Freeing Our Victim Selves By Colin Tipping Author of 'Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle.'

The victim archetype is deeply ingrained in all of us. It pervades our mass consciousness at all levels. Could you honestly say that you have never blamed someone else for your lack of happiness? For eons we have been acting out victimhood in every aspect of our lives, convincing ourselves that victim consciousness is absolutely fundamental to the human condition and that fear, anger, greed and guilt are the essential components to our survival.

The time has come to challenge that assumption and to ask ourselves two questions. First, what sustains our view of ourselves as victim? Second, how can we transform the self-as-victim archetype so we can have a life based not on fear and greed but on unconditional love and support for each other.

The answer to the first question is relatively clear. The victim archetype is both created and sustained by the Ego ó that wholly false belief system that holds that we are separated from God, and that God is angry with us and will one day punish us. The way we think act and feel derives from that one basic idea given to us by early organized religions.

At the level of everyday reality, the victim archetype is woven into the very fabric of life and has been for the last 7,000 years. Thatís when we began making the transition from small tribal communities based on sharing, cooperation and shared security, to city states and later to nation states. These are based on Competition and separation of groups by class, wealth and other criteria and the rotation of elites. Slavery in one form or another (institutionalized or economic) is a feature of all nation states and there is virtually no shared security. In other words we have created a world of separation, insecurity, mistrust, greed and fear institutionalized into every one of our social systems, including our religions. 9/11 is a stark demonstration of that separation and of the victim/perpetrator archetype in action - just as we have created it.

The second question is more challenging. Changing the social fabric of society will not weaken the victim archetype. It is too engrained. It will just resurface in a different form. No, to break free from such a powerful archetype, we must replace it with something radically different ó something so compelling and spiritually liberating that it magnetizes us away from our well-worn and comfortable addiction to being a victim. That something is Radical Forgiveness.

Radical Forgiveness obliterates the belief in separation by taking us beyond the drama and the illusion of our lives and the 'storiesí we fabricate about virtually everything. It enables us to see the spiritual big picture and to know the truth - that there is only Love.

As we awaken to that truth we shall see the true meaning of our suffering and be able to transform it immediately - releasing the perception of self-as-victim. We will understand that, without exception, everything that happens to us is divinely guided, purposeful and for our spiritual advancement.

We shall see that our experiences are exactly as we needed and chose them to be; that nothing wrong ever took place; that no-one was ever victimized and, consequently, that there is no-one to forgive!

Knowing that our life is guided in this way allows us to find true peace ó even in the most unpleasant of situations or memories ó and we are released from the bondage of the past. Knowing that our enemies really love us (at the soul level) and are here only to teach us, enables our hearts to open in love and appreciation. As the love is felt and expressed, our so-called 'problemsí simply dissolve and we find ourselves at all times 'in the flowí of life.

True forgiveness then, is not as is widely regarded, 'letting bygones be bygones' while holding on to the idea that something wrong happened. It is letting go of our victim selves, seeing the perfection in everything and awakening to the truth that we are already home in God. Thatís RADICAL Forgiveness and though it is hard to imagine that it can change the world as it is today, the truth is that it can - one heart at a time.

Colin Tipping, M.Ed., is the author of 'RADICAL FORGIVENESS, Making Room for the Miracle.' Colin offers regular weekend workshops in Radical Forgiveness, as well as courses leading to certification in Radical Forgiveness Therapy & Coaching. He is speaking at New Frontiers on Thursday April 23 and is offering a weekend workshop on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Educated at London University, Colin is a teacher, minister, counselor and hypnotherapist. He came to the U.S. in 1984 and is co-founder of the Georgia CancerHelp Program and Together-We-Heal, Inc., a non-profit corporation dedicated to emotional/spiritual healing.

For more information visit Colin's website

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Updated:Fri, 17 Mar 2006.
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