging) We do all of this because we have forgotten that this powerful tool between our ears is ours to use. But we are letting it use us with its outdated drives. We do this because we are being taught to be so busy out there trying to seek change, that we are not being taught to take the time to look where REAL change occurs. And this REAL change occurs when we understand our brains, its drives, our social programming and how this plays into those drives, and how we have sovereignty over all of this, once we start living authentically. We have sovereignty once we step out of ‘reactivity mode’ and into ‘empowered mode’. This is the most important part of my work as a coach, is to help people make this transition.
So we have this primitive brain that is excellent at sounding VERY intense alarms within us to drive us to take part in behaviors that are not necessarily in our best interest, but might feel useful or comfortable at the time. One of these behaviors is making excuses. Our primitive brain actually urges us to do it. Here is why.
The safety of a group meant survival thousands of years ago. Being cast out of a group meant no shelter, no food, and lots of uncertain danger that you may not be able to protect yourself from, if you were left alone. What this meant was that the brain created a strong drive within us to seek acceptance and a place within a group that we trusted wanted to work with us to create certainty and safety. Any sort of threat to our position in that group was a threat to our well-being. It was even seen as a threat to our life itself. This means that the internal alarm surrounding this urge/behavior is a LOUD and INTENSE one. If we do not recognize it, understand it, and know what to do with it in a modern context, then it leads to a lot of VERY intense defensive behavior (excuses, blaming, shaming, etc…)
On top of this we have the spiritual layer to this. We enter this world with an unchangeable identity (don’t worry though… It is a good one). Who we are as a spiritual being coming into this world through a human body. The identity of this being is not negotiable. And the worth of that being, and its identity is already infinitely worthy. Neither of these can be changed. No person on this planet can misunderstand us, and therefore change our worth to something else. We are worthy by design, not decision.
A person looking at a diamond and not understanding what it is, and calling it a worthless pebble does not change the fact that it is a diamond, and is valuable. And, as I talked about in my previous article on personal development, who we are does not change as we grow up in this life and adopt new behaviors (how we talk, how we dress, etc…). These behaviors are then used by people to try to label and identify us with. But these behaviors do not make up our identity. This is a massive misunderstanding that we are all being taught. We just adopt beliefs as we forget who we actually are in this human experience. We have the urges of the brain telling us to seek acceptance from other people to ensure our survival and safety. Our behaviors stem from us coming into this life without an owner’s manual, and trying to make sense of all of this life, the urges and alarms in our brain, and how all of the people around us are interacting with us and telling us who and what we are. In this process of seeking this safety, comfort, and survival, and making sense of life, many of us forget that who we actually are, and that our worth is not negotiable. We begin to identify with this body, this brain, the urges that it has, and the ideas that we accept from other people as they tell us who they think we are, based on our behaviors, and appearance (this identity with all of this, is what we call the ego).
So, what does this have to do with making excuses? Allow me to make the connection here for you.
We have this biological drive, but we also have this attachment to a false identity that we think is conditionally worthy, and that the identity is changeable according to what other people think about us and tell us about ourselves. How this translates is that when another person or group of people tell us that we have done something “wrong” or “bad” or that we are “at fault”, our brain tells us that our worth, our identity, our safety, and well-being are hanging in the balance. It is a code red alarm going off in the brain. And this same reaction of the brain still exists in people today, even though we consciously know that being kicked out of a social group now, does not spell almost certain death for us. We still have the belief that our identity and worth are in question, and this is just as dangerous as death to the brain and the ego identification.
I am explaining all of this to you because I want you to understand that we have some really good reasons for WANTING to make excuses. Now, if I were to say that this is why we have to make excuses, then I would be making an excuse here for why we want to make excuses. The truth is, that once we are aware of this urge and where it comes from, we have power, and responsibility to do something about it. But most of us do not know this. Most oof us are not being taught to create awareness around this, and that we have power to do something differently. So, people get stuck in making excuses, while knowing that it is something we do not want to do. So, we excuse our own excuse making to the point that we do not even see the difference between our excuses and explanations. So, we do not see our responsibility here.
