Authenticity and the Victim. It matters
/I supposed this is another snapshot of why “everything in quotes is not fact”, or rather, not true. If you're not invested in shifting your mindset, almost everywhere you look lately, you'll find some form of victim-shaming or victim-blaming.
Empowerment by taking responsibility for becoming the victim.
Empowerment by eliminating (ignoring) the victim part of your story.
Abusing the Law of Attraction to say that you attracted whatever made you a victim.
Heavy critique for facing and sitting with the feelings and trauma of an event where you were the victim (for too long or at all).
Not differentiating between active attraction (magnet, attraction, often conscious) and passive vulnerability (openings or cracks, ease of flow, often subconscious).
These are just a few, but there are other forms of gaslighting around this term. I tend to focus on positive lenses, so that my readers and viewers have a soft place to land when they need a break from all the negatives online. I also, however, step in to address the gaps I find in conversations, when they can adversely affect well-being — when my own energy allows.
I am absolutely in favour of reframing your story, but not:
When driven by external ideology i.e. people, culture, philosophies or societies that tell you your perception of your reality is wrong (gaslighting).
If you are actively repressing your knowledge of the experience, or if you haven't spent some time facing and feeling, healing from the experience, before releasing it. (Your brain automatically represses events you cannot handle at this time. That is different.)
Your body hasn't forgotten the experience, and trauma has and is setting in. No matter how much you gaslight yourself, or allow yourself to be lead down that path, your being retains the memory, and cognitive dissonance (the damage borne of trying to hold two opposite thoughts as true) sets in.
In short, this is why authenticity is important. Your boundaries are clearer, when you truly live authentically, so you trust yourself more. You're less susceptible to these types of ideas. In a state of authenticity, you do not lose energy holding up different personas in different situations. You're not losing energy to others’ thoughts and feelings, so there’s less energy lost to second-guessing and anxiety. I say less, as empaths and sensitive people use more energy than others in maintaining these boundaries. When you allow yourself to be authentic, fully yourself, you can also see clearly where you’re vulnerable versus actively attracting. When we practice self-acceptance, self-trust, self-love and genuinely appreciate individual sovereignty, we organically embrace what resonates with our innate truth, and peaceably release all else.
Let's try to unpack the current emerging story about the victim.
The victim
I will not invite you to revisit past pain, if you have already healed and moved past it. Whether it happened as a result of intention, unwitting action or forces beyond our comprehension, this happened and it hurt. That is all. You were the victim in that moment, and your body, spirit, mind, will, emotions recorded it as such. Reframing can be great later on, but denying it in the moment and before you've healed is risky, to put it mildly. And reframing doesn't mean taking responsibility either. It can be as simple as being able to say “it happened, but it no longer rocks my world. I take me power back.” Sure, it can be a helpless feeling right now, but it did happen, and you were affected as you were. It is absolutely fine for you to feel and acknowledge that. How long you need to sit with that, feel that, can only be known intrinsically, by you.
As a society, we seem to love saying, “the average person…”, but who is that? Even if you're average in some ways, no one is average in every way, if they're true to themselves. And that, too, is fine.
It simply is. You were the victim of something, and it takes the time it takes to grieve the loss that that experience has created. Often, the major sense of loss is helplessness, but even that is not true of everyone. Acknowledge what it is for yourself. ❤️<3
Beware that you don't wind up enabling the abuser, the attacker, anyone who intentionally or recklessly put you in harm's way, by taking responsibility for their actions. In essence, denying that you were a victim does exactly that, and often creates a narrative that encourages others to be harmed in the same way by that person, group or entity.
This jappia Lot in spirituality. Just remember that you are still human. You came here for a human experience, so honour that being human includes the vulnerabilities and the strengths of having a human body, energy, mind, will and emotions.
Empowerment
This brings me to this culture of unwittingly taking responsibility for the action of others and labeling it empowerment. Outwardly, the world feels better when they don't have to deal with victims because it means there's no injustice — just people making bad decisions in their own lives, for which they have no one but themselves to blame. So a lot of your mainstream friends and family will breathe a sigh of relief when you embrace that rhetoric.
Inwardly, there’s cognitive dissonance. Your brain and body have experienced and recorded the trauma, but you're trying to override it instead of facing, feeling and releasing it as the (often ugly) thing that it was / is.
Psychology, through Freud, and other expert professions, are on board with this brand of empowerment, but experts are not always correct, especially for the individual. So please, honour and trust yourself, first. Intuition is ~two million years old, where the “all-knowing” cerebral cortex is about 150,000 years old. Give self-trust and self-discovery a chance.
The Law of Attraction
This is Huge these days, and widely abused by manipulators and gaslighters and, often, culture and society fall into these categories on some topics.
I’m a huge believer in the Law of Attraction, and the other universal laws, but not on all interpretations of them.
