Blaming the Victim

"What goes around, comes around."
I looked at the man telling me this - a phrase he had used often before, and noticed a change in his eyes as he spoke. The tone of his voice was altered subtly as well. At the time I was unable to place the change, or the significance, but years later I see that this was when I lost my support network of new-age healers; people I called friends.

All because of karma.

Generally, karma is "....understood as a term to denote the entire cycle of cause and effect as described in the philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism....The effects of all deeds actively create past, present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to others." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma). When I was first introduced to the concept, it sounded logical to me. It is often perceived as a kind of cosmic tally system, so it was also reassuring to be told that if I choose to do the right things, I would be cosmically rewarded, whereas those who did wrong would be punished at some stage - whether in this life or the next. I didn't see the flip-side of this at the time: those people who I saw suffering for no apparent reason must be receiving karmic punishment. By extension, they therefore deserve whatever is happening to them. Either that or they have a massive reward coming in the next life.

Some believers in karma; people like self-professed psychic Sylvia Browne, for example, believe that "we choose who and what kind of person we'll be before we come here, and that we even write our own blueprint to chart exactly what we want to accomplish on this brief trip." (http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000019790,00.html?sym=QUE)

This kind of belief system is all well and good when things in your life aren't too terrible, and will see you through some of the problems you may encounter in your life. Spiritual and new-age communities pride themselves on how they pull together to assist each other and heal each other through difficulties. When a bad thing happens; when you become a victim (whether of circumstance or illness) "...it is just an experience or lesson that we acquire to have in this life in order to learn something in order to maintain balance in our evolution at a soul level." (http://www.freespiritcentre.info/articles/8/92_time_for_healing/). This can be tolerated for some experiences, and to a point, but what I want to write about here is the other side of karma. I want to discuss the side that you find yourself on when ‘healers’ believe that the only person to blame for your illness, or your tragedy, is you.

Years ago I had one of those periods in my life that many people have to live through, when it seemed as if nothing would go right. Every week brought a new problem to deal with, and nothing seemed to get any easier as time passed. There were car accidents, illnesses, family funerals, exams, job changes, marriage breakdown … a long list of events that added stress and little happened to alleviate that stress. Looking back, I still think I handled it bravely. Work colleagues often commented on my ability to joke and smile through it all, and to just get on with life. My family and friends, however, eventually took a lot of it on the chin with me. At first I joked with them also, but in later conversations I began to break the veneer of strength and tell them how I felt I couldn’t cope any more, that the next thing to happen might just finish me off. When I say ‘later’, I mean after well over a year of these kinds of problems – not a few weeks.

My family were supportive, and always listened while I explained the latest drama, and how I felt about it all. My GP wanted to treat me for depression, which was another stressful issue - opposed as I was to taking drugs of any kind. My friends helped as best they could. They gave me massages, they listened, they recommended herbal teas or aromatherapy oils, and the ones who owned new-age retail and therapy businesses counseled me through the stress. At first they supported me – telling me that the attitude I had was good, and my positive approach would see me through. I fought off the ‘victim mentality’ for a long, long time. When I felt out of control they reminded me, that ‘everything happens for a reason’ and that I had lessons to learn from my experiences.  They encouraged me to look on this all as a positive period in my life, that my soul would be taking huge strides in its karmic development. They held meditations to give me strength to get through it, and added me to various remote healing sessions as well. I felt welcomed, and was regularly encouraged to open my heart and discuss how I was feeling. This was despite the fact I often apologized for only ever meeting them with more bad news. (I should probably add that I was not a passive ‘patient’. I was a massage and reflexology therapist myself at the time. I returned healing with healing, through both therapy and meditation).

I occasionally joked that I must have done something really terrible in a past life to deserve all these problems in this one. At some point that joke became more like a statement of fact to this group of friends. I sincerely believed that I was a casualty of fate, and that I was somehow making the wrong choices to follow my path. I thought that when I took avoiding action for one thing, the fact that something bad happened afterwards indicated that I should have just ‘gone with the flow’ in the first place, and accepted what was bound to happen one way or another. When I became ill, I agreed with my friends who followed the philosophy that: "Any disease or illness ALL started with ONE NEGATIVE THOUGHT. What disease we brought on ourselves, we are certainly, with a little help from Holistic therapies, capable of removing and eliminating. When your emotional conditions improve, you are well on the way to recovery!"
(http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant)

The intention behind all my treatments and therapy from my friends was designed to "Remove all the destruction, hate, blame, anger and guilt from [my] life and watch it be replaced with only love, peace of mind, happiness, harmony and laughter" (http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant/takecontrolofyourlife.htm). I stepped up efforts on everything that I felt was positive in my life – gave more healing, did more meditations, changed my diet to exclude meat, cut out as many ‘selfish treats’ as I could (chocolate, me-time, etc). After all: "A positive attitude towards life is the first step towards being healthy. Without a positve (sic) attitude, there is no cure for disease. With complete positivity, your body is immune to all illness. Of course, if your attitude towards life is negative, you will attract various negative forces into your life and body, such as cancer and breakdown of the immune system. The effects of the mind and body on health cannot be separated." (http://www.zenyoga.org/spiritual_healing.html)

