Part 8 of the 10 part series: Leader-friendly gardening practices to end bullying.
 
Eliminate blame – Blame is a more severe form of gossip and a way to deflect personal responsibility for life. Taking 100% responsibility for your life gives you the power to thrive.
 
Desired outcome: Accountability
 
In Part 1, I discussed the need for social change to help end bullying and it begins with adults. In Part 2, I made an appeal for adults to step up to end bullying, and in Part 3, I discussed how adults can empower children to take the lead on this issue.
 
The leader-friendly gardening practices began in Part 4 - Being nonjudgmental, Part 5 – Do not enable, Part 6 - Use empathy, and Part 7 - Prune gossip.
 
You may not be responsible for the circumstances you face, but you are always 100% accountable for how you respond to them.
 
This is arguably one of the most difficult concepts to grasp of all the practices, especially when someone has been brutally victimized.
 
Yet, to live life as a victim of a past circumstance is a self-imposed sentence of mere survival for the rest of your life.

Many bad things do happen through no fault of your own. And the most unthinkable of all human crimes is the harm to innocent children. So there are people to blame, systems that fail, and freak acts of nature to which we all can fall victim.

However, being 100% responsible does mean that you are accountable for how your life turns out; even in the aftermath of a tragedy or failure. When you realize and accept that there is something you can learn from each adverse circumstance, you are ceasing the opportunity for growth and wisdom and demomonstrating courage and responsibility.

Viktor E. Frankl said it best, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

No matter how often you may hear something similar to Frankl's quote, when blame is at the center of your life, it is difficult to choose your own way powerfully, making it even harder to rebound from harsh life circumstances and failures.

It also isn’t about letting people off the hook for harm done; they do need to be held accountable, otherwise they won't learn or grow either.
 
And when you make mistakes, when you relate to the mistake as an opportunity to grow, you see how fruitless it is to beat yourself up and continue a pattern of self-blame.

Responsibility is a way to free you from the pain of being hurt or making mistakes and helps YOU define your life - not your life circumstances.

A sweet account of children learning this valuable lesson took place in spring 2010. A group of forty 5-12 year-olds embarked on a “Journey of Growth” at the Baldwin Center in Pontiac, Michigan and demonstrated accountability for the place in which they live.

According to youth program director, Ms. Latoya Lundy, “The community of Pontiac is highly impoverished and the Baldwin Center is in the heart of the city where unemployment and homelessness is prevalent. The children are witnesses and often times victims to many of the hardships that have hit the neighborhood. The security, continuity of care, and respect the staff of the Baldwin Center shows to the youth helps them to know that their life does not have to be defined by the environment they are subject to every day.”

Lundy further stated in their Cultivation Grant application, “The Accountability Project [Journey of Growth] is the tool we are using to have the children experience responsibility and respectfulness for their environment. By the children modeling accountability through cleaning the streets and donating plants, we are hoping to empower the residents to begin to care more for their homes and community environment.”

To read their Accountability Project story, or see the children in action click here.

Now for the last of the leader-friendly gardening Practice Six: eradicating victimization.
 
You may want to review the previous practices; Being nonjudgmental, Do not enable, Use empathy, Prune gossip or read those you missed before you move on.

Until then, look to see if blame plays a role in your life and how that may impede your ability to find new ways to end bullying. Please share. It will release any weeds growing in your garden.