by Chris G Moon
If you look at all the ways a Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor can deploy to express themselves, the mathematical possibilities regarding what kinds of interaction can occur are vast. But when you realize the three corners of the prison are all aspects of your own mind, you are released from the experience of being only the Victim. This allows you to see yourself as the source of the situation—your soul has chosen to step forward in consciousness, causing upheavals in the status quo. You can then choose to cooperate with your soul, or perpetuate the problem by remaining stuck in Victim/Persecutor/Rescuer mode.
d) Every human being has the power to be 100% responsible for what he or she experiences in this life. It is when you claim complete responsibility for what happens to you that you reclaim your power to choose. I am not stating this as one who is 100% accountable 100% of the time. The choice is made only on a moment-by-moment basis. When I have set the intention to be completely responsible for what happens in my life, I find a tranquility and clarity that allows me to choose what is best for everyone involved. Being 100% accountable for the situation you are presented with gives you the power to step out of your triangular prison and step into the realm of freedom. I see the evolution of responsibility in these stages:
1. Someone else is responsible for this shit, so someone else has to clean it up.
2. Someone else is responsible for this shit, so they’re the bad guys; I’m just an innocent victim.65
3. Someone else is responsible for this shit, and now, even though I’m stuck with it, I still have to clean it up.
4. This shit is my fault, but I can’t help the way I am.
5. This shit is my fault, but I can rise above it.
6. This situation is shit. Now how am I going to deal with it?
7. Shit happens in life (shrug). You just have to learn how to handle it.
8. This shit is nobody’s fault. I have the power to respond to it in a way I can grow from.
9. I attracted this shit. Now I can choose something more appropriate for me at this time.
10. I created this shit
11. This shit is a part of me.
12. I am at peace—no shit!
As we grow in understanding, “responsibility” changes from a guilt—and shame-based word to one of responsiveness and freedom.
e) Freedom does not come from answers. It comes from questions. “Freedom From the Known” is a great book of discourses delivered by Krishnamurti.66 It expresses the idea that what we “know” is not what gives us peace or a sense of who we really are. It is when we step beyond all the beliefs, which we mistakenly call “knowledge,” that we gain the freedom to expand limitlessly.
When I was growing up, I found school to be extremely boring except for one particular high school history class. Our teacher, Mr. Werner, challenged us to question everything we took for the truth regarding current events, politics, history, and school itself.67 He insisted that true knowledge was realized through the asking of questions that took us beyond the known. Most of my school knowledge to this point consisted of information I was spoon-fed (and sometimes force-fed), which I was discouraged from questioning and told to simply memorize. Suddenly Mr. Werner appeared and asked me a question I could not answer: “How do you know? All the information and knowledge you carry—how do you know if it is true?” Once you are outside the Victim Prison you are free to experience life in a state of innocence, where you are not confined by the limits of your beliefs. You can truly know yourself. “Then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
It is through questions that you can begin to know yourself—questions that inquire about possibilities beyond your beliefs. Questions such as “What is the Truth here?”; “I wonder what gift (or lesson) my soul is offering me through this situation?”; “How can I fully accept this pain peacefully?”; “ What indisputable truth can I express to my partner that would bring peace to this conflict?”; “What do I really want in this situation?”; “How can I love my partner now?”; “What is the most important feeling I can feel right now?”; “I wonder what step I am being called to take at this moment?”; “Who am I being called to accept unconditionally?”; “ What am I being asked to understand about this situation?”
These are a few of the kinds of questions that, when asked with true innocence, take you beyond what you know into the realm of intuition—your soul’s thoughts. Once in that realm, you will be guided to the most direct route through your problem to an experience of conscious love.
Most of my questions have begun with “what” or “how,” but can also start with “who,” “when,” or “where.” The one that you want to be extra careful with is the word “Why.” It is one of the Victim’s favourite words when complaining or expressing its powerlessness, and so often leads to other “why”s. I do not mean to discourage its use, however. If expressed with innocence and wonder, it has as much power and effectiveness as any other question word.
f) There is no problem so great that love cannot resolve it. This principle needs no explanation. It requires only our trust in our soul’s nature.
My adaptation of the Karpman Triangle is the clearest and simplest representation I have found of the complex trap our ego has created in order to maintain separation in our relationships.68 In order to heal this separation, it is important to consciously choose to move closer to our partners, friends, relatives and strangers, something that cannot be done within the confines of the prison. This is because whatever position you take on the triangle will determine where your “supporting cast” will end up. Sometimes you can create an artificial closeness by sharing the Victim spot with your partner. To do this you must create a Persecutor that threatens both of you. At other times you may share the Rescuer spot by both of you focusing on a Victim, or share the Persecutor corner by creating a scapegoat.69
But, like chickens and curses, the Victim Prison will eventually come home to roost in your primary relationship. The false intimacy that was created by sharing a corner will disappear, leaving you with the necessity of having to deal with each other.
