In life, attitude is everything. The circumstances that have shaped our lives are as unique and individual as our personalities -- no two are the same. Yet our ability to grow as individuals, to evolve into more compassionate, loving and conscious people, depends not on what has happened to us, but on our attitude toward these situations. When faced with hardship, do I lie down or step up? Do I resist, or embrace the situation for growth?
Ultimately there are two attitudes we can take in life: the attitude of a victim, or of a creator.
The victim cannot see beauty, abundance or the inherent perfection of each moment because he has an idea of how things should be, an idea that has inevitably been violated, an idea that is at odds with what is. This inconformity is anger -- anger toward life, toward god -- but it manifests in the victim as a passive, depressive heaviness, inert and seemingly disinterested, appearing more like sadness than anger. It is hatred of self, violence toward self. It is the ultimate rejection of what is: violence toward life.
The only way to break this victimization toward life is by taking the role of the creator. A creator praises their creation; a victim criticizes. A creator lives in appreciation; a victim in complaint, not taking responsibility. These are total opposites. The creator embraces whatever comes its way. It has a yes to everything, and so life is lived in abundance. A victim, on the other hand, is resentful and negative. They cannot see the perfection or the beauty, because they have a rigid idea of how things should look. Shrouded in a cloak of passivity, this is the ultimate rage: it is the rejection of existence, the denial of what is.
Whenever I look at my life with a no, with a better idea of how things should be, I am rejecting life. Because I cannot control, I will not play. I cannot understand, so I will not accept. Such is the obsessive extreme of a fearful intellect; its complications suck all the joy out of life. Consciousness lives in the union of the heart. When you live from the heart, there are no questions. When you are the absolute, the desperate need to understand disappears; it is engulfed by the pregnant joy of pure being. The heart wants for nothing more when it has found love.
How do I transform from victim to creator? By focusing on consciousness, on the silent depths that lie within us all, until I become the mind without thought. Why? There is no why. It just is. It's just to experience being that. When you see your resistance, let go. Remember that when I flow, when I surrender, I am being god. When I am fighting, I'm a resented child who won't take responsibility. Something could be better in this moment... something is unjust... it's not true, because god is everything. God is in everything; you are God within everything, and it's all your creation.
And god is joy.
Isha Judd is an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and author; her latest book and movie, "Why Walk When You Can Fly?" explain her system for self-love and the expansion of consciousness. Learn more at www.WhyWalkWhenYouCanFly.com.
Follow Isha Judd on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ishajudd
Mark Goulston, M.D.: Trauma, Loss and Recovery from the Inside Out
Lynn Casteel Harper: The Elimination of Busy: The Spiritual Discipline Of Being Present
Lewis Richmond: Buddhism and Wealth: Defining 'Right Livelihood'
Victim playing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
We are ALL victims of circumstances and it is not always easy to realize or accept that we might
be carrying this emotional and psychological disposition from day to day, nor is it easy to relinquish
the illusory power, comforts and safety a "victim mental state" brings.
Because people hold fast to every miserable thing that ever happens to them, they remain miserable and expect the worst always. Thus the worst is all they'll ever find.
It's scary but ultra liberating to release oneself from victimhood .
Nor is it easyrelinquish
But nice for a self-help piece of fluff.
There are different ways of going about dealing with one's victimhood. One can ignore it, simply turn one's attention away from it and become what Judd calls a "creator." Or one can confront it, understand it, deal with it by looking at it directly, without the mediation of "positive thinking" and other psychological crutches one leans on to forget about what one has suffered--and THEN go beyond it, become a "creator" AFTER, rather than before, accepting one's victimhood in a neutral, fact-based sense, rather than interpreting the term negatively, as though it necessarily involved a surrender to one's "loser" self.
Granted, to be a victim means to have been defeated. THIS DEFEAT, HOWEVER, NEED NOT BE PERMANENT: one can lose a battle without losing the war. YET IT MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED: otherwise, when one sticks one's head in the sand, growth isn't possible, one cannot learn from what remains to be learned of what needs to be seen up close in one's reflections when one takes seriously one's past and its relationship to one's present and future. Rather than label oneself a victim and leave it at that, one should say: "I'm a temporary victim," and then go on and do what's necessary to deal with that FACT. Facts don't just go away because we want them to: they go away (or at least become more manageable) when we thoroughly UNDERSTAND them.
Next time I feel like complaining or feeling viloated concerning the time I was beaten by a group of guys for being gay, I'm going to instead reflect upon the beauty, abundance and inherent perfection of that moment.
Thank you for your wisdom. I can't believe I accepted my victimhood.
OOOOMMMMMM. OOOOMMMMMM.
Years ago I was struck with the realization that nothing ever "happened" to me. Even the experiences that I would not have consciously arranged for were somehow, somewhere, and on some level allowed by me. Even if I couldn't explain how, I just knew I had created them, and through that process had set myself up for some powerful and often profound learning experiences.
This is a point where you really have no choice but to take complete responsibility for everything in your life. How can you not once you begin to understand and accept that plans are made at levels you can't even begin to fathom? And that it's all done with the purpose of propelling you, or someone else in your life experience, forward?
Once you pierce that veil, you realize that there really are no victims, no coincidences, and no accidents. Everything happens with a clear purpose - even when we, with our myopic human vision, can't see what that purpose is.
With those understandings in mind, it becomes much easier to forgive and be grateful for the folks who bring us our lessons. We are, after all, actors on each other's stages, playing prearranged roles for that very purpose.