This brings me to another reason why so many people make excuses. It is in that word “responsibility”. So many of us associate this word with other words like “blame” or “fault”. But blame and fault are actually misuses of responsibility. Blame and fault seek to place responsibility for a result on one part or one portion of the equation that was involved in creating the result that is either not desired or is in question.
This is what I call the “responsibility equation”. It Means that if we took part in creating a result, then we are part of a responsibility equation, and therefore have power to do differently in the future to create a different result for that equation. Blame and fault seek to absolve parts of an equation that led to a result, while placing the burden of responsibility on a portion of that equation. It is a desire to avoid seeing the full picture and the responsibility of all parts involved in an outcome. And this desire for avoidance, stems from the brain associating responsibility with blame, guilt, shame, fault, and therefore possible loss of identity, worth, or status within a group. This spells “DANGER DANGER” to the brain. The resistance becomes strong at this point if a person is not aware of this concept and what is going on in their brain.
Here-in lies the other reason why people make excuses. It is because people fear being blamed. Not only because of the primitive brain believing that this is dangerous and possibly deadly, but also because energetically it (blame) is an untrue concept, and we feel and recognize that on an energetic level. When someone seeks to blame us for a result then they also seek to absolve themselves or other parts of the responsibility equation from their responsibility in it. What this does is places an untrue burden on one part of an equation that created a result. That burden is that they are to carry the full weight of responsibility, and loss of worth and status within the group due to this. Plus, they alone are expected make a new result happen, with their behavior alone, even while other parts who played a part in the result, are unwilling to see how they contributed to the undesired result. The absolved parties get to continue doing as they were doing, unaware of their part in the result, and the person being blamed is to make up for all of this while taking a hit to their worth, and identity within the group. This sets a person or group of people up for a losing battle here. Because, change that happens as a result of blame, is a Band-Aid, or a temporary patch on a hemorrhaging, flawed system/equation. The person or group may be able to temporarily create some change on the surface, but until all parts of the equation see their contribution to the result, and are willing to own it, and pay attention to how they can also learn to help with the change that is desired; then eventually this change falls apart in many ways.
Resentment builds, mistrust builds, people pleasing (inauthentic) behaviors begin creating distance and invisible debts within the relationships of the group (the full equation) involved in this. People start to notice the inauthentic actions and changes that they are making solely because they fear being cast out of the group if they do not shoulder the fault or blame. They recognize that parts of the group they are working with are trying to avoid learning and growing by excusing themselves and placing blame on others to make them solely responsible for change. This leads to more and more distrust, more and more resentment, more and more inauthentic action, which also leads to burnout and overwhelm. It does not take long before blame and excuses take their toll on a group.
If we know we do not want to make excuses, and we know that making excuses has a heavy price on group dynamics, and interpersonal relationships, then what do we do to ensure we do not continue this pattern?
The answer is that we use the responsibility equation to open up conversations of explanation, understanding and shared responsibility. We do this instead of making excuses, and blaming. This can be a bit more challenging that it is to understand in theory. It will ask for compassion, finesse, patience, understanding, and practice.
The first thing that we want to do is to recognize that the desire to make excuses is there. It is part of being human. It is not some evil trait. It is our brain thinking it is protecting us and helping us survive. It is us misunderstanding that our worth and identity cannot ever be in question. It cannot be changed. Even if we try to, it is not touchable. You are, and everyone is, 1000% worthy. Yours and their identity is what it was the moment they entered this life. No group rejecting you or telling you how wrong, or bad, or useless, or undesirable you are, can change this.
So, we want to first recognize the desire to excuse and to understand it with compassion. We want to recognize where it comes from (a desire for safety, and certainty, and to know our own worth/identity). It is only through this that we can truly speak to our brain and use it as the tool that we have available to us, and that we are sovereign over. When we understand the brains desire to create safety and certainty for us, then we can compassionately let it know that we are safe, even if someone tries to place blame on us, we are safe.
This brings me to the second part of what we want to do here to move out of excuse making, into understanding and the distribution of responsibility. That part is that we want to own our responsibility while not accepting blame.
