The word victim used to be one of my favorite unconscious words. It meant freedom from care. It meant long, leisurely hours doing nothing. It meant permission to spend as I pleased, speak as I pleased, in fact, do anything I wanted. I say “unconscious,” because I wouldn’t go around using it all the time, but if you ever questioned me or called me to the carpet for something I was doing wrong, I would bow my head, slowly lift my face to meet your eyes, and then spill my tale of woe. I was the way I was because—because of them, because of you, because this happened or that happened, because this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen; because of anything except for myself. And the longer I lived in this place, the closer I came to completely sacrificing my life—for that is what the word originally meant in the Latin—“a living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=victim&searchmode=none).”
What deity was I sacrificing myself to? Selfishness. What supernatural power was I offering myself to as a living (dying, really) sacrifice? Sloth. I worshipped myself. I was an ego with legs. And whatever I felt was gospel. I did whatever I felt like. And if I didn’t feel like doing something, I wouldn’t do it. After all, I had to “honor” my feelings, didn’t I? That’s what I heard from the TV, the movies, the magazines, the internet, the guys in my men’s groups, and so on. Plus, and here’s where the sloth comes in, if I claimed victimhood, then I didn’t have to change. All I would have to say is, “Oh, I can’t help it, it’s just the way I am. I was just dealt a raw deal, that’s all.”
I truly lived a powerless life. But because I looked, from the outside, like a responsible person, and because I would do the occasional nice thing, I could rationalize and justify my slothfulness. Little did I know, or should I say, little would I let myself come into the conscious realization of–was how empty and disempowered my life really was. I didn’t even have to clean my room—as an adult, mind you—I was just a disorganized, creative, genius.
Consciousness of who I was meant work; it meant responsibility, and who wanted those? Work was well, hard, and responsibility meant more work, and thus I was in a catch-22. I couldn’t help it. It was my genetics, my environment, my addictions, my upbringing. Granted the things I most often blamed my life upon happened 20-30 years ago and I was the one still carrying them around, but that was beside the point. I was a lost, wounded cub.
I won’t belabor the point—I think you get the picture. I lived in a fantasy that I was a victim, and hence I stayed immature and self-centered.
Thank goodness I do not live that way anymore. Today I live an accountable life, aware of my motives, aware I need to make amends when wrong, aware I need to shoulder responsibility and make changes so I don’t sacrifice myself to the beast. But luckily I do not need to shoulder my responsibilities alone. Luckily I do not need to make changes alone. I lean on some pretty trustworthy and loving friends who share the load. So now, I really am free. I accept the responsibility for my thoughts (the ones I think, that is, not the ones that just zoom through), and for my actions. And my life has never been fuller. And the willingness to make changes, even difficult changes by taking directions from others, has opened the way for my Heart’s Desire.
“Yes,” you might be saying, “I agree with you about not being a victim, but what about the painful, damaging, traumatic things that really did happen? Those events clearly changed my life. What about those?”
There are no easy answers. And I mean that literally. The answers are difficult not only to hear (for some), but to live (for all). The answers involve an unremitting willingness to feel painful feelings, take painful stock of why I do what I do, make painful changes, make painful amends, forgive others–in short–to embrace the pain and then don’t hurt anyone. For there are victims in the world. I was a victim at one point in my life. Things happened to me that I had no control over. The point is I do now. With therapy, the help of friends, prayer, and so on, time has moved on, and I am responsible today to live in today—not the past—today. And today I live in victory, and I am filled with power—God’s power, and I use that power today to help others. And that’s a pretty good deal. It makes the channel just that much clearer to hear God whispering my Heart’s Desire.
Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog