Why are we blaming men?

Social media of late is brimming with fault finding fingers pointed squarely at particularly disagreeable male conduct. Sexual abuse, harassment, domestic violence and inequality, it is said, generally arises within relationships as a result of power imbalances in favour of men.

Whilst the energy signature in each particular instance in similar, I will touch upon domestic violence to illustrate why continuing to apportion blame is not the answer if we want to animate tangible change.

My qualifications on the issue of domestic violence spans a lifetime. The coercive behaviour I have experienced include death threats from men in my life, and resulted in limitations being placed on my life choices. My understanding of the male population at the time, was that they were very angry individuals indeed.

Do I blame them? Am I a victim?

No.

In fact, they showed me I needed to learn how to free up my capacity to make my own choices: loving ones. Why is this opinion unpopular? Because people find it hard to be kind to the seemingly unkind.

There is no ‘I’ in team

It was just over two years ago I sat in the Family Court of Australia’s ‘safe room’ as a client in my own family law case. With around 10 other women safely stowed in that room, we were ‘protected’ from our estranged partners, who, interestingly, were free to roam the court.

Locked in that stuffy room on a hot day felt like imprisonment on some level. Poetry really, for as I will explain, we had imprisoned ourselves. Our world is always reflecting our beliefs.

As we sat there waiting for our individual barristers to report back with filtered negotiations, we each exchanged pleasantries with a common denominator resembling ‘what are you in for?’ Trusted bonds formed as the day passed. One woman giggled in relief as she reflected on the feelings of that ‘poor woman’ whose ex-partner was shouting in the court foyer earlier in the day. Knowing looks were exchanged.?

I confessed, that whilst that particular estranged might have once had a deep connection to me, I was no longer the ‘poor woman’. I pointed out that my present state of confinement, arose directly from my own past choices.

I was an enabler.

I had the choice to assert my boundaries at the beginning of the relationship, but instead allowed his advances to encroach into my space despite the very loud signals telling me to run for the hills.

For some reason, I had felt ‘powerless’ to walk away. This of course, was an illusion based on my own belief systems. Around twenty-nine years prior to my leaving, my ‘unlovable self’ needed someone to love me. His dubious behaviour back then justified by fantasies like: ‘if I was more perfect, everything will be okay’. A fun game!

Enablers, as I once was, are often people pleasers who tend to ignore the early signs of co-dependency, instead, running the overriding rule: ‘I will do what you want, so you will approve of me.’ Sometimes we even live under the odd delusion that we can change someone else’s behaviour! The reasons really don’t matter, we are all looking for love at some level.

If I had remained, the ‘poor woman’ or ‘victim’ I would have kept the spark of that dysfunctional team I lived within, alive. This is true for all relationships where there is a so-called power imbalance. If there were no oppressed, there could be no oppressor. We all contribute to our relationships.

Why then do we blame the men?

For the most part it is men who are perceived as exhibiting aggressive behaviour. Despite this, society continues to view mildly aggressive or passive aggressive behaviour as acceptable, or even necessary in positions of perceived power.

The archetype of the fearless and powerful male might appear to be desirable or successful, however, all forms of aggression are fear-based. This type of energy is what Dr David Hawkins refers to as a force and is only pursued where lack of love is present.

This is not true power.

Characteristic of a tuning fork, you resonate with like energetic frequencies. For me I held a dominant fear that I needed a man in my life for protection, to keep me safe … and loved. I too perceived a lack of love in my life.

But fear plus fear does not equal love and these relationships are formed from a genuinely fear-based attraction which evolves into co-dependency. There can be no apportionment of blame in the equality of energetic resonance.

What creates the fear state?

Fear can only exist where there is a disconnection from unconditional love of self.

You create your own fears as part of life’s game - with a little help from your friends. As children our ‘tribes’ taught us to follow rules which created irrational limitations for us to experience more fully later in adult life. In overcoming these rules, or limitations, you learn who you are as your consciousness evolves.

?‘Boys don’t cry’ is a popular societal rule.?Another is ‘be a nice girl’. There are thousands of rules we unconsciously follow and the specifics are irrelevant, however, we embody them obediently in the fear that our tribes otherwise won’t love and care for us. ‘Parental control’ and the idea of power imbalance becomes familiar to you in your early years. It is simply an imbalance within the self, which feels like something (love) is missing.

Moving past blame in the game.

Blame simply says that someone is not doing what I want them to do. Effectively, you are trying to control someone. You want power over them. It is just not possible to control or regulate anyone else. Ever.

If you want peace, your focus must be on feeling peace, within yourself.

Some tips:

1. Notice when you use the word ‘should’, ‘ought’ or ‘must’ for yourself or others. These words contain obligations that someone, or yourself, needs behave in a certain way. In the peaceful state there is no obligation upon anyone to do anything. In my case, I imposed obligations that men in my life ‘should not’ get angry. This is an irrational belief. What I had to learn was that anger is an acceptable emotion; we are incomplete without it. When I accepted that idea, I was no longer reactive to anger as I was not pushing it away. Energetically, I had softened my resistance (fear) and consequently no longer resonated with that particular energy. The relationship dissolved accordingly.
2. For those displaying immature emotions (yourself included), imagine toddlers learning how to walk. You can hold compassion for them understanding that they are merely discovering themselves in their quest to emotionally mature. You can respond by modelling preferred behaviour as opposed to animating the negative energy.
3. We are one. If I blame you, I am blaming me too.

You may tire of me repeating ‘it’s all energy’, yet we need to approach solutions from this perspective. Society is doing the thing they are saying not to do, via attempted regulation. When we try to control someone, by telling them they cannot control another, not only is that hypocritical, we are using force against force. All this creates is greater resistance.

We need to create flow.

The door to the flow state, or peace, started opening for me when I learned compassion. I saw that everyone is doing their best based on their own limitations. I have no control over the behaviour of others, only my responses are relevant to how my life feels to me.

As I learned that I create my environment, I softened energetically and became free to play the game my way. Softening seems counterintuitive, however, this is reclamation of true personal power. Blaming men for how I was playing my game, was effectively self-harm as it kept me locked in my prison of self-limitation.

Compassion is based in love. True love is freedom. I am free.

I believe the way society approaches peaceful solutions is past it’s used-by date. You may think so too. These are my experiential perspectives which are not based in common legal or health advice. I trust you to discern what you find of value in my ramblings and leave the rest behind.?

For guidance on finding your own peaceful solutions visit www.colaw.love or email Virginia directly at [email protected]