It is not by accident that we are born into our particular family. I believe that each of us is born into a family that uniquely matches our own vibrational frequency at the time of our birth – not because we are being punished, not to pay back some old karmic debt necessarily, but because that family holds the set of challenges we need to experience for us t0 access a higher level of understanding. In other words, our family's are designed to help us evolve! Yes, even, and most especially, the particularly dysfunctional ones.
In a nutshell, we come into the family we do to learn the lessons that particular family brings us. And sometimes those lessons are tough ones.
What could one possibly learn from being born into an abusive family? A lot! As incomprehensible as it may seem, even our most unenlightened, abusive families, play a designated role in evolving us spiritually. Reality shows us many examples of how dysfunctional family systems can indeed serve a higher purpose. The reality is that some of our greatest leaders, teachers, researchers, and healers come from just such dysfunctional families.
Most often it is through the personal struggles that these outstanding individuals experienced while growing up in extreme circumstances that later led them to their life-calling. Their difficult childhoods are often what prompted them to radically shift the way they understood life, and thereby made a whole new way of seeing possible.
Might it be just as possible that each one of us is uniquely set up in a family environment that is especially arranged to provide us with the challenges and life-lessons necessary to further the direction of our life path? I like to think so. I have a hypothesis, it is this: we come into this life on a particular vibrational frequency which energetically attracts to us a matching frequency. We are energy beings, after all.
I am not saying we consciously choose our family; it is not a conscious decision-making process that delivers us into the family we find ourselves in. We don't choose to be in a certain family because we are gluttons for suffering, for instance! No, the kind of attraction I speak of here has more to do with the magnetic nature of life that draws us to a particular family set-up – much like the way metal filings are attracted to a magnet.
I am speaking of the way energy moves and responds to vibration through patterns – it's a perspective that says that where we end up in life has nothing to do with what we “deserve,” or with what is “fair” or “unfair,” – where we land is based on a vibrational frequency, and the pattern that is formed by the energy that is traveling on that frequency. The family we come into is not about our quality of being, but about the vibrational frequency of the pathway we are traveling on at the time of our birth.
This idea of our “choice” of a family being a magnetic attraction precludes the possibility of our coming into a family ‘accidentally,' or ‘coincidentally.' No, if this hypothesis is accurate, then we can only land in the family that matches the energetic frequency of our own belief system.
The Veda's teach that the mind-set of a person when they die determines the circumstances they are born into in their next incarnation. Such an idea suggests that if our emotional frequency is fear-based, we are more likely to land in a family ruled by fear and intimidation. If we are governed by a kinder, higher frequency, we will birth into a higher frequency family. What we can hypothesize however, is that we will be born into the family that will provide the lessons that will further us most, and not necessarily, for love, peace, or joy – sake! We come into the family we do because their belief system resonates with our vibrational frequency and thus allows us the opportunity to explore limiting beliefs that have hindered us from realizing a more positive life expression.
When we look at how we came to be in our particular family from such a standpoint it allows us to better align with Reality. We can more easily trust that whatever life is, it is happening for us, rather than to, at, or against us. This means that even the seeming worst things we meet in life are no coincidence, but do in fact, serve to reflect the limiting beliefs that hold us prisoner, for the purpose of liberating ourselves from those painful beliefs.
Again, what we attract has nothing to do with what we may desperately want, or aspire towards, and everything to do with what we expect from life. We harvest in life the consequences of that which we believe is possible, or not possible, for us.
Understanding that simple truth allows us to begin to move away from seeing ourselves, or others, as victims of an unfair, cruel, or even sadistically-twisted family life. When we see ourselves as a victim on any level it produces great pain and sadly limits our life expression – to see ourselves as being irreparably damaged by our life circumstances, for instance, (a view I held of myself for a long time!) in my opinion, causes far worse damage than whatever abuse we may have endured.
Why? Think about it for a moment – who do we become, how do we respond to life, when we believe we are permanently damaged by life circumstances? How does it affect the way we live, and interact with others when we believe we've been dropped haphazardly into a family that abuses us? How does such a belief color our opinion of ourselves, our belief in our chances in life, our future possibilities, or our trust in others? How does it affect our ability to succeed in life when we see ourselves as damaged victims of abuse?
