The Unexpected Balance in Unbalanced Experiences

I’ve had something on my mind quite a bit lately that I’d like to share.?It has to do with experiences in life and duality.?It requires a certain sort of viewpoint to follow properly, and some of the notions could be a bit triggering to some because of the way I will frame it, but I will do my best to address what I perceive as potentially triggering inline.?I have no idea if this will help anyone here, or enlighten anyone in any way, but I wanted to offer it for whatever service it may offer anyone who chooses to read it.

The reason why some of what I have to say may be triggering is because it relates to personal sovereignty.?I’m not talking mere about the political sense of this, meaning that each citizen is free and sovereign, and appropriate government is based on true consent.?What I’m talking about here goes deeper.?This is about taking the radical step to accept responsibility for the actual experiences in your life, no matter how difficult, scary, triggering/wounding, or otherwise challenging to find the courage to face.?Those places where it’s tempting to adopt the widespread misconception that other people visit events, etc into your life without your consent.

Admittedly, this is triggering because on the surface it looks like victim-blaming.?But what I’m talking about includes no such things as blame.?They have no place in it.?Not for others who participated in your life experience, positive, middling, horrible, or otherwise.?Not for yourself, whether from others or from yourself.?It has no place in the idea I’m talking about.

Sovereignty, in the way I’m talking about it here, is beyond blame, shame, fear, etc.?You cannot simultaneously be a truly sovereign being AND be a victim to someone else.?You have to choose which way you want to go.?But know that if you choose the victim/victimizer view of the world, your experiences will bring you exactly that, life experience evidence that confirms that worldview, that view of the other beings that share this Earth.?I cannot tell you which way to go, only that what lies ahead in this piece may trigger you if you are not ready to choose the sovereign path.

Now to the heart of what I wanted to write about today.?I’ll talk a bit more about sovereignty before the end, but for now this.

I have found that there is a curious, though entirely appropriate sort of qualitative proportionality between the depth/intensity of “bad” experiences and the wisdom and fulfillment I get once I’m truly on the other side of them.

I have, of course, strived not to be a monster, and at least for the most part I believe that I have achieved this over-arching goal so far.?But that doesn’t mean that I have been without monstrous moments and acts in this life, misgivings that have haunted me after, chased me relentlessly until I finally gave in and looked at what I had done, acknowledged it, at least to myself, grieve for what I’ve done, both for the harm I’ve done for others and for the consequent wounds I gave myself in the act, the very ones I was grieving.?It was once I finally allowed them, allowed this thing to have been true about me at those times that I was finally able to let them go and see these wounds healed within me.?And the rewards in wisdom and fulfillment on the other side of these sometimes cathartic events met or surpassed the pain and other discomfort I endured on the experiential journey of reaching that healing.

A curious thing about all of this is that the only forgiveness that actually matters is your own.?Even if someone you hurt does forgive you, it’s no guarantee that you’ll forgive yourself.?And you forgiving yourself does not actually depend on someone you’ve wronged forgiving you.?There’s nothing wrong with seeking that closure, with extending that olive branch towards healing (seeking forgiveness).?But I think it’s first important to ask how your pursuit of forgiveness will affect those you are seeking it from.

Do they really want you to dig up old, painful memories??They may be long over it.?Are you giving them closure, or opening an old wound they may have not wanted to revisit?

It’s important in this pursuit of forgiveness, however benign the intentions may seem, to be sure that you are pursuing it in an unselfish manner.

Your own forgiveness is the one that can usher in actual healing, at least in my experience.?Your own acceptance of yourself as a sometimes “flawed” human being (aren’t we all).?And your own acknowledgement that this is the person you used to be, not the person who grew and evolved from these experiences.?Whether or not others are ready to see you as the person who grew from them is a nice-to-have, but not a must-have.?If they don’t see it, it’s up to you to show it to them through your words and deeds.?Be patient.?Some may have difficultly trusting, depending on how much they believe you’ve wronged them.

And this brings us back to sovereignty.?The other thing I’d like to share, and this is from extremely recent, very much IRL experience, is that the heart of sovereignty, really, really getting sovereignty from a lived-experience, phenomenological sort of place, means actually trusting your own life and what it brings you so much that you can no longer fear what it may bring.

