Originally posted in sections back in February. We thought we should place it in one complete post for easier reading.
From Victim. To Survivor. To Becoming a POWERFUL LIFE FORCE
Part 1
VICTIM
VICTIM is a power word. It describes. It resonates. It expresses a truth. It coalesces all the broken parts into a whole. It becomes a thing. A thing that can be looked at. Understood. Managed. Surmounted. And utilized for your greater good.
VICTIM describes violence. Violence is domineering, tyrannical, life-changing maltreatment perpetrated by one against another. Many victims of violence do not even recognize that they are victims. Victims of violence often do not identify as violence the maltreatment they were subjected to. Violence is not always loud. Oftentimes violence is quiet, shifty; covert. Most violence committed against another goes unseen, unheard, and unverified, leaving the victim in a purgatory of self-blame, shame, confusion, and trauma. Being subjugated by violence always results in trauma.
Trauma is devious: it kills personal power. Trauma surreptitiously permeates and weakens a life by constantly recreating itself by attracting more trauma. Trauma establishes an energy that evokes behavior that becomes a magnet for physical, emotional, and psychological disorder. All disease begins with dis-order. Trauma is a disorder. Trauma must be resolved before a life can be made whole. Trauma never resolves itself.
VICTIM is a power word. Recognizing yourself as a victim of violence is the first step toward resolving trauma. Say it out loud: I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENCE. Say it again. And again. Say the words “I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENCE” until that powerful truth penetrates the wall of resistance you’ve erected to protect your heart. Say your truth words until you feel the heat of them connect with the wellspring of hidden truths.
When you have internalized this powerful truth, begin to consciously support yourself with your power thoughts and power words. You are a VICTIM. Not his victim. Not her victim. The abuser is not your abuser. Separate yourself from all emotional and verbal connections to the abuser. The abuser does not belong to you. You do not belong to the abuser. The abuse was not your choice. The abuse was done to you.
Your singular task is to resolve the resulting trauma, to make yourself whole, to illuminate your life. To create the life of your dreams. You are the only one who can do that. You are the super power.
Part 2:
SURVIVOR
Survivor is a disembodied identity that describes the outcome of a catastrophe. Most victims of violence survive. All are wounded. Surviving is fundamental—a basic human instinct automatically activated when all else has failed. A survivor endures. Surviving is perseverance. Surviving is existing in a stalled energy cycle of impending exhaustion. Surviving is no substitute for the energy of victory. A survivor does not radiate power and authority. Surviving is an interim condition. The challenge of a survivor of violence is to move out of the energy cycle of mere survivorship and into the light and strength of truth, understanding, self-honor, and self-supporting behavior.
Society fabricates “hero survivors”. They impose upon them superhuman attributes achievable by no mortal. “Survivors as heroes” are lavished with praise and admiration and paraded through the media, lauded for their extraordinary strength and courage. Hero survival is an invention created for public consumption, entertainment, brand marketing, and religious and political manipulation. Public and religious enterprises promote the fantasy of hero survivor as a feasible objective for all survivors of catastrophe. Even though the conquests and triumphs of the hero survivor are exaggerated lies, this unachievable fantasy remains the measure of success. The burden of unrealistic expectations then is forced upon those victimized by violence by the misinformed masses. This continual infliction of lies masquerading as truth creates an energy vortex of corrosion and contamination that cripples individuals and society as a whole by impeding the necessary progress toward discovery of truth and ultimate resolution.
All victims of violence bleed pain. That pain manifests itself emotionally and physically. All survivors of violence scream, cry, rage, and plummet into the nightmare inflicted upon them. Despite outward appearances, all survivors of violence are weakened by the violence they suffered. In this fragile condition, life must be reinvented. Reordered. Rebuilt. There is no choice. There is no return to before.
When survivors of violence—sexual or otherwise—align themselves with fictional representations of what survivors are purported to be and believe the undermining propaganda peddled as attainable reality, victims trap themselves in a downward energy spiral of failure. Fantasy is not achievable. Violence is a powerful force. Violence always wins. It may be temporary. It may be permanent. Whatever violence destroys is gone forever.
Surviving is the transition period from what life was before the violence to what kind of life will come after. Surviving is a time for crying. A time for mourning. It is a place of staggering fury and flattening depression. It is a morass of denial and confusion. A dark void of unspeakable human emotions. Guilt. Humiliation. Terror. Left unresolved, the energy of emotional pain will coalesce into unrestrained trauma that will continue to gain energy and grow increasingly powerful, extending its destructive tentacles far into the future and beyond. In other words, the reach of trauma is forever unlimited.
