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From Victim to Creator
Ultimately there are two attitudes we can take in life: the attitude of a victim and that 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 sense of dissonance breeds anger — anger toward life, toward god — but it manifests in the victim as a passive, depressive heaviness, inertia, and seeming disinterest, appearing more like sadness than anger. Ultimately, it represents hatred of self, violence toward self. It is the ultimate rejection of what is: violence toward life. The only way to break this pattern of victimization is by taking the role of the creator. Creators praise their creations; victims criticize. Creators live in appreciation; victims, in complaint, not taking responsibility. These are total opposites. Creators embrace whatever comes their way. They respond to everything with a yes, which enables them to live life in abundance. Victims, on the other hand, are resentful and negative. They cannot see life’s inherent perfection or beauty, because they have a rigid idea of how things should look. Shrouded in a cloak of seething 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 different idea of how things should be, I am rejecting life. Because I cannot control the game, I will not play. I cannot understand, so I will not accept. Such is the obsessive extremism 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 myself from a victim into a creator? By focusing on loveconsciousness, on the silent depths that lie within us all, until I become the mindwithout thought. Why? There is no why. It just is. When you notice yourself resisting what is — thinking, something could be better in this moment or something is unjust — let go. Remember that when you flow, when you surrender, you are being god. When you are fighting, you’re being a resentful child who won’t take responsibility. Nothing could ever be better in this moment, nothing is unjust, because god is everything; you are god within everything; god is joy; and it’s all your creation. Freeing Yourself from Victimhood Please understand I am not suggesting you intellectually convince yourself that you are not a victim. On the contrary, if you feel like a victim in any aspect of your life, allow yourself to feel it. Embrace your inner victim. Love your inner victim. You will not become free of it by rejecting or judging it. Feel the emotions your feeling of victimhood provokes: sadness, anger, resentment. Scream into a pillow. Cry. Beat on a mattress. Do whatever comes naturally. Embrace your inner victim, and you will soon learn to see through it. As you release these accumulated emotions, the attitude of the victim will lose its charge and soon disappear. Releasing the Blame Ultimately, being a creator means taking responsibility for your life. The victim sees responsibility as an uncomfortable concept, a chore: it is much easier to blame someone else for my discontent. Yet in reality it is not easier: it simply takes the decision to stop suffering out of your hands. Until you take responsibility for your own happiness, you are a slave of your surroundings. When you finally do, you find true freedom. We usually think freedom means being allowed to do what we want and go where we choose. Yet this definition of freedom overlooks the fact that the person who controls and judges you the most is you. True freedom is not something that can be granted or taken away by another: only we have that power over ourselves. Freedom is self-acceptance. It is allowing ourselves to be, letting go of the desperate need for approval that makes us adopt uncomfortable social norms in order to fit in. External approval will never be enough as long as we continue craving it, and this is true because of one simple truth: we do not approve of ourselves. Because of this, we try to get others to do it for us. But trying to substitute external approval for self-love is like turning up the television to drown out the cries of a baby — a distraction that does nothing to help the situation. True freedom is freedom from victimhood. It is about taking responsibility for who you are, embracing who you are, and trusting in your own inner voice.
Excerpted from the book Love Has Wings: Free Yourself from Limiting Beliefs and Fall in Love with Life ©2012 by Isha Judd. Printed with permission from New World Library. |
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The circumstances that
have shaped each of
our lives are as unique
and individual as our personalities
— no two people 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 we lie down or step
up? Do we resist, or embrace
the situation for growth?