For me, this has been the possibility of dire consequences for speaking my truths on LI.?I found that when the last shred of hope I had that a community I was part of (another, not this one) might value me enough to want to mobilize some effort to ensure my well-being, once the shock and hurty feelings of it had a chance to dissipate (they just don’t stick around long for me anymore), and I had a few minutes to regain my composure, allow these energies to leave the center of my being because they do not harmonize with it (they are incapable of knocking me out of it), I felt a relief.?I felt a profound, indescribable peace that I don’t recall ever knowing.?The best description that I can give for it is that it was like a hug from my soul, a deep, personal reassurance that acting and speaking my truth is what I’m here to do.?And that no matter what experience it brings me, it will turn out to be exactly the one that serves me in the best way.

As I look back over my life, and contemplate the events in it where, at the time, I felt hurt, wronged, or in some way like a victim, when I found myself seemingly falling into experiences that I did not feel I wanted, whatever had come my way turned out in hindsight to be far better than it looked coming at me head-on.?It’s usually been something along the line of “if not this thing happening, I would not have met this person, and I would not want to have missed them”, or “… I would not have had this experience that I didn’t even know I would enjoy”, and so forth.

There were always hidden gems.?Always.?But I needed eyes keen enough to spot them, and a mind open enough to be capable of appreciating them for what they really brought me after the dust cleared.?And now I find I need (and have) the trust that they are there, whether or not I can see any sign of them, and that whatever crazy, serendipitous new story movement is coming my way, on the other side of it I will be so glad it did that I wouldn’t dream of taking it back.

So it’s just that.?You can choose to view your life through a lens of sovereignty, even if sometimes you wish you’d quit bringing yourself experiences you wish you wouldn’t, or you can choose to view it through a frame of victims and victimizers (an easy and popular frame to choose), and keep the wound-y patterns in your life falling into the strange (and not-so-good) attractors that have been bringing you these unwanted patterns.?It’s not some magical cure, but even beginning to challenge this framing may help move the needle a bit, if you’re brave enough to try it.

What I’m describing here in terms of sovereignty is not significantly different than teachings generally labeled as related to “Law of Attraction”.?The difference is that I’m focusing on the _metaphysics_ that describe how your life brings you the things it does.?LOA teachings have a strong tendency to focus on the results, the outcomes, which is not only a poor substitute for the prize of understanding the metaphysics that brought them to you so that you can meaningfully change your experiences, but which, frankly, tends to strongly muddy the waters by introducing attachment (to the results) to the mix.?In my experience, attachment tends to stand in the way of anything that might remotely be called legitimate magical or miraculous acts (as distinguished from illusionism), even private ones.?That principle isn’t exactly unknown, either.?Buddhism talks about the hazards of attachment.

Your choices go much further than you may think.?If you leave other people out of them as much as possible (focusing on your own choices, affecting and involving only you), and if you’re willing to at least consider some of what I’m suggesting, you may be surprised by how much you can shift your own everyday experiences with little more than a change of perception, a reframing of beliefs, a willingness to suspend disbelief in things you really *want* to be true (including, for example, your own success), but can’t quite seem to convince yourself about deep inside.?Even nudging your beliefs can make a difference.

As a final note, and to be extremely clear, though I would hope nobody here would doubt the truth of this without it, nothing I've said here is meant to be substitute for or rationale against meaningful social changes that remove more of the possibility of the victim/victimizer dynamics (I do not contest their reality, nor that they can be deeply problematic, only whether this victim-based framing really helps us), nor does it elide the necessity of meaningful solutions thereto, nor does it excuse not collectively pursuing such solutions.

This metaphysics is not an excuse for a lack of human empathy and understanding. You choosing to act from your sovereignty does not excuse expecting others to be ready to take the same step, and lacking empathy for their situation is not compassionate. In other words, you can't force others to join you there (or even to see you clearly when you are there), or judge them for not doing so. You can only choose it for yourself, and attempt to provide an example for others through this choice. Using this knowledge to blame people for their situations is not appropriate or kind, even if technically true when viewed through a cold, apathetic, and rather unhelpful lens.