Anybody who knows me knows I hate playing the victim, but I cannot talk about my W word for next week, Warrior, without talking about the V word for this week, Victim. In case, you were wondering, no I am not going to tell you what X, Y, or Z are going to be. You will have to wait for those weeks to come.
It is easy for most people to think about a situation or experience where they wanted to blame someone for what happened to them or the abuse they experienced. What we feel regarding those situations and experiences is real. However, at the same time, choosing to stay in that space of reliving the situation or experience can be self-abusive. Don Miguel Ruiz, in The Four Agreements, said, “There is no need to blame your parents or anyone you abused you in your life, including yourself. But it is time to stop the abuse. It is time to free yourself of the tyranny of the judge by changing the foundation of your own agreements. It is time be free from the role of the Victim.”
One of the things, which keeps us in a victim mentality, is our own mind. All too many of us have mastered spending parts of our lives feeling offended, insulted, and victimized. We hold onto these feelings like a dog clings to a bone. Doing so is not healthy for us physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. We think we are judging others for their actions, however, in reality we are also judging ourselves. Regardless of the spiritual path, one is walking, judgment of others or self is not something one is taught to do. Toltec’s know the Nagual (God/Spirit) will not judge us and teaches that judging others is not being impeccable with our thoughts, thus violating the first agreement. Christian writings instruct followers to “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
Moving from victim to warrior (next week’s focus) is a process. It is a process of releasing our attachment to what we have clung to and automatically returned to, and learning a new way of handling the challenges of life. It involves releasing the tendency to compare the present to the past, and instead choosing to stay focused on the present. Whatever we are feeling is what it is at that moment. When we allow our minds to return automatically to the past, then we are allowing our thoughts to control us, rather then allow us to control our thoughts.
So often when something happens, our minds go into autopilot and we assume we know what is going to happen, what people are going to say, do, etc. and have the whole scenario played out in our minds. The reality is we do not know anything. When I am in victim mode, I think I know everything about what is going to happen or not happen. When I am in warrior mode, I realize I don’t know anything, other then what I think I know, which is not about the present, but about the past. As we learn to stop listening to the voices of what we think we know, and learn to listen to the intuitive voice within us, we begin the journey from Victim to Warrior.
In some respects, what we are returning to are some of the intuitive powers many of us knew we possessed as children. We could fall down and cry for a moment, then pick ourselves up and begin playing again without thinking about how we had been hurt. Victims stay in this space of remembering why they were crying and never forget. Warriors strive to live in the moment. You experience your pain for what it is in that moment and then return to the joy and peace in your life in the next. This lesson reminds me of something I was once told about the job application process. If you allow yourself to stay in a state of disappointment every time you are informed you did not get the job, you will stay depressed for quite some time. The advice was to take a moment to feel whatever you are feeling and then say next. Every moment of every day, we have the power to choose whether to respond as a victim or a warrior. What is your choice?