For clarity-sake, I am not suggesting that we make excuses for the abusive ways of our family, or that we deny what happened to us or that we discount our feelings about it. I am simply saying that by bringing an energetic understanding of how these things happen to our perspective, we feel less victim, more empowered, and we find we are in a position that better empowers us.
I've found that a sense of inner empowerment and peace comes from accepting Reality as not only being what it is, but that it is that way for us -in other words there's a good reason! There are no coincidences; every single painful thing that we experience in life can be used to further us. It is up to us and how we see those painful events, more than the events themselves, that determine whether we will be served or destroyed by them. The reality is that all things CAN work for our highest good, even our dysfunctional, abusive family dynamics can serve to empower and refine us!
Blessings, Lynne
32 Responses
I love that this viewpoint is so empowering. It feels great to embrace the concept,”To see ourselves as being irreparably damaged by our life circumstances…caused far worse damage than whatever abuse we may have endured “
My problem is that my body does not always cooperate with this viewpoint. I forget meeting people, conversations, and circumstances.
My emotions in no way match the reality of the situation.
And then I believe that I can’t just think my way out of this when I have so much physical evidence that I have been damaged.
Yes, the body does take on the cellular trauma of what we go through … and there is an unwinding process that I have experienced, and taught … wherein we learn to move into an altered breath and allow the body to release the emotional baggage carried …
I appreciate your words, and understand what you mean when you say that the body does not always cooperate with this viewpoint. The body does indeed have its own intelligence and way of dealing with past trauma. There are many good somatic approaches that I’ve used in my own healing, such as Stanislav Grof’s Integrative Breathwork, as well as more recent processes that give the body permission to feel and release emotion held in the body from the past. And we cannot underestimate the power of the word … being able to make conscious and sound what we feel allows us to give ourselves permission to release stuck emotional energy and can make a huge difference… I recommend finding a therapist who does some sort of somatic release work, as a next step in setting yourself free from the past. Lynne Forrest
This is the most IGNORANT article I’ve ever read. Being a survivor of some horrific abuses at the hands of my mother and stepfather, let me ASSURE you, it does NOT make anyone stronger, and having survived a suicide attempt, and narrowly avoiding others, there are no ‘lessons’ here to learn. While I have moved on as best as I can from my abuse, it is always with me. I don’t dwell on it every day, but it is easily triggered. With the state of hyper-vigilance that I live in due to my ptsd; and in how I interact with people, and view this pathetic world in general, are all thanks to my experiences of my ‘family’. The only lessons I’ve learned from my childhood and from the ‘family’ I had is that people are terrible. NO ONE in my big family was concerned about the abuse I went though, even though it was suspected; and no one in my family cared where I was when I went into foster care. The earth would be better off if all humans died off and animals took over. The abuses in my family were passed on from my grandparents to my mother, which she repeated with me. What lessons are there to be learned from that? I went on to have two sons, who are grown now, and one who is now disrespectful towards me, and doesnt seem to care about me. My kids were my life. This has broken my heart because I was a good mother most of the time. It makes me feel as if my entire life was for nothing. If I didn’t have my other son I would have killed myself already. There is no point to life. We are born, we suffer and we die, period. If we are lucky to find a few minutes of joy without someone trying to hurt us, we are very lucky. LIFE IS A CONSTANT BATTLE. You should find another line of work.
I hear your anger and pain, Freya, I can relate to much of what you describe… I, too came from a highly dysfunctional family system . Which I started getting support to deal with at the age of 20 … it’s been a long and challenging path – I, too have had times of feeling suicidal, and feeling totally hopeless and at the mercy of those who abused me… I am glad to hear you sharing it kutloud – that beats the hell out of turning the hurt and anger in on yourself. Good for you!