Accepting blame is not a noble, honorable, responsible thing to do. I know we are taught to think it is. In fact, accepting blame is also making an excuse. It is excusing other parts of the equation that have responsibility (it excuses them from their responsibility). Accepting blame is making excuses for why you are too afraid to seek truth/understanding, and real growth/change/solutions in this situation (probably again because you fear the opinions of others on you if you do not just accept the blame). It is also making excuses for you own ability to truly learn and grow from this. We truly learn and grow when we understand how all parts of an equation contributed, and why they contributed in the way that they did so that we can learn the full extent of our responsibility, and what we authentically want to do differently the next time to contribute to a new result.
Accepting blame is an excuse. It disrupts real understanding and responsibility. Asking someone to accept blame is also you making excuses. I know it is an uncomfortable truth since we live in a world that lives in this model of blame, shame, guilt, and fault seeking. People become angry when someone refuses to take the blame. So, I get that it might feel scary to refuse to take blame. I get that you may want to seek to blame someone else, because you fear yourself being the one who is blamed. I get it. Blame is never responsibility. Believing that stepping up and taking blame is taking responsibility does you and everyone around you a HUGE disservice.
But here is what we can do to soften the blow of not accepting blame. The second part of moving to explanation and responsibility, instead of excuses and blame, is that We can help to ease the blow to the other person’s ego. We can help to quell the alarm going off in their head that is screaming “oh no!!! They won’t take the blame… this means that there is still a chance that I will be the one who has to take the blame!!!”
We can soften this response by owning our responsibility. And we do this without accepting blame by telling how we see our part in the result. We tell how we arrived at the conclusion that our actions were the best we knew to do at the time, and why we made those decisions and actions. Then we own that we have learned since then that these actions might not be the best actions to continue taking in the future, and that you want to seek understanding with all parties involved to know fully how you want to take different action in the future, that would best contribute to a more desirable, and understood result.
In doing this we do two things. We soften the alarm going off in the other person’s brain because they see that we are owning responsibility, and if we own responsibility, then blame cannot be placed on them alone. They now see that they have a partner who is willing to explore and shoulder the responsibility and opportunity of change and growth together. The second thing we do here is we invite understanding. We invite open ended conversation that is about seeking deeper truth and understanding, not a scapegoat or seeking to blame.
The third thing we want to do is that when we are seeking to own responsibility and not accept blame; we want to use language of emotional responsibility. Emotional responsibility is a deep concept that maybe I will write about another time. Here is a brief explanation.
Emotional responsibility means that the emotions that we experience do not come from other people or circumstances. They arise from our thoughts and/or beliefs about those people or circumstances. If my boss yells at me, it does not make me sad, or mad, or scared, or frustrated. What makes me feel any one or more of these emotions is what I believe this yelling means to me or about me. This is why some people can stand there when someone is yelling at them, and they can remain peaceful and calm, while others might burst in tears, or become red-faced with anger. It all depends on what this person (receiving the yelling) believes that yelling means about them. Maybe they believe the person yelling at them is in pain, or hurting, or is frustrated, and they want to show the other person that they are listening and not competing with them. Maybe they believe that yelling means that the other person believes that they are not respectable, so their reaction may be to demand respect. The understanding that I want you to gain here is that the other person, their actions, or words do not make you feel something. You feel something because you believe and think something about the other person, what they are saying, or what they are doing. This is the model of emotional responsibility. We are responsible for our emotional experience of life. This does not mean that we are not allowed to experience certain emotions that we want to in any situation. This does not mean that we are only supposed to experience certain types of emotions in certain situations. The importance of this concept is to return the power of our emotional experience to where it truly is. We are not victims in our emotional experience. We are sovereign in it. Emotional responsibility is the ownership of that.
So, when we are attempting to create a conversation of explanation, understanding, growth, and distribution of responsibility, we want to use language that is emotionally responsible. This means saying something like “when you did this, I thought this is what it meant, and therefore I felt like this, and thought that this was my best action to take.” When you use this sort of language you are owning that the other person did not make you feel or do anything (you are not blaming or making excuses). You are owning that you had thoughts or beliefs about them and their actions that led to your feelings and actions. This opens up the doors for them to then explain what they meant by their actions, which then opens the doors for you to learn a different perspective, thought, or belief about what they did, which could completely change how you feel about what they did. This helps you to choose how might want to respond differently in the future. It is now a learning experience.