A survivor of violence lacking the knowledge of the workings of vital life energy and overwhelmed by unrealistic fictional images and cultural and religious demands, unwittingly converts the temporary circumstance of surviving into a permanent emotional prison. Life marches forward with or without knowledge. But without knowledge and comprehension, free will life choices do not exist for the survivor of violence.
A survivor of violence will forever require compassion, understanding, support, and patience, and safety. Survivors must build and create a strong support structure within themselves along with a grounded, insightful, outside support system. The outside support must be stable and capable of recognizing and validating truths without succumbing to the pull of negative energies echoing from the aftermath of the violence. This building and strengthening process requires time. And more time. And more time.
Survivors willing to fight for themselves will gain inherent strength from their connection to their deeper truths. The warrior within will awaken and follow the urge to pursue the fire of the soul’s passion to gather unto itself deeper wisdom and increased confidence. With the success of acquiring authentic personal power along with the energetic force of increasing courage, the survivor will mature into a conscious healer. This organic, seismic shift will transform survivors into a powerful life force of their own creation.
Part 3:
WORDS
Word energy is as powerful as any drug, poison or aphrodisiac. Words carry intention—they can heal a heart or kill a spirit. Words create a life from the spirit outward. Self talk is self creation. Words shape lives. They shape viewpoints. Words chisel and sculpt. Words influence a person and who that person becomes. Should the words ingested be lies, those lies will erode away personal power by distorting perception, destroying intuition, and crushing inherent abilities waiting to be developed.
If an abuse victim’s words are silenced and destroyed, the person is destroyed. Without any possibility for meaningful resolution, the unrelenting energy of suppressed violence turns inward and festers until it manifests itself in all manner of disease and destructive behavior. In Forget About Heaven, my mother, Mary Patricia, precisely and powerfully chronicles her battle to at long last claim her life and freedom after her death, and to recover the words stolen from her through acts of physical and sexual violence. Mary Patricia had to free herself. Physical death does not release a victim of violence from tackling the basic evolutionary task of soul liberation.
No victim of violence is exempt from the work of achieving resonant, deep-down relief from their trauma that ultimately will earn them emotional and psychological freedom. Even though victims of violence may not realize that this necessary freedom is available to them—actually required of them—the need for freedom eventually becomes too intense to be ignored. This call to action is a fundamental element of growth: a naturally embedded, fierce impulse of the soul to push its evolution forward.
Through the process of cultivating self love and allowing that love to nurture her, Mary Patricia developed the courage to identify the pain she was unaware she was suffering and confront its origins. By connecting accurate, tough words precisely to the violence she was subjected to, Mary Patricia forged a trail of light to the intractable truth and burst open the doorway to her comprehension and ultimate resolution, and freedom to evolve into her soul’s true purpose.
Self talk fulfills its own destiny. A small shift in self talk will begin the journey to emotional and spiritual strength and wellness. Even seemingly trivial, positive self-messaging immediately infuses each cell of the body with emotional and physical warmth and directly nurtures the entire energy system. Continued positive self-messaging builds self love and personal power. Honoring personal efforts and successes—not out of superficial bravado borne of arrogance and insecurity—but out of humane compassion and the appreciation for intrinsic truth, victims of violence continue the process of walking out of the darkness and evolving into the undeniable light. They will discover, as Mary Patricia did, that using precise, descriptive terminology to describe what hides in the dark is an achievable act of self-support that will create order, stability, and control out of the chaos created by violence and its aftermath.
Beginning with small shifts, a victim of violence will begin the transformation from victim to survivor into a powerful life force.
Part 4:
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS
Not too long ago, I saw a poor soul with so many negative thoughts glued to her back that she’s bent over like a cripple. They’re working with her, but she’s got a long way to go. --Mary Patricia, Forget About Heaven
Thoughts are things—our closest, most intimate companions. Our thoughts are our creative force—we believe the thoughts that we create, and we act upon those beliefs. We perceive and relate to ourselves and the world according to the thoughts we generate and give energy to, whether those thoughts are positive or negative. Developed, persuasive thoughts are powerful generators of action and behavior. It is through thoughts that we create the world we decide to live in. Words are powerful and intentionally generated energy. Words ripen into influential thoughts with shaped and formed vibrational energy. Thoughts are potent instruments of our human consciousness that evolve into ideas. Those thoughts/ideas—whether destructive or constructive—are magnets that draw toward us the energy that we radiate. Positive or negative, among the most difficult things to eradicate is an idea that has taken root. We believe the thoughts that we create. We are the thoughts we create.
Aligning yourself with the forces of harmony creates more harmony within. This is not magic—it’s the structure of nature. But it is not as simple as “thinking good thoughts.” The Think Good Thoughts lecture is a trite and annoying cliché. It dismisses and diminishes the challenge of overcoming negative, destructive beliefs that have been conditioned and implanted by abuse. It rejects the punishing reality of living with powerful, silent, ever-increasing fear. No amount of force-feeding happy thoughts will transform fear into harmony. That takes determination and discipline, along with a strategy that includes an acceptance of personal authority.
