Recently whilst reading one of my favorite books I came across a passage that said "Let go of your past. Stop clinging to it. You are not going to drown without it. You are drowning because of it." This is something that most people are caught up in, living in the past. But why is it so important to let go of it?
It's important because people tend to identify themselves with their past and what they have experienced or achieved. But you are not your past. You are so much more than that. And identifying yourself with your past is preventing you from seeing yourself as you truly are.
It's rare for us to look back at our past and not judge ourselves for what we created, assuming of course that you realize you created it. We are not victims here. There are no victims in any circumstance, lest you choose to be one. Yet most of us consider ourselves to be victims if we've experienced something unpleasant or really terrible. I am going to take an example of someone I know that was sexually abused by her father for most of her childhood. Today as a grown woman, married with two adolescent children, she is still suffering from this abuse and so too is her family. She cannot accept what happened to her, and so she cannot forgive her father, neither can she forgive herself.
Some of you might consider my example as extreme, but know that sexual abuse such as this is not a rare occurrence. And there are many women as well as men, who remain in victim mode throughout their lives because of it. Yet I have said, there are no victims here in our experience as humans, not in any circumstance. How can this be?
It's all a matter of perception. How we perceive something, determines how we feel about it. It gives it meaning. In other words nothing has meaning until we give it meaning, and we can decide what meaning to give it. I know of another woman who was in the same situation, but she is today a balanced and happily married woman. Why? Because she decided not to let that experience affect who she is. She forgave herself and her father and decided to put the experience behind her and move forward with her life.
Letting go of your past does not mean forgetting about it and pretending it did not happen. It did, and nothing can change that. But it does mean that we can choose to give it different meaning. We can choose to see it as a gift and move on. But how can we do that? How can such a terrible thing be a gift? What if you chose to see the gift as forgiveness? You could experience this liberating thing called forgiveness through what happened to you. This is how you alter your perception of something. You choose to give something terrible a different meaning, a positive meaning, one that helps you move forward with your life. Only then can you be free.
By holding on you are preventing yourself seeing the experience as a gift. And so you stay clinging to it, not knowing what to do with the experience and why it happened in the first place. I tell you there is always a gift, nothing happens by chance and nothing happens by accident. Only when you accept that, and choose to find the gift in the experience, can you be truly free.
The Opposite of Victim Mode
Blue,
Love the article. You GO Girl !!
On a recent radio show -and most every show I'm on (to let you know OF Who I AM & what I do, ego perhaps:), I said; "There are NO victims,...ONLY Volunteers,". This, as you'd know, always brings up waves of resistance and controversy -in victims. Immediately comes up worst case scenarios, like EXACTLY what you said: "What about sexual abuse? Child molesters? etc,...". I mean who would choose THAT as a "lesson", right? Might I pose the question; "And how ELSE would you choose to learn it?" Learn what? Forgiveness? Yes,...that's one. How about; "Honor thy Mother & Father"? Sure, in there too. Talk about living in the past, you could poll 100 people and guaranteed 99% hold some grudge for Mom or Dad.
Look, IF I choose to learn Love and say "I want more Love in Life. I just lost my job, my wife left and my dog ran away." And then, to top it all off, a knock at the door, and it's my neighbor from 2 doors down I CAN'T STAND...TODAY of ALL days!!! WTF?!??
Spirit says, "You said you wanted more Love in Life?" Yeah, but I hate this guy!! "Good. Then Love him...and you will learn Love."
Harsh lesson perhaps....but I ask again, "How ELSE would we learn???"
This function is called; "Affirmation by Negation."
Now, is there a victim here? Yes, ME! I'm the victim OF my neighbor. I hate him.
Uh, yeah, but whose choice is that?? Now here we go -as you mentioned- "I have given everything (in my Life) ALL the meaning IT has for me." (straight from CIM; lesson #2, right?), and perhaps some could admit, "Nothing means anything unless I give it meaning." Yet few and far between -called 1 out of 100, 2 out of 10,000"- would grasp what follows; "Nothing matters until I MAKE it matter." Literally.
I love your intro to this topic, "...and not judge ourselves for what we created, ...assuming of course that you realize you created it."
When I was a very young lad, Father taught me, "We choose our own parents." I don't even know if he real-eye-zed how far this went. Chose them?...."OF COURSE we 'chose' them -Heavens,...We Created Them!! = Both True.
[**author's note: At 6 yrs old, my Mother left my Father & moved us out of New York City to NH with a new man,...poor me...and not until after 40+ yrs in this exact line of study, I Real-Eye-zed I ASKED her to move us out of the city so that I could learn this, and also told Dad "I gotta LOT to learn, you gotta let me get started". Yet my sister 2 yrs younger was so mad - at him for 'leaving'- she wouldn't keep Dad's last name.]
Which brings us to the moral of this story; "IF God is for you, WHOM could possibly be against You??" is an age-old riddle. Following the paradigm we've weaved here, the only possible answer is; No One!.-Regardless of what we 'think' it looks like to our earthly eyes!!
IF I AM NOT the 'victim' of my neighbor, nor the abused child the 'victim' of their father or mother... then the OPPOSITE MUST be True; Strange as it seems, they are assisting me somehow...and, at my request, by an agreement made at the Beginning of Time = I put them there
IF SO = "ALL the world's Your stage. ALL the men and women merely YOUR players who strut their hour upon YOUR stage and when they have played their parts YOU gave them -P-o-o-F!- are heard from no more." -Shakespear
THE BIGGIE:
THEREFORE = IF they acted as you asked -DO THEY need YOUR "forgiveness" for acting as YOU asked them to?? Absolutely NOT!
"You cannot be upset at someone for acting as YOU asked them to act." (well, you can....but I don't reccomend it;) IN FACT, they should be loved, thanked, and this then MUST logically lead you to the only One Whom DOES Truly need your forgiveness,...the ONLY One whom could possibly be against you:
A.) _______________
Right. YourSelf.
And it goes like this:
"I Forgive myself for ever thinking anyone should have EVER acted different than they did - INCLUDING mySelf."
You can never Truly Love another until you first learn to Love _________ - yourSelf.
Only then shall you be able to 'Love thy neighbot as you love yourSelf'.
So you see...it IS ALL ABOUT YOU anyways. You can only continue to work on YourSelf.
Victim mode = absolved of any responsibility = blame
The Opposite of Victim mentality - Assuming....One realeyezes One created ALL of IT
= I AM responsible for everything in my life. EVERY Pixel. = I AM Cause.
Nothing matters until I MAKE IT (into) matter.
But....Who wants ALL that responsiblity!?!!
I mean, Blue,...You started this!! You wrote this silly blog,
NOW SEE WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO!!!
"MOM!!! Blue's picking on me!!! She MADE ME write a small book!!!"
There's only one thing I have to say to THAT
*Ahem*
Thank you ;)
Marco*
Thank you!
Dearest Marco!
Thank you for your comment! I LOVE your small book btw :)
I agree with all your points but want to point out that forgiveness frees us as humans from the experience. If we all understood there are no victims in this perfection we see before us, then we would not need to forgive each other.
Writing comes naturally to you, I love that! I am not a natural born writer, and words do not come easily to me, but I do appreciate the way they convey a message. I am beginning to prefer non verbal communication though, it is infinitely more creative!
Namasté
Debbie
PS do you have a blog?
Captain's Blog Stardate 225.13
Blue,
I AM Here:
http://www.facebook.com/marc.thearc
but more so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxMymXI4KAg
Great meeting you
Marco*