I simply
Wrote about my own journey, I remember the day I realized that it wasn’t what happened to me that was keeping me down, it was what I believed those things meant about me that held me in suffering – I learned that to feel
Better I had to look for a way to see
It that gave ne hope and purpose … This has become my practice over the years … I found that we can survive anything we make peace with … finding a way to make peace with reality is the way to strengthen hope in happier possibility. Of course, this is what works for me – I share it with those who want to feel better. It does indeed require great inner strength to choose peace over blame… I do have a book out, just in case you are interested . Find it on Amazon, “… Moving Beyond Victim Consciousness ..:” May you find inner peace. Lynne
https://www.amazon.com/Guiding-Principles-Beyond-Victim-Consciousness/dp/0615401449
My family where scams there always confused and always misunderstands
I have been searching for the answer to this question for a very long time, and everywhere I turn, I bump up against the conclusion that there was no reason. I like the idea of karma; if I could believe that I was born to abusive parents because I myself had been abusive, that would actually give me a lot of solace. Then I could tell myself that my lot was earned — not unfair. I also like the idea, as you suggest, of learning from our negative experiences; if I could believe that what I had gone through was for the purpose of teaching me something, that would also give me a lot of solace. It would be like a video game, where you gradually increase the difficulty in order to get more out of the character (and out of yourself). Although, to draw this idea to its logical conclusion, that would mean that when we get to the end, our lives would be toughest. We would be abused and homeless and physically and mentally disabled and who knows what else. So, although I like the idea of having been born into negative experiences because we were ready for the next level of character development, I hope it’s not true. Because that would mean that life would only get bleaker with each incarnation. I also don’t think it’s accurate; in reality, negative experiences tend to make people worse, rather than better. That is why, in criminal (and civil) cases, one can bring in bad childhood experiences as mitigating circumstances. Because realistically, if you had been mistreated, you are more likely to mistreat others. The way to teach a lesson — to help a fearful child to become less fearful, for example — would be to place her with courageous parents — so that she can learn from example and from those qualified to teach that particular lesson. Placing her with fearful parents would be more likely to reinforce, if not worsen, her innate fears.
So while I like — and wish — that these ideas were true, I keep running into walls with them. I am left with the difficult task of having to try to accept that there was no reason — that this was all pure chance. However, the future is in our hands — marred by the past, of course — held back by the past, of course. But still in our hands. And the future is where we can try to assuage the pain of the past. And this is where I agree with you; one way to assuage the pain is to use the past to learn lessons. For me, my past has made me far more compassionate than I would’ve been otherwise. For me to continue to heal, I must help others to heal; I must continue to work in a helping profession and embrace those that others might shun. But I do not believe that this was the lesson I was meant to learn — that I was placed into the hands of an abusive narcissist in order to learn this lesson. I believe this is simply the lesson I choose to learn in order to assuage the pain of the past. Others might choose to learn different lessons. Or perhaps not learn any lesson at all — perhaps simply continue down the path that a mother like mine would’ve placed them into. Have a child and pass on the abuse and be absolutely gracious to everyone else — surrounded by friends and well-wishers. My mother had figured out the key to success: Be an angel to everyone and save her “real” self (i.e. everything that was pent-up) for her child, the only one who had no choice but to take it. Perhaps that is what I should’ve done — to bring joy to so many at the expense to only one person — that is not a bad calculation as far as the universe is concerned. It is only bad for the one child.
I guess what I am trying to say is that after much rumination, I don’t think there was a reason that I was born into this. But I can shape a future out of the pain of the past that works for me. We were born out of pure chance, but we can nonetheless create our own meaning. I guess this is the essence of existentialism.
I apologize for the length of time it has taken for me to get around to responding. You said so much… and thought it all out… I did not want to reply carelessly, and it got lost in the pile before I even got it all read…but today, I rediscovered it and was able to read it through … I find in your well-written words so much to say in response … However I think I won’t get all my thoughts written down. so I will simply respond to that which calls me most … and perhaps we might continue the conversation later. 🙂
Perhaps I can present a “what if …” as an example that illustrates my own conclusions on the topic of “why did this happen to me?”
