Responsibility, forgiveness and traumas?

[Shad282]

I was wondering do you think that in almost all traumas, there is no an offender and a victim ?

 

There is always some kind of responsibility in which the victim creates an environment for which it attracts the offender? (on different levels)

 

and would you think forgiveness in traumas actually work ? because forgiveness is a way of blaming the other person for what happened. Like when something happened, you go like, i forgive you for what you have done, which comes in way of blaming the other person for what happened and we remove our responsibility of what happened, thus leads to no healing and moving on to happen.

or else you can just throw forgiveness around and done you healed your traumas.

 

what do you think ?

[qicat]

interesting topic...

few thoughts from kitty's head...

 

1. Forgiveness means there is no energy charge attached to the situation anymore. For example, you had a girlfriend ( "first love") at 13 and she was not nice to you. You got hurt. She probably was not aware at all at the situation. Ten years passed. You are at 23 college graduate with cool job/Tesla/" i.e. "great marriage catch", but you won't be able to walk to that girl and talk to her because you are still mad/hurt/upset. Notice, I added "first love" for a purpose to show the degree of emotions involved... I noticed this is the most common pattern of "forgiveness" ( besides "heavy" family/parents stuff), which actually requires "healing" vs. some imaginary "my mother did not buy me a toy when I was 5, so this is a reason for my 20 years depression" crap modern psychology is feeding common public with. So, release the charge and you will forgive, but not forget... Used on self, it works in general.

 

2. Responsibility. Rabbit hole here for sure... first, if you buy into non-duality, what's the point of victim/attacker? yada yada yada... If you you buy into "fate", then there is no responsibility by definition as "it was meant to be by karma" blah blah blah stuff. I think you just need to use your internal moral compass for this. I've heard even Buddha killed someone... so...If your internal moral compass ( assuming you understand what Virtue means and how to accumulate it) is tuned, responsibility would kind of be "part of the package" ( i.e. I take responsibility for my own actions. I.e. if I am being bully on a forum, I understand I will be banned, but I have made my choice - just an example)...

 

3. Trauma...I am still thinking about "what is trauma"? Mental stuff vs actual energy "stuck" in organs/field. If you do qigong purging stuff/go to healers/do other stuff, why some people after doing it for 30-40 years are still in the same "trauma" mode? It is very simple to get them to the "breaking point" for me, I just start asking questions and usually they start crying pretty soon. In 20 questions of less cat can get all your traumas out... but are you willing to look at it? ( ANSWER IS NO)

 

p.s. What other person?...

Edited March 22, 2017 by qicat

[Prasanna]

interesting topic...

few thoughts from kitty's head...

 

1. Forgiveness means there is no energy charge attached to the situation anymore. For example, you had a girlfriend ( "first love") at 13 and she was not nice to you. You got hurt. She probably was not aware at all at the situation. Ten years passed. You are at 23 college graduate with cool job/Tesla/" i.e. "great marriage catch", but you won't be able to walk to that girl and talk to her because you are still mad/hurt/upset. Notice, I added "first love" for a purpose to show the degree of emotions involved... I noticed this is the most common pattern of "forgiveness" ( besides "heavy" family/parents stuff), which actually requires "healing" vs. some imaginary "my mother did not buy me a toy when I was 5, so this is a reason for my 20 years depression" crap modern psychology is feeding common public with. So, release the charge and you will forgive, but not forget... Used on self, it works in general.

 

2. Responsibility. Rabbit hole here for sure... first, if you buy into non-duality, what's the point of victim/attacker? yada yada yada... If you you buy into "fate", then there is no responsibility by definition as "it was meant to be by karma" blah blah blah stuff. I think you just need to use your internal moral compass for this. I've heard even Buddha killed someone... so...If your internal moral compass ( assuming you understand what Virtue means and how to accumulate it) is tuned, responsibility would kind of be "part of the package" ( i.e. I take responsibility for my own actions. I.e. if I am being bully on a forum, I understand I will be banned, but I have made my choice - just an example)...

 

3. Trauma...I am still thinking about "what is trauma"? Mental stuff vs actual energy "stuck" in organs/field. If you do qigong purging stuff/go to healers/do other stuff, why some people after doing it for 30-40 years are still in the same "trauma" mode? It is very simple to get them to the "breaking point" for me, I just start asking questions and usually they start crying pretty soon. In 20 questions of less cat can get all your traumas out... but are you willing to look at it? ( ANSWER IS NO)

 

p.s. What other person?...

>>> p.s. What other person?... <<<

Good question. Isn't that feeling of non identification with others the real cause of responsibility, forgiveness and traumas in first place?

[Prasanna]

I was wondering do you think that in almost all traumas, there is no an offender and a victim ?

 

There is always some kind of responsibility in which the victim creates an environment for which it attracts the offender? (on different levels)

 

and would you think forgiveness in traumas actually work ? because forgiveness is a way of blaming the other person for what happened. Like when something happened, you go like, i forgive you for what you have done, which comes in way of blaming the other person for what happened and we remove our responsibility of what happened, thus leads to no healing and moving on to happen.

or else you can just throw forgiveness around and done you healed your traumas.

 

what do you think ?

From the absolute point, there is no forgiveness since there is no difference like I or you or others. We are relatively existing in this limitation of Body, mind, Intellect and Ego. But it is very difficult to rise to that absolute level. Yet we all can practice forgiveness to the extent we can so that we don't carry anymore sins but earn grace and virtue. Can you imagine how heavy a heart that does not know to forgive is? It is ridden with confusions and agitation which obscure it of the Reality or Supreme bliss. One quote says that "Forgiveness is the fragrance that a violet releases as the foot crushes it". Forgiveness should be so spontaneous and instantaneous. ...and we need not even carry the excess burden of that egoistic stance that 'I' have forgiven.