The Victim Prison is designed to discourage loving relationships. The discouragement itself is a test of one’s commitment to what is true. It doesn’t matter if you are a Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer, or how you justify staying in any of those positions. You will never get through the wall until you want what is true more than you want the false security of the Prison. To experience that Truth you need only ask. Asking a question that only your heart and soul can answer reflects your choice to know the Truth, and the commitment to know the response is your step through the wall and into the realm of Conscious Partnership.
As complicated as the traps in the Victim Prison are, it is the simplicity of sincere intention that sets you free. I would like to offer a few more examples of these traps, and explore with you the liberating possibilities that a commitment to Truth offers. Let’s start with....
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DILEMMA
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“Some people go this way...and some people go that way...but for myself I prefer the shortcut!”
—The Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll
Dilemma is experienced in situations when you feel the need to decide between one of two courses of action. The problem is that no matter which action you decide on, you will feel like you lost something valuable. Let me give you a few examples from case histories of some of my clients.
➢ One man had to decide between his desire to be an artist, and the security of his office job. If he chose his art, he would be doing what he loved to do, but would not be assured of financial security. If he stayed at his office job, he would have financial security but would not experience any joy in his work. What to choose: doing what you love but no guaranteed money, or guaranteed money doing what you don’t love?
➢ A forty-year-o
ld stay-at-home mother of three was having an affair with a very loving and passionate man. Her dilemma: stay with her husband and be unhappy in love and sex, or have an emotionally and sexually fulfilling relationship but lose the security of a stable family situation with her husband and children.
➢ A young man was working at his father’s bank, but was spiritually dissatisfied and wanted to discover his true purpose. The dilemma: If he quits, he can follow his dream, but his father will be very angry. If he stays he will make his father happy, but he is afraid he will grow old and regret never knowing his true purpose in life.
➢ A mother owned a restaurant, and had a son and a daughter that did not get along. The mother wanted to retire and turn the business over to both her kids but they refused, insisting that she choose only one of them to take over the business. Of course each insisted on being the one she chose. How can she choose only one, without incurring the wrath and resentment of the other? Either way she loses.
➢ A company owner who had to decide whether to expand his business into another country. If he did not expand he could spend more time at home with his family, but a rival company would move into that country, allowing it to get stronger while his own business eventually shrank, and possibly died. If he did expand it would mean more time away from his family, but he would probably become much more successful.
Observing these situations from the outside, you may see an obvious solution, or at least recognize what you would do in that case, but have you ever talked to someone caught in a dilemma? No matter what course you suggest to them, they will give you a very good reason why they can’t do it. And if you fall into the Rescuer role, in very little time you may find yourself throwing up your hands in frustration and defeat, possibly even becoming a Persecutor and criticizing the dilemma Victim for being so weak and indecisive. Imagine for example a conversation between you (the Rescuer) and the forty-year-old woman who is in relationship triangle, caught between her stable husband (she calls him boring), and her red-hot lover:
You: So why don’t you leave your husband if you don’t feel anything for him any more?
Woman: I can’t. I just can’t break up our family—it would hurt our children so much!
You: Well then why don’t you stay and try to patch things up with your husband?
Woman: I’ve been trying for years, but it’s no use. He just doesn’t want to deal with our problems.
You: Well then it sounds like the marriage is over; why don’t you start working towards a friendly separation?
Woman: But I’m afraid to be out there on my own—especially with the uncertain job market. And my husband doesn’t have enough money to support me in a home of my own. I’d have to go out and work, but I have no skills.
You: So you have to stay.
Woman: But I can’t stay! He’s so boring...so inattentive to my needs! I’ve done all the work in this relationship, and he does nothing in return!
You: So you better go to the man you love.
Woman: But I’m not really sure that would work either. I mean I love this other man... I think I do. But he’s an office worker who wants to be an artist. What if he decided to quit his job—how could he take care of me and the children? And would he want to be a father?
You: It sounds like you’re not too sure about this other guy. Maybe you’re better off staying in your marriage and trying to make it work.
Woman: I want to, but I can’t!
You: Then leave.
Woman: I want to but I can’t!
You: I quit!
Isn’t dilemma a marvellous invention of the ego? It is one of the most effective tools ever designed for causing huge, unproductive, and discouraging delays in your life.70 It is so distracting in its ability to create convoluted dramas out of simple choices that its true purpose can be kept hidden for years, even a lifetime. What is its purpose? To keep you from taking a step towards Truth in your life. What feeds that purpose? Your personal fear of the Truth.
