Are We Victims of Violence?

I am still trying to get my head around this statement by Byron Katie (www.thework.org) when she says, "victims are the most violent people" in her book, "Who would you be without your Story?".

Even the thought seems like a oxymoron.  My Mind does not want to add that up and cannot make sense of it.  Why are we violent when we see ourselves as a victim?  Let me see if I can break it down in my experience of being a victim.  What is my responsibility as a person who has lived through sexual abuse?  How do I see the world once this has happened to me?  What kind of lens are around my eyes when I look out at the world?

If somebody takes away my innocence as a child through a sexual act how do I attempt to make it right in my world?  Who is there to help me through the emotional drama and what tools can I use if I have none?  Right now my Mind is busy trying to come up with the answer and it is powerless in finding one.

It appears in hindsight I looked outside myself for the answer.  I needed to take something back from the world that appeared to have it.  Since it was a sexual act that prompted this imbalance, I then set out to find my sexual self in others.  Perhaps it was me that went looking to my older neighbor boys for the missing link.  Are you my missing link?  Do you have the love that was stolen from me? 

As I grew up and older, I kept looking everywhere possible.  I looked in bars, bath houses, adult bookstores, relationships, and friendships.  I am missing and I think you may have the answer.  Let's have sex and find out.  It never worked.  I became angry and withdrawn, depressed and full of rage.  Where is the love that was stolen from me as a child?  I screamed this from every fiber of my being.  Some body love me!  Anybody! 

I raged against the world that did not have the answer.  This is the violence that Byron Katie talks about.  We want the world to make right or be right in order for us to feel good about ourselves.  We wage a Holy War on other people to make them responsible for our healing and happiness.

Impossible.

They cannot own the missing link from ourselves.  We must be the ones to bring it back and nurture it to its fullness in ourselves.  Not God.  Not Jesus.  They cannot do it for us.  They would if they could.  This must be one of the reasons we are here on this Earth is to learn this impossible (if feels at times) lesson.

We are victims until we realize and learn this at a Soul level.

 

Comments

[Messy Guru]

Larry, Hi and thanks for reading and commenting on my blog. I look back and see that I wrote that in 2009! It is true in my experience. I am not saying that it is in others. They can tell you how they feel and I trust their answer. BK is looking at "stressful thought" and in my case it was RAGE. The abuse had stopped in my Reality and I raged on.

I feel so much more complete having done The Work, along with a lot of yoga, meditation, blogging, etc.

I appreciate your opinion.

[Larry]

Just came across your blog as a result of seeing Byron Katie's statement on her Facebook page. Here's some excerpts of my responses snd a few others:

The person (adult, child) who is raped and tortured (victimized for real), is automatically violent? Is it true Katie? More blaming the victim? People's actual victimization, including our own when it happens, against our will, is incredibly inconvenient for us and others, and requires great compassion, not blame or judgment.

If she's referring to getting stuck along the way in the process of healing from victimization, and somehow laying that on others, or making others (or ourselves) pay for previous victimization, or not being able or willing to move past blaming, that could be a constructive discussion to have, to look at. She didn't seem to be interested in that with this incredibly simplistic statement. Sounds like more, 'if you didn’t believe ‘your story’, ‘your thoughts’ you would not be suffering the after effects of victimization'. Or, the notion that you were victimized, was ‘just your story’.

Extraordinarily uncompassionate in the name of ‘enlightenment’, 'freedom from suffering'.