Responding to Accusations

from Within and Without

by Jan L. Kuniholm

This article is an abstract of a workshop presented at the Fifth Annual Presenters’ Conference at the Synthesis Center in Amherst, MA, April 2, 2005

How shall we respond when we are accused of something, in a way that is authentic, truthful and just, yet also compassionate and affirming? Many times an accusation triggers an unpleasant response in us, and the exchange between us and our accuser becomes a conflict in which both persons move into a pattern of action-and-reaction that helps neither person.

We will look at the nature of the process and try to arrive at some awareness of how it operates, at ways to respond to the process that are respectful and constructive, compassionate and authentic, that promote awareness and harmony.

Our human history is often reflected in our language; a short trip to the dictionary helps illuminate what happens in an accusation. The word “accuse” means:  “to call someone to account for their actions,” and  ”to find fault, to blame.” When we look up “blame,” we find “to accuse of being at fault, to condemn.”  Under “fault” we find “failure to have or do what is required,” and “to condemn” is defined as “to convict, to declare to be guilty of wrongdoing.” So the etymology of the word “accuse” leads us directly to the reason why we often feel bad when we are accused: when we are accused of something: we feel “blamed, faulted, convicted, declared guilty of doing wrong, of failure to have or do what is required.”

The first part of the process is to identify who our accuser is. I would like to invite you to look at an example from your own life. Re-live the moment of accusation, hear or feel the accusation as if you were playing an inner video, and then stop the action right at the moment of the accusation. Let your awareness dwell on this situation for a moment. Become aware of the accuser, and allow your awareness to include yourself at the moment of the accusation. Who is your accuser? Someone else (an “outsider”) ...or an inner voice (an “insider”)? If you have been accused by an outsider, search your awareness for a moment and see whether the outsider’s accusation is mirrored by any insiders. If your accuser is an insider, search your awareness for other inner voices, or voices of outsiders in your memory who mirror or support the accusation. Many of us will find that we actually have two accusers, an insider and an outsider.

Our next question is, “What does the accusation do?” I’d like to invite you to return to your inner video, and move it forward for a few seconds, but stop the action before you actually say or do anything. Become aware of what happens after the accusation is made. What happens to your accuser? What happens to you? What is your sense of how your accuser feels now, and how do you feel now? What thoughts run through your mind? What does your body feel? 

Our next question is, “Is the accusation about something specific?”  One kind of accusation is about something specific, and is intended to make me respond in a real way, to do something— to right a wrong, to fix something that is broken, to do something or feel something or see something —to respond with a change in my behavior or attitude in some way. I call this a “legitimate” accusation. Another kind of accusation is not satisfied with me in some way and does not address anything specific Its only function is to pass judgment, find fault, and to inculcate shame, and there is no way to actually respond to it. I call this an “illegitimate” accusation.

But here is where we can run into confusion, because we may experience both types of accusations simultaneously. My outside accuser, for example, may want a response from me while my inner critic is just saying “Bad!”

Next, we ask, “What is the accusation intended to do?” Allow your intuition to sense what may be behind the accusation, what needs to emerge

We may feel bad whether the accusation is legitimate or not. The energy of an accusation is always associated with something negative. The accuser brings two things—something negative, and me—together in one focus, a negative unifying center.  Because our limbic or emotional brains function largely on the basis of associations, not logic, we feel the association that is made by our accuser, and that feeling is experienced as a negative identification, impelling us toward Afight, flight or freeze” responses that will come forth to deal with the situation.

Our final question is, “How shall I respond?” Once we realize that an accusation tends to move us into an identification, into a survival subpersonality, we can work to gain an awareness that will give us the ability to respond constructively. I think that the key to a constructive response can be summarized in three words: Distance, Awareness, and Choice.

The first step is to create a distance, a space, between yourself and the situation, even if that space is very small and very brief. In that space you can go to your center, your "I” and become aware.  In that place of awareness you can ask the questions:

1. Who is my accuser?

2. What is the effect of the accusation?

3. Is the accusation aimed at specific actions or attitudes?

4. What is the real intent of the accusation?

5.  How shall I respond?

 The five questions can be asked to yourself, as a preliminary step, and then they may be asked outwardly to your accuser as part of a dialogue. This process takes practice. We may not realize what triggers us, and we may not be at first aware that we have gone into a subpersonality that is reacting automatically, so it is useful to set up a practice routine to help identify our red flags in advance. Here are some questions we can use ahead of time, in preparing to work on this issue:

 1. What are the characteristics of my “response-to-accusation” subpersonalities? How do I know that I am in one of them? What does it feel like when I am fighting, fleeing, or freezing?

3. How do I make the space to “take an awareness break?”

 There are a variety of techniques that we may use: Count to ten (or 20), take three deep breaths, go to the bathroom and take a pee, blow my nose, comb my hair, step outside and take a short walk (or a long walk). The point is to take a break from the situation, no matter what you are doing or thinking. In the break, ask yourself, "what am I doing? What am I saying? Who is doing that? Who is saying that? Where is my center? From my center, what do those actions and words look like?”

Taking the awareness break is something you can train yourself to do. You can create a simple exercise by stopping in the middle of any thought or action, saying to yourself, “Take an awareness break. Who’s in charge now? Where is my I?”

 Of course, doing this kind of thing in an actual stressful moment, when you are accused of something and your adrenalin pumps up in the blink of an eye, is not so easy. This is where a practice visualization can work well for you. And you can think up what kind of little diversions would work for you, to help you get that moment to reflect. Perhaps you can devise a signal to train yourself to use in a stressful moment, that tells you “I am here, I will go to the center, and from there I can see what is happening, what my accuser really needs and intends, and what I need to do.”

Lastly, we need to consider one very important factor. If the other person is accusing you, it’s possible that he or she is coming at you from a subpersonality that has mobilized a lot of mental and emotional force to make the accusation. If the other person were working out a problem in a balanced way you would experience a discussion instead of an accusation; but the converse can also be true: if you have a lot of mental and emotional "juice” associated with the issue at hand, then your own subpersonalities may experience a balanced approach as an accusation. Negatively charged feelings can propagate between people just as resonant waves propagate, and when the waves meet they increase geometrically. The awareness break is intended to break this resonance, but not to stifle the emotions.

So, we arrive again at our final question: How shall I respond? In many ways, our response will depend upon the nature of the accusation, and the personal issues involved.  But there are some things that I do want to happen:

1. I want to maintain my awareness of what I have learned in the five questions.

2. I want to shift the process from accusation-and-reaction, to dialogue.

3. I want to have a clear idea of what my accuser really wants or needs, and also of  what I really want or need.