Fear is an insidious, invasive energy. When you concede your natural, powerful authority to fear, you surrender authority as your own decision maker. Fear will command you and make all your decisions for you. Fear is an all-consuming energy. It will create for you exactly what you insist you are afraid of, plus. Fear responds to negative words and thoughts by creating more fear. The more negative energy you feed fear, the more powerful fear becomes. And the more powerful fear becomes, the further and further you slip away from your true self, your forever self, the you that knows how to achieve your highest good. The self that longs for harmony with your truth.
Thoughts are things—our closest, most intimate companions. When you begin the challenge of slowly shifting your thoughts/beliefs from negative to positive, from destructive to supportive; from lies to truth; when you start to connect with the inspirational force of your creative energy—the draw of your soul toward its brilliance—when you move your ideas toward personal creation as opposed to disheartening yourself with helplessness, you create an altitude of mind and slowly begin to transform. You will begin to believe your worth, accept your own authority, and seek the deepest truth hidden within you—the truth that never was and can never be destroyed by violence. That truth is the pathway to your greatest joy.
As you transform, you will begin to radiate light from the glow within. That light will attract more light, just as fear attracts more fear. You will begin to contribute to the healer inside yourself, instead of searching outward in vain for peace that only you can generate.
The more determined you become, the more you transform into your own personal gladiator—a protector of your interior self—and decide what words, thoughts and ideas to generate, the more powerful you will become. You will begin evolving in ways you never believed possible; in ways that were thwarted by negative thoughts and destructive behaviors created by abuse. The more confidence you generate, the more confident you become.
The events of violence will remain with a victim always. However, as you move forward committing purposeful energy to the life you desire, as you evolve into your authentic, empowered self and connect with your profound creative mission, those abuse memories will lose their grip, and their power over you will weaken. Understand that violence is a permanent, lifelong action visited upon its victim. Its vestiges will still have to be confronted when triggered. But with the active determination to shift focus and by aligning yourself with the forces of harmony, by shifting to an altitude of mind, the victim of violence will no longer be haunted by past events.
Your closest, most intimate companions—your thoughts—will create for you the world you have been searching for your entire life. You will be a powerful life force.
Part 5:
THE MYTH OF FORGIVENESS
What if the concept of forgiveness is not the gateway to peace as it is purported to be? (It’s not.) What if instead, forgiveness leads to more emotional pain for the victim of violence? (It does.) What if forgiveness is not the solution to anger and rage for the victim of violence? (It’s not.) What if forgiveness actually exacerbates anger and rage? (It does.) What if the forgiveness ideal as the path to wholeness is no more than a utopian fantasy that actually prevents victims of violence from evolving and achieving that wholeness? (That is true.) What if instead of creating the hoped-for peace, forgiveness traps a victim of violence in a chaotic, unending, energetic cycle of conflict—struggling to forgive, struggling to maintain forgiveness, regression, guilt, and back again to the struggle to forgive? (That is how the forgiveness model works.) And what if this cycle of the forgiveness conflict keeps the victim of violence permanently enmeshed in the catastrophic event(s) and forevermore emotionally attached to the perpetrator of that violence? (It does.)
Forgiveness is a myth. To pardon or excuse violence is a desperate attempt on the part of the victim to gain emotional and bodily control; to enforce peace and secure social and religious/spiritual acceptance; and to push to transcend, bypass and erase the completely unavoidable impact of trauma by superficial means. Forgiveness does not empower. Trauma is serious damage that is impervious to artifice. Forgiveness is an unworkable solution to trauma simply because it is unrelated to its resolution. The act of forgiving violence is an uninformed act of willpower, and willpower ebbs and flows according to circumstances. For the victim of violence, forgiveness rejects the enduring consequences of trauma and ignores the work necessary to achieve emotional wholeness. Imposing the inappropriate concept of forgiveness on any victim of violence imposes further injury.
Forgiveness as a route to freedom, power and wholeness is a misteaching that hurls a victim of violence down a dead-end road. Trauma will not resolve itself through willpower or superficial acts of benevolence. Trauma is a furious, dominant vortex of energy. Unless and until it is satisfactorily resolved, trauma will continue grabbing power and gaining momentum, pulling its victim deeper and deeper into its bottomless void. Trauma does not resolve itself. Trauma resolution takes the full cooperation of its victim.