In the previous example you see what is really holding the woman back from making the correct choice is her fear. Since all fear is a fear of loss, you can see that she is afraid of losing what is familiar to her, what has given her a sense of security and some comfort in the world. She is afraid to take a step towards her husband in unconditional love because she would lose the familiar comfort of her prison walls. She is afraid to leave the marriage and lose the comfortable predictability of a stable family situation. She is afraid to trust life to take care of herself on her own, thereby losing the identity she has come to recognize as hers—even if that identity is one of a frightened, insecure, socially useless woman. Dilemma reinforces the victim mentality, and reinforces in everyone a fear of stepping forward in life.
The way through dilemma is simple. Choose the truth. Be willing to accept either of the two options the dilemma presents, or neither. This is a key point, because the dilemma would have you believe that there are only two choices. A willingness to let go of both options, and a sincere commitment to the truth, takes you out of the grasp of the dilemma to a place where anything can happen. For the sake of this model, I am defining the truth as that which offers the most beneficial experience for all parties concerned. Maybe in the above case it is better for the children to have divorced parents, rather than feeling like the parents are sacrificing their own happiness for the sake of their kids. Maybe the kids would be better off not living in a home where a lie is being lived. And maybe it would be better for the husband to get a divorce so he can start fresh, having learned how his uncorrected mistakes lead to the death of a relationship. For the woman, it might be better for her to face her insecurities and fears around her value as a member of the workforce so that she can have the chance to get a better sense of who she is and what she is truly capable of.
Or, it might be best for all if she remained in the marriage, and took steps towards accepting her husband as he is rather than what she expects him to be. Her kids would then be given an example of what True Partnership is. She and her husband would have the chance to see what love can bring into a seemingly dead relationship, and the lover would have a chance to move towards a relationship with a woman who is completely available.
The fact is, nobody knows what would be best for that woman, her family, and the lover. The answer is in the woman’s heart. But she cannot hear her soul’s message in her heart if fear is clouding her thoughts. Being willing to have either option, or neither, will give her a serenity that will let her see beyond her fears, and allow her to hear what her heart has been saying all along.
Dilemmas cause you to reject and hold on to what you have at the same time. This keeps you stuck. In the midst of a dilemma, extricate yourself from the drama—if you can—and express a commitment such as, “I am willing to accept either of these options, or neither of them. More than anything, I want the Truth.” As long as your intention is sincere, the appropriate step will appear. Maybe the woman will leave, or maybe she will stay. Maybe she will decide to sleep separately from her husband for a while, or maybe she will move out and start dating him again. One thing is for sure: whatever her heart guides her to do will be what is best for everyone involved, no matter the upheaval it initially causes. If you want the Truth more than anything else, the Truth will come to you.
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FAMILY LOYALTIES
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“A family that is united in love has no family ties, for there is no such thing as ‘family ties’ apart from the ties that bind.”
—Anonymous
Please be aware that I may sound blasphemous for pointing out the limitations in one’s loyalty to the family. If so, you are probably associating loyalty with love and commitment. I do not believe you could ever be truly at peace with your family, unless you felt complete love (i.e. acceptance and appreciation) for every single member. However, loyalty to the famil
y’s methods of “coping” with your feelings and life problems interferes with your ability to make responsible choices for yourself, whereas loving your family leaves you free to follow your heart’s calling.
Family Loyalties are the commandments you followed, sacrifices you made, beliefs you adopted, people you accepted or rejected, and coping behaviours you assumed for dealing with life situations, created within your family. “That’s the way we did it when I was a kid” is a popular statement of such loyalties. They were developed by imitating the words and actions of your parents, siblings, and relatives, thus moulding yourself in order to attain an identity. This in turn gave you a place in the family, whether negative or positive.
Although we imitated certain attitudes and pre-established patterns in order to earn the approval of the family and thus attain inclusion into that exclusive club, the choices we made to do so were not conscious ones. Most of our initial childhood learnings came from imitation. It is only normal then that when we experienced discouragement from unmet needs, we would imitate coping behaviours from those around us who were also dealing with the pain of discouragement. Somewhere along the line, our decision to imitate the “Family Way” combined with our unconscious need to survive; not belonging to our family would have meant death, as far as we were concerned. Therefore we secured ourselves a place by moulding ourselves according to the predetermined standards of behaviour that our parents adopted from their families. However, because the identity was moulded largely from a need to belong, it covered the soul’s true purpose, and hid away the genius of the individual.