What if we are eternal beings (basing this thought on the understanding that we are all made up of energy which never dies, only changes form) that as energy based beings, we choose to come to Planet Earth, a place designed for the wildest adventures imaginable, to experience the “programming” we set up for ourselves to experience, for the pure educational drama it provides? What if the this journey we come to take, the story we come to play out, is set up before we even get here? What if generations of our ancestral lineage beliefs are already programmed into our DNA before our birth? What if where we are born, the family we are born into, even the very culture and place we are born, are all part of the stage set-up for the “Story of Me” we come to eco-create and experience?
“Why?” you ask … I immediately flash back to the many times I chose to stand in line at Halloween to take the “scary ride…” And I think about the times I chose to get involved in demanding, difficult situations, not only for the pure challenge of it, but for the realizations, and lessons they teach. We, beings of nature, appear to learn most from struggle. (Nature shows us this in the struggle that the moth faces to get out of the very cocoon that initially protected it; it must pass through the complete meltdown of it self to become its true Essence Self, the Butterfly) Nothing gets our attention faster than pain. Or motivates us to change faster. And yes, it has been said that the Greatest Masters do indeed take on the most challenging lifetimes (Take for instance the life of Jesus as an example of a Master Soul who came to have the journey he said, and who said over and again, “I do the Will of the Father”) What if the course we choose the struggles we do simply because it is the fastest, most direct route to Ascendance and remembrance of our True Essence? But really the most important reason we take on difficult lives imo is to discover the potency of what it is to be a Co-creator. Through our life struggles we learn how to co-create consciously. We all play a part in co-creating our lives – but most of us do it without realizing that we chose to express the life we are having… instead we tend to feel as though it was done to us. That we are helpless victims at the mercy of a harsh world. I was taught something different; I was taught that There is only ONE Mind, and everything, including all 400++ galaxies are happening within that ONE MIND. I was taught that everything within that One Mind is made up of the same one substance (according to Alchemy) and that ONE SUBSTANCE is Consciousness. We know that every molecule, down to the tiniest quark, moves and changes, It is therefore ALIVE. This Living Intelligence that we are projections of operates according to universal laws, of which I apply 10 to create for us a foundation of understanding life which allows us to both understand how manifestation happens and how to participate in the co=creation of manifestation.
I can go on and on … but basically I am saying there is no coincidence, no accident, to what happens … instead all life happens in accordance to a simple formula (The Reality Formula) that says that all manifestation is based on the following law: “When we believe a particular thought, we feel the emotional tone that goes with that thought, and the emotional frequency of the thought we believe informs the way we react to it. What is so fascinating about this dynamic is that when we feel and react as if what we believe is true, we will attract and find that in the world which verifies the original belief. We then use the experience as evidence that what we believe is true – when in reality what we see in the world is always a reflection of the thoughts we believe. Example: Belief: “The world is dangerous, I will get hurt…” Emotional Tone: Fear, paranoia, etc… Reactions: Hyper-vigilance, easily defensive (picture moving about with fisted hands, easily angered, and quick to defend by punching against…etc… How the world responds in return: Likely to attract attack, because I look like I’m ready to fight …
I could go on and on here, but I think I will pause here… I trust your journey to be one that is expanding your consciousness in ways that no other path could manage to do. I appreciate your taking time to share your thoughts… and hope you find some wisdom and relevance in what I’ve chosen to share with you here.
Lynne
Most scapegoats/ people from abusive homes do not become healers and teachers. Most die young. Most become drug addicts, or live in terrible poverty. Most do not make it. Because the reality is that growing up in abuse does not make you stronger, it makes you weaker. And it’s honestly offensive to say otherwise. The reality is, my trauma gave me IBS, PTSD; my trauma made me dependent on medication for the rest of my life. People who grow up in stable homes have a huge advantage over ones who do not. The reality is that trauma is a disadvantage; I do not think it’s wise to try to justify that certain people “deserve” abuse. We scapegoats have been told our whole lives we deserved it, we asked for it, etc. we did not deserve it and we did not ask for it, and it did not make us stronger, but that doesn’t mean we can’t move forward and make peace with it.