Empowerment, emotional peace and wholeness, and a life of radiance and creativity are absolutely achievable for victims of violence…absolutely. Turning inward begins the journey outward. To be strong enough to live fully and powerfully, the victim of violence must first build strength from within. Emotional freedom and wholeness are earned through the difficult task of developing self-power by the process of shifting away from destructive misteachings; confronting and identifying the person(s) and action(s) that created the trauma; comprehending the far-reaching extent of trauma’s legacy; learning how to manage its consequences; gaining personal understanding; accepting reality; and making necessary changes by establishing boundaries and other self-supporting measures.
As the process of trauma resolution proceeds, profound connections to the truth within begin to develop, confidence grows and personal power expands. With empowerment, order—as opposed to chaos—begins to govern, and anger and rage dissipate. The energy to create a desire-driven life rises and transforms the energy previously wasted on turmoil into a force of purposeful light. As the victim of violence becomes increasingly empowered, the power of trauma continues to diminish. The organic result of the development of personal power is the evaporation of emotional connections with the violence and the perpetrator as the victim of violence naturally and organically disconnects from that all-powerful authority. Trauma loses its power to cripple. Unleashed from the vortex of trauma, the victim now owns the power and authority to transform into a person and life of their own creation. The victim is no longer a victim. No longer just a survivor. But transformed into a truly powerful life force.
It is then that forgiveness is unveiled as a myth, and becomes an irrelevant, non-issue undeserving of any thought energy. It is--as it was always meant to be—the challenge of the perpetrator of violence to work out all personal solutions without burdening others with cowardly pleas for external “forgiveness” that is only available from within.
Part 6
FORGIVING VIOLENCE—AN UNINFORMED ACT
Violence is a fierce coalescing of overpowering energy forced upon another physically, emotionally, and/or mentally. Until it is resolved, even one single act of violence continues generating damage into the infinite future. This damaging energy plays out generationally in our own families and leaks unimpeded into the collective world causing and creating further harm.
Because violence has endless disguises and countless manifestations, sound and outward appearances are unreliable judges of acts of violence and its consequences. Whether the thunderous explosion of a violent act creates pandemonium among many, or one silent, tightly-burrowed act of cruelty is exacted against an audience of one, violence always harms and continues to foster trauma until it is resolved at its source—the source is the perpetrator.
Because acts of violence trigger perpetual harm, it is impervious to the benevolence of forgiveness. Forgiveness of violence is an uninformed act of willpower that is an issue of ego and self-congratulations; it gives comfort to the misinformed by allowing them to ignore and bypass the true devastation created by perpetrators of violent acts. The misinformed confuse the necessary, all-encompassing scope of self-inflicted consequences that must be accepted and confronted by perpetrators of violence with harsh, unjust punishment lacking love and compassion. The misinformed mistake the emotion of love and compassion for authentic love and compassion. Authentic love and compassion supports and encourages the highest good. The highest good is the true evolution of the soul. True evolution is profound self-awareness. Self-awareness is created from experience and understanding of experiences.
Forgiveness of violence is an uninformed act of willpower that attempts to bestow upon perpetrators a reward that is not available to them. By relieving them of the residual tensions lingering from their violent behaviors, the misinformed, with their declarations of forgiveness, actually create barriers to the process of evolution—a process that always includes discomfort and seemingly unfairly grueling challenges.
Uninformed acts of forgiveness separate perpetrators from their vital life lessons, without which they cannot entirely evolve and fully integrate into wholeness. Through their chosen path of violence, perpetrators must completely and totally see and experience the full depth and width of the consequences of their violent acts, not only on their victims, but on themselves as well.
The power of the soul’s drive to evolve must not be mitigated by onlookers seeking superficial comfort. Consequences are uncomfortable, especially when meted out to a loved one. But consequences are a necessary tool of evolution and any interference with another’s consequences circumvents their growth by inhibiting and prolonging the learning required for moving forward.
All souls must eventually evolve into wholeness—that includes perpetrators of violence. The very action of a grievous act against another indicates how far lost in darkness, how disconnected from the light, the perpetrator has become. It is a long and arduous journey into the light both for the victim of violence and the perpetrator of violence. The consequences of even one act of violence must never be dismissed—its tentacles reach into the future and beyond. The perpetrator of violence must come to the full comprehension of the mayhem that his/her behavior has created not only in one life, but in the lives beyond their narrow vision as the energy of their violent acts continue to impact the world in general while its energy heeds the impetus to replicate itself.
Resolution of violence is wholly available to all. Compassion and support from concerned individuals for perpetrators of violence is essential. But forgiveness is inapplicable. Forgiving violence is an uninformed and self-preserving act of willpower—of misguided energy—that impedes necessary resolution and halts growth of the soul.
This is not about feeling good, this is about doing the work to create good.
Summation of the series
You are a powerful life force!