However, time went on, more problems occurred, and my stress levels increased. Nothing seemed to be getting any better. I got fewer offers of assistance and healing, and realized that I was wearing myself out by giving more than I was getting. My treatments on others became less effective as I became more worn out, depressed and withdrawn. When my family told me to hang in there; that it couldn’t get any worse I pointed out that I had given up saying this because to me it seemed to invite more disaster. They said it would all get better in time, and I could only ask ‘when?’. I turned to my friends to ask what they thought I could be doing wrong; why couldn’t I make my life better. The response was along the lines of: "If you do not find all this within yourself:- true happiness, self love, self acceptance, contentment, peace of mind, harmony, pleasure, good grace, love, joy, gratitude and all the other things you are looking for, the reason is because YOU are simply not prepared to ALLOW those changes to take place in your life and put them into practice."
(http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant/whatthebleepdoweknow.htm)

I told them that I didn’t understand – of course I was allowing it: I welcomed it: I truly wanted it. Why on earth would I want things to stay as bad as they were? Some friends told me that subconsciously I must be gaining more from the attention and help that the various traumas brought me than I would from having nothing to worry about. I reminded them that most things were outside my control – accidents caused by the other driver; breakdowns in equipment I had no access to; illnesses; etc. Some responded that I had written my fate, and shouldn’t fight against it. The others still insisted I was subconsciously manipulating my life to be as difficult as possible – either for the education of my soul, or for the attention it could bring me. The conversation I mention at the start of this article was the last I had with that particular ‘friend’. I understood long before this that people can tire of constantly hearing about problems, and was usually very apologetic about having only bad news when asked about how I was getting on. I tried but struggled to find positive things with which to balance conversations. I was very self-conscious about leaning on my friends. I don’t think that these people distanced themselves because they became bored of hearing my problems – they would have stopped listening much earlier if that was the case. Indeed, they told me not to apologise, reminding me that they only had to listen to my problems – I had to live with them. Also, as I mentioned, there was a two-way flow of friendship and healing. I was not just a ‘taker’.

I attended many group meditations, and healing circles, and heard how other people were discussed. After a point it became clear that when things did not improve for a person, then the healers had to start a process by which they could divert blame from themselves. Those of us who accepted standard medical help – such as when I finally agreed with my GP to use anti-depressants – were vilified as having turned our backs on natural healing, and having no faith in the process or the healer. Many of us – all those who had longer term issues – were dismissed as not being open enough to accept the healing. We were too negative, and were inviting black forces into our lives. There was agreement that we were indeed ‘victims’ - but victims of our own negativity; not of any health or circumstantial situations.

I found an essay recently that clearly identifies this attitude:
It is called “Why Most People Don't Really Want To Heal“, by Kevin B. Burk. (http://www.freespiritcentre.info/articles/8/765_why_most_people_dont_really_/). This essay is a good example of the kind of thinking I am trying to explain here.  For example: "For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions that created and supported the imbalance and dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support balance and health."

A remote reiki healer that I have quoted a few times here claims that: "YOU MUST REMEMBER THOUGH, I remove all negative and replace everything with positive, but if you continue to keep thinking negative, you will keep cancelling out all the positive I placed there each day, so please USE positive affirmations, (tell yourself how you want to feel), this will help reinforce what I'm already doing with your mind and speed things up even more." (http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant). This kind of comment may at best be mildly useful to some people by encouraging them to take a more positive outlook, but I feel it is limited and arrogant in the assumptions made. It assumes that the person needing healing is not fully participating, and introduces an additional burden – the burden of guilt; because you are wasting the healer’s time by not responding appropriately, regardless of anything you do to try and improve your situation. I consider this attitude abusive.

I have several concerns over the issues I have raised here. Firstly is the mental abuse to those people most in need of help. To suggest that a person in trouble or ill health is contributing to their own demise is appalling and negligent to their emotional needs. All it does is absolve the healer of any involvement in the problem. Next is the issue of qualification. Regardless of how many courses these healers may have taken in the new-age environment, I have yet to meet any that are medically qualified to deal with these situations. They are not psychologists, and so have no knowledge of the damage that can be caused by what they tell their clients. They are not trained physicians, and so should never denigrate the use of drugs in favour of ‘alternative’ therapies. They are not speaking from a position of authority when they tell you that cancer is caused by nothing other than stress and negativity, no matter how confident they are in their assertions.

I overcame my circumstantial difficulties when at some point things just became easier – as my family had suggested they would. My health problems were finally resolved through conventional medical intervention; all without the primary requirement of faith. I am not saying it has all been easy since – life is rarely straightforward. However, gaining an acceptance that I don’t control or own every aspect of every thing in my life has made each problem easier to deal with. When you are in crisis, how can your situation be made any easier by subscribing to a healer who requires that you understand and accept their belief system, as a pre-requisite to completely accepting their ability? Why should any healing system require your unquestioning belief in it before it can work? It is no surprise that a person in crisis is unlikely to be in a place that’s 100% positive, so therefore it is ridiculous that any healing system would deny you relief based on the fact that you are, quite legitimately, disturbed by that very situation. Why should anyone even suggest that you are rejecting the very help you need?

I hope that no-one else has to undergo the crisis of faith I battled with, on top of handling the most difficult situations I had ever faced in my life. It was possibly more harmful to me than the events and illnesses themselves to have to confront the fact that faith in these things was not enough, and worse – it was not working. I relied on my faith to carry me through each crisis, but my faith was also telling me that each crisis was of my own creation. That was very dangerous to my mental health and held me back from taking the appropriate practical actions to resolve the situations for far too long.

If you are suffering, and are having a similar crisis of faith, I hope that my story helps you to consider taking a different approach to your situation. Asking questions should never be considered a negative approach, because after all if a proponent of a faith system claims that it is positive and helpful, then they should be able to withstand a few queries and be glad to further your understanding – shouldn’t they?

As for anyone telling you that you have purposely invited negative events into your life, remember what many wise people have said: ‘sometimes … shit happens’.