Jane,
My response is shown in your two previous Comments … See above.
Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. Lynne
Jane Doe’s comment: Anything a scapegoat achieves is amazing, because they achieved it despite being severely disadvantaged. I don’t like the sentiment of we deserved it somehow. The reality is we were disadvantaged, and we went through something horrible and we have to accept that and move on with that knowledge.
My response:
Jane Doe, I wholeheartedly agree, NOBODY deserves to grow up in dysfunction and disease … another good reason why I choose instead to find purpose in everything that happens… Because that feels ever so much better than to believe I have been forever damaged … and when I believe
it’s true my life flows so much more smoothly…
I definitely say I am better for the trials and near misses I have had, I feel and act as if
I Wish that for you, my brave friend, who dared to speak so boldly here. Thank you. Lynne
If trauma made people stronger, if it made people teachers and healers, people would willingly go through it. Men would be lining up for it. The reality is it doesn’t make you stronger, it is only a disadvantage. This doesn’t mean you can’t move on and go on to achieve what you want. But it is a setback, that nobody deserves.
Dear Aclynn, Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me here. And you are right – SOMETIMES… i.e. those born into such dysfunction do contuniue to spiral and die early deaths, etc… I, however, write here from my own history. I am sharing my experience around how I rose above addiction and dysfunction. I come from a long line of addicts, (drugs and alcohil, sexual abuse, etc.) I started using at age 14 and lived on the streets at one time, and lost almost everything… In 1980 I went to treatment, and began the long journey beyond victim consciousness, addiction, and dysfunction. I have been teaching the concepts I write about here and have been in private practice working with individuals and families since 1985. From my experience, I assure you, I became stronger as a result of these principles. And have seen many many transform their lives too. The thing that helped me mot to evolve beyond seeing myself as a loser and a victim … was the realization that it wasn’t what happened to me that caused my suffering, but what I told myself it meant – about me, in particular. (BTW, I was the second born “scapegoat” in my family that you speak of – and so know what it is to feel undeserving and “bad” to the bone – and hopeless. I assure you that the reason I remember who I am beyond the victim story I carried about me is because I when I stopped blaming myself, my family, and the world , and began to look for how experiencing what I did actually expanded my consciousness, I got stronger and felt better. The universal law says this about ALL human minds, “When we believe what we think (i.e. when I believe I am worth less) we will feel the feelings that that thought brings … AND we will then react as if it’s true… When we believe, feel and act as if those limiting beliefs are true, we will feel and act in ways that cause us to respond as we believe a person like that is … and then we become that which we believe. so the question to ask myself changed from “Why me?” to How does this serve?
The reality is that homeless person on drugs on the corner was likely a scapegoat growing up, and your teachers likely came from stable homes. Statistically that’s reality.
Hi, I came to your site in search for guidance and answers. I am fascinated by the Reality Formula for the little I had the time to read about and discover. I, myself was born in a dysfunctional family, being the scapegoat who my mother tried to infantilise for her own benefit. I have been the object of negative projections for a very long time. I have attachment issues and by the words of my therapist , PSTD from the emotional abuse. My soul wound is rejection (which I see everywhere:) and I kinda struggle with that till now (I am 47). I am trying to find ways to make sense of why this happened to me. According to your post , we vibrate and attract something (family members) that resonate with our vibration at time of birth. Does it mean that in a case such mine, my vibration was “lack of self love ” and that I was then born in a family where the abuse would force to move forward in my “LIFE” path towards self love and self acceptance ? Is that what my soul has come to learn in this life experience? Sorry for such a long post:) blessing
Thank you for this. It helps me so much to understand what I’m going through right now. I can see clearly NOW. TY TY TY XOXO -ANGELINA
It all resonates for me! I have slowly been coming to this awareness.
I find it particularly disgusting that this article is advocating for childhood suffering in order to bring about character growth.