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. Lao Tzu
From Victim. To Survivor. To Becoming a POWERFUL LIFE FORCE
Part 1
VICTIM
VICTIM is a power word. It describes. It resonates. It expresses a truth. It coalesces all the broken parts into a whole. It becomes a thing. A thing that can be looked at. Understood. Managed. Surmounted. And utilized for your greater good.
VICTIM describes violence. Violence is domineering, tyrannical, life-changing maltreatment perpetrated by one against another. Many victims of violence do not even recognize that they are victims. Victims of violence often do not identify as violence the maltreatment they were subjected to. Violence is not always loud. Oftentimes violence is quiet, shifty; covert. Most violence committed against another goes unseen, unheard, and unverified, leaving the victim in a purgatory of self-blame, shame, confusion, and trauma. Being subjugated by violence always results in trauma.
Trauma is devious: it kills personal power. Trauma surreptitiously permeates and weakens a life by constantly recreating itself by attracting more trauma. Trauma establishes an energy that evokes behavior that becomes a magnet for physical, emotional, and psychological disorder. All disease begins with dis-order. Trauma is a disorder. Trauma must be resolved before a life can be made whole. Trauma never resolves itself.
VICTIM is a power word. Recognizing yourself as a victim of violence is the first step toward resolving trauma. Say it out loud: I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENCE. Say it again. And again. Say the words “I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENCE” until that powerful truth penetrates the wall of resistance you’ve erected to protect your heart. Say your truth words until you feel the heat of them connect with the wellspring of hidden truths.
When you have internalized this powerful truth, begin to consciously support yourself with your power thoughts and power words. You are a VICTIM. Not his victim. Not her victim. The abuser is not your abuser. Separate yourself from all emotional and verbal connections to the abuser. The abuser does not belong to you. You do not belong to the abuser. The abuse was not your choice. The abuse was done to you.
Your singular task is to resolve the resulting trauma, to make yourself whole, to illuminate your life. To create the life of your dreams. You are the only one who can do that. You are the super power.
Part 2:
SURVIVOR
Survivor is a disembodied identity that describes the outcome of a catastrophe. Most victims of violence survive. All are wounded. Surviving is fundamental—a basic human instinct automatically activated when all else has failed. A survivor endures. Surviving is perseverance. Surviving is existing in a stalled energy cycle of impending exhaustion. Surviving is no substitute for the energy of victory. A survivor does not radiate power and authority. Surviving is an interim condition. The challenge of a survivor of violence is to move out of the energy cycle of mere survivorship and into the light and strength of truth, understanding, self-honor, and self-supporting behavior.
Society fabricates “hero survivors”. They impose upon them superhuman attributes achievable by no mortal. “Survivors as heroes” are lavished with praise and admiration and paraded through the media, lauded for their extraordinary strength and courage. Hero survival is an invention created for public consumption, entertainment, brand marketing, and religious and political manipulation. Public and religious enterprises promote the fantasy of hero survivor as a feasible objective for all survivors of catastrophe. Even though the conquests and triumphs of the hero survivor are exaggerated lies, this unachievable fantasy remains the measure of success. The burden of unrealistic expectations then is forced upon those victimized by violence by the misinformed masses. This continual infliction of lies masquerading as truth creates an energy vortex of corrosion and contamination that cripples individuals and society as a whole by impeding the necessary progress toward discovery of truth and ultimate resolution.
All victims of violence bleed pain. That pain manifests itself emotionally and physically. All survivors of violence scream, cry, rage, and plummet into the nightmare inflicted upon them. Despite outward appearances, all survivors of violence are weakened by the violence they suffered. In this fragile condition, life must be reinvented. Reordered. Rebuilt. There is no choice. There is no return to before.
When survivors of violence—sexual or otherwise—align themselves with fictional representations of what survivors are purported to be and believe the undermining propaganda peddled as attainable reality, victims trap themselves in a downward energy spiral of failure. Fantasy is not achievable. Violence is a powerful force. Violence always wins. It may be temporary. It may be permanent. Whatever violence destroys is gone forever.
Surviving is the transition period from what life was before the violence to what kind of life will come after. Surviving is a time for crying. A time for mourning. It is a place of staggering fury and flattening depression. It is a morass of denial and confusion. A dark void of unspeakable human emotions. Guilt. Humiliation. Terror. Left unresolved, the energy of emotional pain will coalesce into unrestrained trauma that will continue to gain energy and grow increasingly powerful, extending its destructive tentacles far into the future and beyond. In other words, the reach of trauma is forever unlimited.