This language (the language of emotional responsibility) is all about owning responsibility and opening the doors for more understanding so that learning and growth can take place. Learning and growth take place at the belief level, not the behavior level. When we open the door to understand why other people did what they did, by telling them why we thought they did what they did, we open the door to seeing our own beliefs and how they might actually be assumptions that we thought were facts. In seeing this we open the door to new beliefs, and therefore new feelings, and then new behaviors. So, in conversations about understanding, and distribution of responsibility, we use language of emotional responsibility.
If I Were to say, “You did this and made me feel this, and so I had to do this”, I am no longer inviting the other person to explain so that I can understand. I am challenging the other person with blame, and I am excusing myself of the responsibility of my own interpretation of what they said or did. This is blame, and blame seeks to stop understanding. It halts growth, or real change from happening. Use emotional responsibility in these conversations and watch the magic happen.
The fourth thing that we want to do is to hold space when it comes to opening conversations about explanation, understanding, and responsibility, where there is a desire to slip into blame and excuses. By holding space, we want to create that space of safety within ourselves. In this space we remind ourselves that the blame that is attempting to be placed, does not have to be accepted, and it does not have to mean anything about us. We can recognize where the desire to blame comes from in the other person, and in ourself. When we hold space for ourself, use emotionally responsible language, and extend that safe space around us, then we allow for those around us to recognize that we are not out for the blood of blame.
We are seeking understanding. We allow them space to work through their own layers of blame and we continue to guide them back with the reminder that no one is to blame here. No one is going to shoulder this responsibility alone. We keep the space and invitation open for them to join us in this quest for true understanding until they feel that it is safe to let the guard down and join us in owning responsibility. We keep inviting them to join us in seeking the opportunity of true learning, and growth that comes with this sort of conversation.
This brings me one more consideration. Some people have very intensely programmed excuse/blame responses. These may come from years of trauma, emotional abuse, etc… that occurred in their formative years. What this means is that when their central nervous system is in a dysregulated, or heightened state (they are experiencing intense emotions of fear, or anger, or sadness) then they may not have the tools available to them internally to reach a space where they feel safe enough to own responsibility and seek understanding. You will want to offer some time for emotions to process. Let the person know that you want understanding and you do not want to blame, and that you would like to have a conversation with them about the situation/results once they have had time to process their emotions and feel safe enough to have this conversation. This is an important consideration to have.
So, you have some strategies now to implement in a situation where excuse making, and blame may be the initial urge or desire. I want to take one more stab here at really nailing down how you can know if you are offering an explanation or an excuse.
An explanation will always include ownership of responsibility (but not acceptance of blame). An explanation opens conversation so that others can also explain their thoughts, beliefs, and intentions and their own responsibility in the results.
Excuses seek to blame, and in doing so, absolve responsibility from one or more parts of an equation that took part in creating a result. This means that if you were around, being observed, actively took part, or passively took part, you are part of the equation and you have the opportunity of responsibility. Any seeking to absolve your responsibility, is making an excuse, and seeking blame.
Remember that responsibility is not blame. Responsibility is the ability to see your part in something, and learn from understanding that part deeper, and therefore be able to respond with a new direction, new beliefs, and new behaviors that are authentic for you. Responsibility is a beautiful, empowering thing that we WANT. We do not need to fear it. Remember that the fear around responsibility comes from our brain associating it with the danger of blame.
The last thing that I want you to take away from this article is how much excuses and blame damage our relationships with other people. This article is part one of a two-part series on this topic. My next article is going to explain how blame shows up in your personal development, and how this can damage your relationship with yourself.
Blame and excuse making is a misuse of responsibility. It is untrue, it is unjust, it disrupts growth, and real lasting change. It seeks to perpetuate false beliefs about conditional worth, and identity.
We have the ability to understand our desire to make excuses. We have the ability to understand our power in that desire. We have the ability to do something different. It is time that we take our power back, and stop making excuses for our pattern of blame, and excuse making. It is time to RISE & THRIVE my friend.