Thank you for your input … it is always enlightening for me to read how others interpret my words. I do respectfully disagree with your use of the word “advocating” in your description of my approach to dealing with childhood suffering. I would replace the word,”advocating” with the phrase “choosing to perceive” instead, as in: “… this article offers those of us who have suffered childhood abuse the opportunity to perceive childhood suffering in a way that fosters growth and character growth.” That is my true intention, although perhaps not clearly stated. Thank you for this opportunity to clarify.
I simply attempt to point out that while we do not have a choice about whether or not we are abused as children, we can choose how to frame it. We can see ourselves as victims and live that definition of ourselves out in life … or we can choose to see the reality of childhood abuse beyond the limiting concept of defining ourselves as victims who have been forever damaged and move towards a more empowering perspective instead.
In Reality all human minds operate according to a formula that says that when we believe we are victims, we feel and act as if that definition of us is true, which often results in us reacting to life in ways that encourages others to treat us as victims (And either rescue us or persecute us as weaklings)… which then proves our victim status of being mistreated, undeserving, weak, unloved and/or forever damaged.
It seems to me that choosing to see ourselves as being on a journey that is purposeful and taking us somewhere better is better than spiraling into a picture of ourselves as hopelessly wronged and thereby damaged for life. In my own life I have found that choosing to reframe my childhood abuse as something I went through as part of an initiation has allowed me to turn my life trauma into miracles. And so I share it with those with whom it resonates.
Thank you again for sharing your thought on the subject. I understand that it may not be a fit for all. Blessings,
This is beautiful Lynne – Gui is reading this amazing article clearly because they are seeking answers. GUI Will learn life is a journey of discovery. There’s no doubt in my mind that GUI will figure it out one day. Great article. Please email me [email protected] i would like to discuss working on a project together 🙂
Thank you Gabe, Feel free to contact me through my email at [email protected] with your thoughts and ideas… 🙂
I searched deep in the depths of my very own soul to how did I survive such long suffering , poverty and unfortunate life. That I did not pick. However I choose not be a victim of my circumstances and believe that although ive been handed a raw deal. I will play my hand until I win, I have a chose and I choose to win; therefore I do. Although this is easily said then done, especially in my case. I have no other chose, though I didnt choose to fight. If I get beat up I will mend my wounds and I will survive them. And move forward because moving forward has been granted to me and that’s all I have to look forward to. I know I can have pity parties an /or look back all the rest of my life but if I dont enjoy my hand, ill throw it in and i wont play it. Thank you Your logic is as close to keeping someone on the right track of humanity is as good as it gets. There will be many who will not except your insight. Or defend it with religion. Nevertheless God gets the glory at the begining and the end of My story. Therefore moving forward in which is all i have. Because I believe all we deserve is to be obedient and respect Gods instruction, neither one of us does. I understand your only trying to help. Help clarify, help strategicarizes, help level up the offeneded.
Thankyou.
I absolutely Agree! This is B.S. If we are born into a Family that is Negative it’s Destructive. If we come into the world on a Negative Vibration then we already have been abused in a Previous life by that logic. Our Spirit is pure our souls are old and Don’t need another lesson. This world is an energetic prison. I Don’t care who doesn’t agree!
It’s not advocating childhood abuse. It’s pointing out that we are an eternal spirit and here to grow. I think the author is merely suggesting that you can’t get stuck in victim mode. The key is to reflect and examine the bad experiences in your life and grow from them.
Dear Cheryl,
And I thought I had it bad! I agree with Lynne that many old souls came to earth in this special time of the shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, were the braves ones. My own background has led to life a service. 12 step groups, volunteer work in healing workshops for abused women, volunteer work in schools and an Organization for Healthy Families. My daughter is a MA. Lic. SW now, and I am a Life coach and Quantum Energetic Disciplines TM ( founded by Jo Dunning ) Energy worker , but do not think this happened “all at once”. Before you find your place of contribution to the “solution” I hope you will be KIND to yourself. You are exactly where you need to be. I also think that while explanations really help, it is important to have someone with a huge empathy, experience and non judgment listen to your feelings. No matter what the reason we still need some help in being “received with love and respect” and begin o develop deep self love. That can not just come from a “decision” that you have great self esteem self love and great relationship skills “all of a sudden”. It is a process. It is hard to say what works for you for I do not know you but taking warm baths with sea-salts, buying flowers for yourself, saying affirmations about how loves you TRULY are by the Angels who applaud you for brining change into this world, beginning with YOURSELF, a worthy precious soul. When you do your part in learning, you affect the ENTIRE UNIVERSE POSITIVELY. Not only is this TRUE, it also is re-frame and changes the victim perspective to one of having agreed before birth to do an important task for the world. Now how does that feel? A lot better?
