We are all born as helpless babies. Every single one of us is literally at the mercy of those grownups into whose care we've been delivered … That is simple Reality. But how long do we hang onto that perception of ourselves? That is the real question.
I often say that there are no grownups on planet Earth. We come here as helpless babies for the express purpose of growing up to be the fully divine beings we were created to be. As helpless babies, we are literally at the mercy of those around us; we can't even feed ourselves! This is the way life is designed to be in the beginning … and it is understandable that it must therefore be a stage we must all grow through … but when we are 30 years old and still living primarily from the Victim/Helpless baby, it could be said that our maturity is arrested.
The victim triangle describes the first three stages of maturity quite well:
The Victim or Helpless baby is the first stage. After feeling powerless as a dependent child, at the mercy of life, and of those around us, doesn't it make sense that we would yearn to feel more powerful? This prompts us to evolve to the next stage of maturity, which is all about feeling powerful by taking power from others. We call this stage or role the Blaming Bully in our work with kids: it is the Persecutor, and it represents the second stage of maturity on the road to remembering our divine nature. Here we attempt to move out of feeling helpless to a sense of power that comes from overpowering others.
You can witness this second stage of maturity in any 2-3 year old. In their immature way of seeing life, it seems the only way to “win” is by taking and claiming power. Bullying is is a natural stage of development in our immature youngster, but when we are still living chiefly from this mental state of perceiving the world as adults, we are stuck in a second level of maturity that is most unsatisfying, and which takes us again and again back to helplessness.
Sooner or later, we evolve a bit more in our ability to recognize that grabbing and whining does not always work so well in getting us what we want. We are now operating from the third stage of maturity, that of the Rescuer/Bossy Helper. This is the stage of maturity where we begin to develop a social conscience, albeit one that is primarily marked by fear and guilt, for the “unfair” way the world is, for all the ways the world (and those in it) mistreats and bullies others.
Rescuers feel a need to control and manipulate others too, but they do it, according to their reasoning, “for their own good.” Certainly they are often well-intentioned. They simply want to fix or make up for the damage done. Rescuers feel best when they think they are needed, and so are attracted to those who are seeking to be saved; the deprived, the wounded, the undermined, the rejected and the underprivileged unfortunates around them are their primary focus.
However this attempt to rescue others often does not come from a place of benevolence or compassion, but from the need to receive acknowledgement and recognition for what they do for others; they often neglect themselves terribly in the process to save those they pity and look down on – all in the vain effort to be seen as worthy. They see those around them as victims who need rescuing from a dangerous and problematic world; they blame and then try to fix the “problem.” Rescuing does not fix, it merely perpetuates the blame cycle and perpetuates dependency and learned helplessness among those we are trying to save.
Fortunately there is another stage of maturity that moves past blame available to us. When we activate this fourth level of consciousness, we immediately change the victim triangle into a diamond shape instead. We have refined our maturity and risen above the chaos and unhappy drama of the victim triangle to create the Reality Diamond© instead.
A true hero on the other hand is someone who is aligned with Reality and available to Source for Its own purposes. True hero's are moved into service, not by their own volition, or out of some distorted need for self-validation and approval, but from a place of love and compassion that empowers and supports, rather than disables, those around them. This describes that fourth option on the Reality Diamond- the Observer.
There are those of us who are ready to move to this next step on the maturity ladder by becoming Observers of Reality. Rather than reactors on the triangle, we move past blame to become witnesses of life for the purpose of learning and refining our own consciousness, NOT to change and control others!
The Observer operates from alignment with Reality and sees life according to specific guiding principles that describe and define Reality. From this position there is no blame and there are no coincidences. Everything happens according to the law of cause and effect, and the world simply reflects to us where we are internally. We come to understand the true purpose of the world, why it is the way it is (we believed it into being) and how it is always working for us, rather than against us.
From that standpoint, we stand in peace, regardless of what may be going on around us. This is the fourth stage of maturity that is open and available to us should we choose to give up blame and step into self-responsibility (NOT self blame!).
It's important to remember that each one of these roles/stage of maturity are necessary. They are essential building blocks along the road to maturity and each stage offers us something important. We must grow through them on our way to growing up. Each one has its gifts to offer us. For instance, the Victim/Helpless baby teaches us about surrender … although it looks more like collapse in those early stages. It's not until we move into Observer that surrender is aligned with Reality (which is “right surrender”) rather than lining up with our unhappy story about Reality.
The Persecutor/Blaming Bully role teaches us about the importance of boundaries, how to discern and respect what is our business and what is not and how to treat others with respect. We learn from the bullying stage about how pummeling others leads to our being pummeled by others (becoming a victim).
From the Rescuer/Bossy Helper, we learn the difference between serving our own causes, and serving Source. We learn how to empower, rather than disable, others. All of these lessons are necessary ones en-route to peace and freedom.
Come learn more in a real life exchange with me … see our Event calendar to find out what workshop opportunities are coming up soon!
Blessings, Lynne