A survivor of violence lacking the knowledge of the workings of vital life energy and overwhelmed by unrealistic fictional images and cultural and religious demands, unwittingly converts the temporary circumstance of surviving into a permanent emotional prison. Life marches forward with or without knowledge. But without knowledge and comprehension, free will life choices do not exist for the survivor of violence.
A survivor of violence will forever require compassion, understanding, support, and patience, and safety. Survivors must build and create a strong support structure within themselves along with a grounded, insightful, outside support system. The outside support must be stable and capable of recognizing and validating truths without succumbing to the pull of negative energies echoing from the aftermath of the violence. This building and strengthening process requires time. And more time. And more time.
Survivors willing to fight for themselves will gain inherent strength from their connection to their deeper truths. The warrior within will awaken and follow the urge to pursue the fire of the soul’s passion to gather unto itself deeper wisdom and increased confidence. With the success of acquiring authentic personal power along with the energetic force of increasing courage, the survivor will mature into a conscious healer. This organic, seismic shift will transform survivors into a powerful life force of their own creation.
Part 3:
WORDS
Word energy is as powerful as any drug, poison or aphrodisiac. Words carry intention—they can heal a heart or kill a spirit. Words create a life from the spirit outward. Self talk is self creation. Words shape lives. They shape viewpoints. Words chisel and sculpt. Words influence a person and who that person becomes. Should the words ingested be lies, those lies will erode away personal power by distorting perception, destroying intuition, and crushing inherent abilities waiting to be developed.
If an abuse victim’s words are silenced and destroyed, the person is destroyed. Without any possibility for meaningful resolution, the unrelenting energy of suppressed violence turns inward and festers until it manifests itself in all manner of disease and destructive behavior. In Forget About Heaven, my mother, Mary Patricia, precisely and powerfully chronicles her battle to at long last claim her life and freedom after her death, and to recover the words stolen from her through acts of physical and sexual violence. Mary Patricia had to free herself. Physical death does not release a victim of violence from tackling the basic evolutionary task of soul liberation.
No victim of violence is exempt from the work of achieving resonant, deep-down relief from their trauma that ultimately will earn them emotional and psychological freedom. Even though victims of violence may not realize that this necessary freedom is available to them—actually required of them—the need for freedom eventually becomes too intense to be ignored. This call to action is a fundamental element of growth: a naturally embedded, fierce impulse of the soul to push its evolution forward.
Through the process of cultivating self love and allowing that love to nurture her, Mary Patricia developed the courage to identify the pain she was unaware she was suffering and confront its origins. By connecting accurate, tough words precisely to the violence she was subjected to, Mary Patricia forged a trail of light to the intractable truth and burst open the doorway to her comprehension and ultimate resolution, and freedom to evolve into her soul’s true purpose.
Self talk fulfills its own destiny. A small shift in self talk will begin the journey to emotional and spiritual strength and wellness. Even seemingly trivial, positive self-messaging immediately infuses each cell of the body with emotional and physical warmth and directly nurtures the entire energy system. Continued positive self-messaging builds self love and personal power. Honoring personal efforts and successes—not out of superficial bravado borne of arrogance and insecurity—but out of humane compassion and the appreciation for intrinsic truth, victims of violence continue the process of walking out of the darkness and evolving into the undeniable light. They will discover, as Mary Patricia did, that using precise, descriptive terminology to describe what hides in the dark is an achievable act of self-support that will create order, stability, and control out of the chaos created by violence and its aftermath.
Beginning with small shifts, a victim of violence will begin the transformation from victim to survivor into a powerful life force.
Part 4:
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS
Not too long ago, I saw a poor soul with so many negative thoughts glued to her back that she’s bent over like a cripple. They’re working with her, but she’s got a long way to go. --Mary Patricia, Forget About Heaven
Thoughts are things—our closest, most intimate companions. Our thoughts are our creative force—we believe the thoughts that we create, and we act upon those beliefs. We perceive and relate to ourselves and the world according to the thoughts we generate and give energy to, whether those thoughts are positive or negative. Developed, persuasive thoughts are powerful generators of action and behavior. It is through thoughts that we create the world we decide to live in. Words are powerful and intentionally generated energy. Words ripen into influential thoughts with shaped and formed vibrational energy. Thoughts are potent instruments of our human consciousness that evolve into ideas. Those thoughts/ideas—whether destructive or constructive—are magnets that draw toward us the energy that we radiate. Positive or negative, among the most difficult things to eradicate is an idea that has taken root. We believe the thoughts that we create. We are the thoughts we create.
Aligning yourself with the forces of harmony creates more harmony within. This is not magic—it’s the structure of nature. But it is not as simple as “thinking good thoughts.” The Think Good Thoughts lecture is a trite and annoying cliché. It dismisses and diminishes the challenge of overcoming negative, destructive beliefs that have been conditioned and implanted by abuse. It rejects the punishing reality of living with powerful, silent, ever-increasing fear. No amount of force-feeding happy thoughts will transform fear into harmony. That takes determination and discipline, along with a strategy that includes an acceptance of personal authority.