Blessings, Love and Light to you,
Ingrid
I’m upset with god and want to know really why I was born into my family. My dad and aunt murdered my mom when I was 3( they got away with it but me and my brother were there and saw it. 6months latter he found out our stepmother and the guy she waa having an affair with had sexually abused my brother and i also taking pornographic photos, we went for a drive to the woods and he killed her and I saw cause I got out of the car but was t supposed to. He went to jail. My grandparents got custody of us. And the next 12yrs daily I was we sexually abused by my grandfather(step grandfather, my grandmas 3rd husband). At 17yrs I moved out. I was also raped by a neighbor when I was 9yrs. In 1995 my first son died a day after he was born. Many other issues happened also in life but ill end this post here. Thanks for listening. Maybe you can help me understand why. And what is gods purpose for me I just don’t know.
Cheryl, I apologize for not responding sooner … I simply somehow overlooked this comment, so am just now reading it for the first time.
I cannot imagine the pain and suffering that comes from growing up amidst such dysfunction. My heart goes out to you … I can only guess at how difficult it must be to try to make sense of such senselessness – and I want to be careful not to come across as trivializing your situation … for, in truth, I do not know how I might have handled such events as those you describe, in your stead. I can only turn to the guiding principles for some glimpse of understanding; they are what works for me. Here are some of my thoughts:
The first thought I had as I read your thoughts was a reminder of something I heard years ago … that the master souls (most highly evolved) are those who take on the most challenging Earth lives. Why? Because, as the ancients teach, this world is a bootcamp for souls, which means we came here to play out on the ground (manifest in form) what it is we need to learn for our own evolving consciousness.
I like this concept because it takes away the notion that the world should be different than it is, that it should be a utopia, or even a kind place, and replaces it with the understanding that, as energy-in-motion (which is what humans are) we are brought into the family unhappy best designed to give us the “grist” (challenges) we need to make conscious our own unhappy beliefs towards clearing them, so that we can align with Reality, (as defined by the Guiding Principles) which is the only place peace abides.
The guiding principles teach that, rather than life being the way we think it should be, life is the way it is to show us the painful beliefs we are holding that stand between us and Reality. The guiding principles are based on what we call the Reality Formula: “When we believe what we think, we feel and act accordingly, and when we act according to our unhappy beliefs, we will act in ways that prove them true.”
This is what you saw being played out all around you as a child – people living out of their own violently unhappy belief systems.
For instance, if I believe God is cruel and uncaring, or that he abandoned me to a family of violence, how am I going to feel? How am I going to act? What results are likely to come from those feelings and thoughts? What does that foster in my life?
When we believe something we begin to look for evidence that it is true, and we can always find it. We will unconsciously be attracted to people who will play the part we need (not want) that will prove our unhappy story about ourselves, others, and/or life. This is only true always. 🙂 Your family played destructive roles based on their painful beliefs – beliefs like, “I can’t have what I want, so I will just take it” or “people are worthless, it does not matter what I do to them…” etc … (these are just guesses about what your father’s beliefs might have been, for instance) – their actions came out of beliefs such as these.
We come into the family we do to further our own soul journey – and since we are eternal beings, we can know that our soul education may include a lifetime of powerful challenges, such as those you have faced.
