This week I want to talk about personal responsibility or more to the point ... Owning Our Crap! It seems no matter what hat I am wearing (mother, daughter, sister, friend, partner, therapist...) I hear blame being cast on others which gets people stuck in a victim pattern.  Playing the victim only encourages grudge holding and keeps us from growing in self-understanding.

VICTIM is one of those great archetypes* that can really bring our self-development to a screeching halt, and yet we are socially conditioned to blame others. The classic example: who is to blame if I get fat from eating at McDonald's?  The logical answer would be MYSELF!! But because of the "Victim" archetype running in the collective unconscious there are successful lawsuits blaming McDonald's!!! CRAZY!!

Now let's make it a little bit harder, let's say a "ANA" had a lot of money and bought dinner for her friends and no one thanked her  ... Did they take advantage of Ana?  
And what if it became a pattern for the group to go out every week with the unstated expectation that Ana would buy. Wearing a smile, Ana does buy each week, BUT feels taken advantage of and begins to resent her friends.  Is she being taken advantage of? Is she a victim?   
I'd say, No.   BUT I would be curious why Ana bought dinner for her friends in the first place, why she felt she had to pay, and why she was angry they didn't thank her.  And from there I'd help her discern how she was "playing" the victim.

I'm not saying people don't do creepy things or act rudely, we all have our moments. BUT how we react to what happens or the "story we tell ourself" has a HUGE affect on our life.  If we act like we had no choice - if we act like a VICTIM - we will continually fall into the victim role. That means we won't own our own stuff or grow to our full potential.  Blaming others is easy, but it won't help us grow. 

Let's look back to the story of Ana ... 
Ana blamed her friends for taking advantage of her ... that's the easy way out. 
Much harder would be for Ana to determine WHY she paid for the dinner. Was she "buying" her friends? Was she afraid they wouldn't spend time with her if she didn't buy dinner?  Why did she continue to partake in a behavior that was causing her pain and resentment?   THESE are the hard questions. THESE are the types of questions that create a deeper sense of self-knowledge.   

All of us have areas where we play into the victim archetype. The first step is to acknowledge it exists; the second step is to admit we play the victim role; and then we need develop self-knowledge to own our crap and take personal responsibility for how we "play" the victim.  By doing this we grow in our self-knowledge and understanding, we break old patterns, gain confidence and become our most empowered self. YAY! It's a harder route to take, but well worth it in the end. 




*The dictionary definition for archetype is "A concept in Jungian psychology - an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious."  
In my terms, an archetype is a pattern or thought that most of the population buys into and it's been around so long no one thinks to question the pattern.   

St. Paul is credited with one of my favorite bible quotes, " What you expose to the light, becomes light." 

The first time I read that line I was struck by the depth of its simple truth. And even today it reminds me to stop hiding things in the proverbial closet; because once things are stored in the closet  ... they go on steroids! I'm not kidding! Have you ever noticed how annoying little "nothings" get pumped up into large, heavy, uncontrollable MONSTERS once they spend time in the closet? It's so true! And if you stop and think about it ... we spend an awful lot of time and energy trying to keep the closet door shut. Even the thought of what might tumble out the cracks in the door is enough to have us calling our therapist, best bud ... or bartender!

One of the tricks I learned from my education is to RUN to the closet door and yank it open. Yep, my classmates  and I let all those big, scary monsters out of the closet and dealt with each one of them in the light. And a funny thing happened,  once we opened our closet doors and started sorting through the "monsters" in clear light ... we found they were only annoying, little nothings. We laughed as we realized how much energy we spent holding back old memories, hurts and past mistakes we had learned from ... nothing was very scary at all. As St. Paul said, "Expose it to the light, and it becomes light!"

You may notice that your own closet door is beginning to rattle. It's as if someone has turned on a light and is shouting "No More Hiding in the Closet!"  Different people have different ways of explaining the phenomena, but I think it is due to a shift in how much light our planet is being infused with as we enter the photon-band.  

THE WHAT???
The photo-band is concept used by folks who watch the stars. It basically states the planets and solar systems are currently lined up in a way that gives us more light to the earth.  I'm not interested in proving or disproving the concept ... only in understanding how it may affect us. From what I read, this extra light is working very much like an x-ray; casting more light on our "shadows" making them easy to see and define. 

I know it makes sense for my life and the stuff that's coming up. And my friends and clients are reporting how their "stuff" is coming up, as well.  The good news is ... not only is it coming up, but it is coming up in a way that is more easy to define and, therefore, easier to process! Yay!  Some of the fastest processing I've ever seen is happening right now.  It's as if the universe is helping our healing :) If you're a Christian, it seems the light of the world is shining brightly -  illuminating all of the darkness and saying, "No more hiding in the closet! If you won't bring it to the Light ... the Light will come to you.  Heal! Rise up! Ephphatha ... Be opened!"

May you follow the wisdom of St. Paul this week: Open your closet doors ... expose everything to the light and let it become light.   Ephphatha ... Be opened!