Fear is an insidious, invasive energy. When you concede your natural, powerful authority to fear, you surrender authority as your own decision maker. Fear will command you and make all your decisions for you. Fear is an all-consuming energy. It will create for you exactly what you insist you are afraid of, plus. Fear responds to negative words and thoughts by creating more fear. The more negative energy you feed fear, the more powerful fear becomes. And the more powerful fear becomes, the further and further you slip away from your true self, your forever self, the you that knows how to achieve your highest good. The self that longs for harmony with your truth.
Thoughts are things—our closest, most intimate companions. When you begin the challenge of slowly shifting your thoughts/beliefs from negative to positive, from destructive to supportive; from lies to truth; when you start to connect with the inspirational force of your creative energy—the draw of your soul toward its brilliance—when you move your ideas toward personal creation as opposed to disheartening yourself with helplessness, you create an altitude of mind and slowly begin to transform. You will begin to believe your worth, accept your own authority, and seek the deepest truth hidden within you—the truth that never was and can never be destroyed by violence. That truth is the pathway to your greatest joy.
As you transform, you will begin to radiate light from the glow within. That light will attract more light, just as fear attracts more fear. You will begin to contribute to the healer inside yourself, instead of searching outward in vain for peace that only you can generate.
The more determined you become, the more you transform into your own personal gladiator—a protector of your interior self—and decide what words, thoughts and ideas to generate, the more powerful you will become. You will begin evolving in ways you never believed possible; in ways that were thwarted by negative thoughts and destructive behaviors created by abuse. The more confidence you generate, the more confident you become.
The events of violence will remain with a victim always. However, as you move forward committing purposeful energy to the life you desire, as you evolve into your authentic, empowered self and connect with your profound creative mission, those abuse memories will lose their grip, and their power over you will weaken. Understand that violence is a permanent, lifelong action visited upon its victim. Its vestiges will still have to be confronted when triggered. But with the active determination to shift focus and by aligning yourself with the forces of harmony, by shifting to an altitude of mind, the victim of violence will no longer be haunted by past events.
Your closest, most intimate companions—your thoughts—will create for you the world you have been searching for your entire life. You will be a powerful life force.
Part 5:
THE MYTH OF FORGIVENESS
What if the concept of forgiveness is not the gateway to peace as it is purported to be? (It’s not.) What if instead, forgiveness leads to more emotional pain for the victim of violence? (It does.) What if forgiveness is not the solution to anger and rage for the victim of violence? (It’s not.) What if forgiveness actually exacerbates anger and rage? (It does.) What if the forgiveness ideal as the path to wholeness is no more than a utopian fantasy that actually prevents victims of violence from evolving and achieving that wholeness? (That is true.) What if instead of creating the hoped-for peace, forgiveness traps a victim of violence in a chaotic, unending, energetic cycle of conflict—struggling to forgive, struggling to maintain forgiveness, regression, guilt, and back again to the struggle to forgive? (That is how the forgiveness model works.) And what if this cycle of the forgiveness conflict keeps the victim of violence permanently enmeshed in the catastrophic event(s) and forevermore emotionally attached to the perpetrator of that violence? (It does.)
Forgiveness is a myth. To pardon or excuse violence is a desperate attempt on the part of the victim to gain emotional and bodily control; to enforce peace and secure social and religious/spiritual acceptance; and to push to transcend, bypass and erase the completely unavoidable impact of trauma by superficial means. Forgiveness does not empower. Trauma is serious damage that is impervious to artifice. Forgiveness is an unworkable solution to trauma simply because it is unrelated to its resolution. The act of forgiving violence is an uninformed act of willpower, and willpower ebbs and flows according to circumstances. For the victim of violence, forgiveness rejects the enduring consequences of trauma and ignores the work necessary to achieve emotional wholeness. Imposing the inappropriate concept of forgiveness on any victim of violence imposes further injury.
Forgiveness as a route to freedom, power and wholeness is a misteaching that hurls a victim of violence down a dead-end road. Trauma will not resolve itself through willpower or superficial acts of benevolence. Trauma is a furious, dominant vortex of energy. Unless and until it is satisfactorily resolved, trauma will continue grabbing power and gaining momentum, pulling its victim deeper and deeper into its bottomless void. Trauma does not resolve itself. Trauma resolution takes the full cooperation of its victim.
