Beyond the polarity of victim and oppressor,
There is a space of pure beingness,
And it's from this space that I believe that true creativity comes through.
What I'm coming to learn is that the antidote to the victim mentality,
The way to transcend the inner victim,
The internalized feelings of shame and the internalized feelings of worthlessness that compose the victim mentality,
Along with many other pieces,
The way to transcend this is to see yourself,
To be with yourself,
To love yourself,
And to recognize the enoughness that you already are.
Trying to inflate yourself out of being a victim by pointing out your specialness is really just more of the same,
And it will keep you stuck in either an inflation-deflation cycle or keep you stuck in victim,
In self-victimization,
In self-oppression,
Without making real progress in your life.
And I can say from firsthand experience that it can be very painful to wake up to the fact that the challenges,
The stuckness that I have felt,
The stuckness that you might be feeling now or that you may have felt at times,
Are your own making.
They are your own making.
The beauty of this is that they are therefore also your own unmaking.
And as I mentioned,
The way out of this as I understand it and in my experience is to love yourself as you are,
To accept yourself as you are,
To get out of the seesaw of I'm not enough,
I'm too much,
Or I'm not good enough and I'm better than,
Or I'm better than and I'm worse than.
This victim seesaw,
It doesn't actually move us forward and it takes us away from true connection.
The antidote to shame,
Which is the core of victimization,
Which is the core of worthlessness,
Is connection.
And that connection starts with self.
And in that place of self-connection,
You can experience joy and laughter and humor and play.
And these are good medicine for shame,
In my experience.
They are the symptoms that the medicine is working,
That you are healing the shame,
That you are stepping beyond it.
So if you feel stuck,
If you feel like your life is not moving in the way that you want it to,
Step one is acknowledging that to yourself,
Is being really honest about the fact that I'm not where I want to be.
And then step two is acknowledging yourself as enough in spite of that.
Saying,
Okay,
You know what?
I'm doing a great job.
I'm not going to beat myself up in order to try to get myself to work harder.
I'm not going to pump myself up by inflating my ego,
By saying all the reasons that I'm special.
I'm going to make peace with what is.
I'm going to make peace with the present moment.
I'm going to make peace with where I actually am.
Because if you can't make peace with where you actually are in your life,
You will be living in internal conflict.
You will be battling against reality.
And reality always wins.
Reality always wins.
It's a great teammate and a very challenging adversary.
So it is good to get on reality's team.
And unfortunately,
Reality will not get on your team until you start to act.
Until you start to make moves in the direction of what you want.
And there's a real balance here.
There's a balance between the doership of trying to run away from shame,
The doership of trying to run away from worthlessness and victimization,
Internalized oppression.
The doership of that is feeding more energy into that negative cycle.
So there is a balance.
And there is a way of being in action that is not doership.
There's a way of moving in the direction of your highest good that comes from a place of surrender,
That comes from a place of softness,
That comes from a place of acknowledging that you're not in full control,
Acknowledging that you don't have all the answers,
Acknowledging that you need help,
Acknowledging that you are soft and you're vulnerable.
And from that place,
As you receive guidance,
Taking action.
So it is an active form of following the lead of your higher self,
As opposed to the pushing of the ego.
So I encourage you to begin to see where you're at as okay.
To begin to recognize that how you are and who you are today is enough.
And hold the tension,
Hold the polarity of wanting to change and wanting your circumstance to change with the acceptance of what is in the present moment.
And just keep holding the both of that.
Yes,
And keep moving forward.
So I believe you are already free.
And I believe that you will recognize this.
I believe that all beings will recognize this,
That it is our path,
It is our birthright as human beings,
To eventually wake up to our own freedom,
To transcend our own victimization,
Our martyrdom.
I believe that we all will get there,
Perhaps in this lifetime,
Perhaps not.
But I take great solace in the knowing in my bones,
That I'm already free and that in this lifetime,
I will come to remember that and know that at a deeper and deeper level.
And I believe that to also be true for you.
I love you so much.
And here's to your liberation.