That you are reading sites like this tells me that you are a seeker. And since, it is what we believe about life, not what happens to us in life, that determines the level of peace we get to experience, I trust that you can indeed find peace of mind even with all the challenges you’ve been through – maybe even as a result of having been subjected to the kind of violence and turmoil due to the extreme dysfunction of your family. I recommend you read “Search for Meaning,” by Victor Frankl – a book written by this psychiatrist who survived concentration camp during the holocaust his whole family died. He is one who has answered some of the questions you ask … and a read I highly recommend.
Also, you might sign up for my weekly messages (they are free) to get more insight into this approach and how to apply it to your life.
One other thing I want to mention here: the guiding principles also inform us that what people do is always directly caused by what they think and believe. The craziness you witnessed as a child was not about you, nobody made them act the way they did … they did what they did, including murder, because of their own highly confused, totally distorted, belief system. You cannot fix it. You did not cause it. You CAN learn from it, though… you can become a “wounded healer.”
I, myself am a wounded healer. That means that what I teach I discovered through my own journey of healing. Those of us who have lived through dysfunction are best suited to extend a hand to those who are going through similar situations. You asked why you are here, perhaps that is a possibility worth considering.
I hope this is helpful. Thank you for your patience in my slow response.
Blessings, Lynne
thank you so much for answering my post, it helped alot 🙂
Dear Lynne,
I have found myself in the overall message you have put in this text, from your personal life experiene, your wisdom and believes. I am still living in such a family and to see things with clarity is always said to be easy when you look at it from a distance. One can give wonderful but hardly applicable advice when we are not directly involved. And I dont mean this to downgrade any of the experiences you have made in your life. Any word you have formulate in this text is pure gold in terms of what an important advice for everyone it is, who feels stuck and sees him/herself in a similar situation.
What needs to be mentioned is that we learn even better, Right at the moment where such a dysfunctional and abusive family puts you to the test. To feel and examine the anger, the hate, the insults, like I do while writing you this message. The sheer insanity that runs through their minds, totally blind of what they are creating.
It is really interesting what a destructive youth I was involved into, how abusive I have lived (not speaking of drugs but media and food consumtion) in my young adulthood and how all of these things now turn out to be the best teacher I have ever had in my entire 26years of life.
Yes I do live still at home. By choice, by the disgust of having experienced the life of a working person, favoring our illwilled society and economy and be willing but not yet fully prepared to create my life in a totally new way: In a spiritual way, which was never part, by Any means, in not a single family member of mine. And to transform everything into a better place. Transform this World into a better place!
But I can tell you that, for our minds, being in such a situation like I am – even due to my previous conscious work with my emotions and exploring and understanding them – we will never get used to such moments. Never say never, but it’s so hard to imagine. God did not created us in hate, he did it with love.
And to rediscover this love and feel it’s transformational power WITH all of this knowledge – that is true power which brings humankind into the right direction. The only true intention what this planet needs.
I am so greatful for every word of encouragement and mindfullness you brought back into my being and my heart. And this only from reading your text.
Be assured that I am not the only one.
Thank you, good soul! Thank you. And many blessings,
David.
Hi David,
I have felt so poorly when I discovered about “karma”, also due to a therapist when i was 38 who screamed “Avenging Angels” at me, thereby destroying my budding trust in God and meditation and the Course in Miracles I had begun to read. She created fear, not healing. She was about 65 and a professor, and I was 38 and an immigrant without USA education. I do not want t wonder if that was someone from a past life also, as if EVERY painful incident that happened was pre-planned.
am 64 now and making peace with my past. I know I have helped break paradigms for my ancestors and my kids and grandkids and step kids too. I own my boundaries. Have good communication skills. Have a certificate fro an excellent Institute as Certified Life Coach, and now also a certificate from Jo Dunning as an Quick Pulse and Advanced Pulse practitioner, a new energy technique to help people improve their lives dramatically. So he growth benefits have been enormous and I can serve others others now. That does not mean we do not need healing. But everything can be redeemed now with the new Energy techniques and more. Everything can be forgiven and redeemed, and skills can grow. I am sending you special blessings. At your age, you can make great break troughs that were not available for those born in 1949.
Bless you , and keep hope,
Ingrid
God bless you Lynne.