Empowerment, emotional peace and wholeness, and a life of radiance and creativity are absolutely achievable for victims of violence…absolutely. Turning inward begins the journey outward. To be strong enough to live fully and powerfully, the victim of violence must first build strength from within. Emotional freedom and wholeness are earned through the difficult task of developing self-power by the process of shifting away from destructive misteachings; confronting and identifying the person(s) and action(s) that created the trauma; comprehending the far-reaching extent of trauma’s legacy; learning how to manage its consequences; gaining personal understanding; accepting reality; and making necessary changes by establishing boundaries and other self-supporting measures.
As the process of trauma resolution proceeds, profound connections to the truth within begin to develop, confidence grows and personal power expands. With empowerment, order—as opposed to chaos—begins to govern, and anger and rage dissipate. The energy to create a desire-driven life rises and transforms the energy previously wasted on turmoil into a force of purposeful light. As the victim of violence becomes increasingly empowered, the power of trauma continues to diminish. The organic result of the development of personal power is the evaporation of emotional connections with the violence and the perpetrator as the victim of violence naturally and organically disconnects from that all-powerful authority. Trauma loses its power to cripple. Unleashed from the vortex of trauma, the victim now owns the power and authority to transform into a person and life of their own creation. The victim is no longer a victim. No longer just a survivor. But transformed into a truly powerful life force.
It is then that forgiveness is unveiled as a myth, and becomes an irrelevant, non-issue undeserving of any thought energy. It is--as it was always meant to be—the challenge of the perpetrator of violence to work out all personal solutions without burdening others with cowardly pleas for external “forgiveness” that is only available from within.
Part 6
FORGIVING VIOLENCE—AN UNINFORMED ACT
Violence is a fierce coalescing of overpowering energy forced upon another physically, emotionally, and/or mentally. Until it is resolved, even one single act of violence continues generating damage into the infinite future. This damaging energy plays out generationally in our own families and leaks unimpeded into the collective world causing and creating further harm.
Because violence has endless disguises and countless manifestations, sound and outward appearances are unreliable judges of acts of violence and its consequences. Whether the thunderous explosion of a violent act creates pandemonium among many, or one silent, tightly-burrowed act of cruelty is exacted against an audience of one, violence always harms and continues to foster trauma until it is resolved at its source—the source is the perpetrator.
Because acts of violence trigger perpetual harm, it is impervious to the benevolence of forgiveness. Forgiveness of violence is an uninformed act of willpower that is an issue of ego and self-congratulations; it gives comfort to the misinformed by allowing them to ignore and bypass the true devastation created by perpetrators of violent acts. The misinformed confuse the necessary, all-encompassing scope of self-inflicted consequences that must be accepted and confronted by perpetrators of violence with harsh, unjust punishment lacking love and compassion. The misinformed mistake the emotion of love and compassion for authentic love and compassion. Authentic love and compassion supports and encourages the highest good. The highest good is the true evolution of the soul. True evolution is profound self-awareness. Self-awareness is created from experience and understanding of experiences.
Forgiveness of violence is an uninformed act of willpower that attempts to bestow upon perpetrators a reward that is not available to them. By relieving them of the residual tensions lingering from their violent behaviors, the misinformed, with their declarations of forgiveness, actually create barriers to the process of evolution—a process that always includes discomfort and seemingly unfairly grueling challenges.
Uninformed acts of forgiveness separate perpetrators from their vital life lessons, without which they cannot entirely evolve and fully integrate into wholeness. Through their chosen path of violence, perpetrators must completely and totally see and experience the full depth and width of the consequences of their violent acts, not only on their victims, but on themselves as well.
The power of the soul’s drive to evolve must not be mitigated by onlookers seeking superficial comfort. Consequences are uncomfortable, especially when meted out to a loved one. But consequences are a necessary tool of evolution and any interference with another’s consequences circumvents their growth by inhibiting and prolonging the learning required for moving forward.
All souls must eventually evolve into wholeness—that includes perpetrators of violence. The very action of a grievous act against another indicates how far lost in darkness, how disconnected from the light, the perpetrator has become. It is a long and arduous journey into the light both for the victim of violence and the perpetrator of violence. The consequences of even one act of violence must never be dismissed—its tentacles reach into the future and beyond. The perpetrator of violence must come to the full comprehension of the mayhem that his/her behavior has created not only in one life, but in the lives beyond their narrow vision as the energy of their violent acts continue to impact the world in general while its energy heeds the impetus to replicate itself.
Resolution of violence is wholly available to all. Compassion and support from concerned individuals for perpetrators of violence is essential. But forgiveness is inapplicable. Forgiving violence is an uninformed and self-preserving act of willpower—of misguided energy—that impedes necessary resolution and halts growth of the soul.
This is not about feeling good, this is about doing the work to create good.
Summation of the series
You are a powerful life force!
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. Lao Tzu
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