I wrote here (click to read the Laws of Karma and Attraction Another Lens):
I truly believe the law of attraction—that what we focus on expands, but I want to clarify. I believe that we attract and create with all that we do and are—knowingly or not. I believe that we attract what we love AND what we fear, what is like or within ourselves AS WELL AS what is in complete opposition to us.
We often see these principles oversimplified to say that "if it triggers you it's because you're the same" or "things happened because on some level we wanted them to". I assure you, those statements are not true in all cases. Oversimplified.
The law of attraction has been so oversimplified that, for those who haven't fully developed self-trust, intuition or who can't get live authentically, it's messed up their radar. And because, for most of us, that is a lifelong journey, there's some area where this has seeoed in, that we may not yet be aware of.
On the victim-blaming lens, there's a difference between attracting as magnets do, and being being vulnerable / susceptible to something, like a hedge you pass through everyday, so there's a hole in that part of the hedge / boundary. ❤️
This one I would not venture to face until you've reached some healing resolution in accepting that you were / are a victim in the experience. Until you have reached the place of self-love exactly as you are, on some level.
From there, the deeper application of the law of Attraction says focus on what you love, instead of what you fear. You will inevitably fear that this could happen again, especially if it already isn't the first time. This way you can differentiate between susceptibility and magnetism, and learn how energy flows uniquely for you, so you can shift a f tweak at your pace, when you are ready.
This is why going within to heal this before going externally for justice, builds self-trust. It gives you time to heal the hurt, to dissipate the impact of trauma, only then, to return to focusing on what you love and want in the world. Then, if you seek legal justice, you're less affected by the slimy rhetoric of those supporting the defence, and those who want to pretend injustice does not exist.
No, you are not to blame for what happened to you. That is not the connection. You are simply invited to go elsewhere, starting in your mind, where wonderful things happen to you instead. Skip the bad news, tell friends don't send you “articles on the truth” and “horrible things happening”. Unfollow all negative content everywhere (if only until you've recovered), and find more positive, hopeful, happy content to follow. Or simply conteithat heals and uplifts you. Once you've recovered, you won't want to go back. You'll be happier, less fearful, less traumatized, and you’ll be attracting (and open to) more and more positive experiences. It literally rewires neural pathways. ❤️
Staying too long
This is a big one in abusive relationships (familial or otherwise) and toxic jobs, but it can be thrown at you for anything. It is also applied to how long you need to “wallow in self-pity”. The answer truly is, “it depends”. And it's no one’s business but your own. You have to honour your own energy levels, sensitivities and needs, here, beyond anyone else’s comfort with it.
Authenticity invites you to heal, leave, respond or not, at your own pace. Again, you're far more comfortable leaving all external ideas outside, where they belong, and connecting only with support from those who genuinely get it (this muscle needs to be developed. Lol. Seriously).
For many, if they've never taken a long time to heal from something, or if they've never lived (or acknowledged that they have lived) abuse, they cannot understand the trauma, trauma bonds, etcetera, that become chemically and physiologically hardwired. So let them be—don't take anyone’s peace away—but don't take yours away either. At this time, you are no longer compatible with those folks. No fight, argument, resentment—facing that it may hurt, for sure, but accepting that it simply is that you've arrived on opposite ends of this table that’s too important to you. Bid them farewell for your own well-being, and theirs, and connect with safer parties.
In honour of you
Authenticity inevitably drops shame for peace in the midst of this aspect of life. True self-acceptance, as you are, self-love, self-trust, allows you to leave all the victim-shaming where it is, and expand your comfort zone to be okay with the messy phase of being the victim.
Finally, authenticity is not static. As we grow, we find new perspectives, angles and layers, which we could not have seen before “now”, that allow us to step even more comfortably into the fullness of our truth. Perhaps even a lens that you have never seen anywhere outside of yourself. This is why it begins with loving yourself as you are, now.
If we want a better world, it really does start with each of us being authentic. Authenticity steps outside of fear, and finds love. Love that is always, and was always, there. This sparks a deeper love of self, and self-love overflows to all we encounter, inevitably. That is what creates a better world.
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About Crystal-Marie
Crystal-Marie Sealy, MBA, is a dedicated mom, keynote speaker, two-time best-selling author and strategy consultant. As author and speaker, Crystal-Marie is focused on resilience through authenticity, self-acceptance and individual sovereignty. Her business talks are around mindful entrepreneurship through pricing, lean process, and feasible schedules for inspired creativity and focused productivity. As a strategy consultant, and president and founder of Crystal-Marie Sealy—previously Successiory (2011-2019)—Crystal-Marie's signature "Mindful Entrepreneurship for Mindful Affluence™" empowers premium service professionals to create businesses they can truly thrive in. Good-bye rat race. Hello blue ocean. Earn more. Work less. Live abundantly. Connect with Crystal-Marie at www.CrystalMarieSealy.com