[Brian]

It is my observation that people responsible for creating the environment for traumatic experience and those responsible for the traumatic experience itself are often not the direct recipients of that trauma. We might expand the discussion to include secondary or tertiary trauma or to include past-life karmic responsibilities but I think the former is missing the point and the latter speculation.

[s1va]

It is my observation that people responsible for creating the environment for traumatic experience and those responsible for the traumatic experience itself are often not the direct recipients of that trauma. We might expand the discussion to include secondary or tertiary trauma or to include past-life karmic responsibilities but I think the former is missing the point and the latter speculation.

 

Oh.. That's not expansion, it is taking it to a whole new dimension of a complicated maze.  who knows?  the answer may be there, if we can solve it.

 

Why not simply forgive?  We need to forgive ourselves, there is no progress without that.  In order to forgive ourselves, we need to forgive all others.  It is a package deal, we can't get the former without the latter.

[rene]

It is my observation that people responsible for creating the environment for traumatic experience and those responsible for the traumatic experience itself are often not the direct recipients of that trauma. We might expand the discussion to include secondary or tertiary trauma or to include past-life karmic responsibilities but I think the former is missing the point and the latter speculation.

In other words... the members of the sub-set depend on the size and nature of the circle you scribe? Just trying to follow your idea. Thanks!

[Brian]

In other words... the members of the sub-set depend on the size and nature of the circle you scribe? Just trying to follow your idea. Thanks!

The first few drops of rain send ripples in all directions across the surface of a pond. The ripples interact with each other and with the contours of the shore, and the patterns, though intricate, are recognizable. As the rain intensifies, however, the patterns become too complex for us to follow and it seems like noise.

 

The waves in the ocean are caused not by raindrops but by distant winds -- generally winds beyond the horizon and often winds in the past. We notice the patterns, and the effects from interacting wave fronts caused by different winds, but we don't see the direct correlation between wind and wave.

 

Sometimes there is value in expanding our field of vision to include broader influences in our analyses but sometimes that merely devolves to noise. Sometimes, too, we seek to fit events to our notions by including additional influences until the pattern "fits" and then stopping our process of discovery.

 

A specific case in point...

 

A 31-year-old man in Long Island, NY, gets in a confrontation in a bar with a woman -- a drug deal gone wrong. He ends up beating her in the parking lot and stabs her several times.

 

He returns to his girlfriend's apartment. It seems she wasn't there but her 2-year-old daughter was. He violently sexually abuses the little girl to the extent that surgery is needed but the damages are permanent. When the girlfriend comes home, he takes the knife to her, too.

 

The police learn that he is an illegal alien from El Salvador who has been deported four times before. He acknowledges that he is a member of the gang known as MS-13 and he has at least one prior criminal conviction in the US. The location where all this occurred is a "sanctuary city."

 

Lots of opportunities here to explore, philosophizing about victims and responsibilities and environment and society and root causes, but it seems hard to place any responsibility on the 2-year-old girl.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Brian

[rene]

Thanks for elaborating, and well put.

 

Sometimes, too, we seek to fit events to our notions by including additional influences until the pattern "fits" and then stopping our process of discovery.

Very much so. Most find what already fits with what they think. Perpetual imo applied.

[Brian]

Thanks for elaborating, and well put.

 

 

Very much so. Most find what already fits with what they think. Perpetual imo applied.

It is at least uncomfortable and potentially shattering to discover our strongly-held beliefs are fundamentally flawed and foundationally inadequate. It is no wonder that we generally choose to rationalize and stop looking.

[blue eyed snake]

It might be sort of easy to write philosophically about trauma and forgiveness.

 

It's not so easy when you're carrying real trauma.

 

Forgiveness is the answer, but forgiveness is much more than a word/concept.

 

real forgiveness comes ( or is a quality) from the heart, when the heart opens the possibility of forgiveness arises ( and when you try to forgive, the heart can open itself a bit),

 

when you let it, forgiveness becomes a process of the heart, ever expanding, both the forgiveness and the energetic heart.

 

They are closely related.

 

Crux here is that people that are traumatized tend to close up there hearts. Think of that little girl Brian mentioned, how can she ever become trustful and open again, how can she open her heart...

 

BES

[Shad282]

It might be sort of easy to write philosophically about trauma and forgiveness.

 

It's not so easy when you're carrying real trauma.

 

Forgiveness is the answer, but forgiveness is much more than a word/concept.

 

real forgiveness comes ( or is a quality) from the heart, when the heart opens the possibility of forgiveness arises ( and when you try to forgive, the heart can open itself a bit),

 

when you let it, forgiveness becomes a process of the heart, ever expanding, both the forgiveness and the energetic heart.

 

They are closely related.

 

Crux here is that people that are traumatized tend to close up there hearts. Think of that little girl Brian mentioned, how can she ever become trustful and open again, how can she open her heart...

 

BES

 

but how would you teach forgiveness ? A lot of times as i mentioned forgiveness is seen as you are blaming the person and so you forgive them for what they did, and in this way forgiveness is some kind of separation.

 

And a lot of people speak about forgiveness, but no one effectively teach it. I can just throw i forgive that person and feel like i forgave him, but nothing changes or heals. and i think it is because of a sense of separation and blaming that is in it.

[Shad282]

Lots of opportunities here to explore, philosophizing about victims and responsibilities and environment and society and root causes, but it seems hard to place any responsibility on the 2-year-old girl.

 

 

Maybe you can ? the soul already chose that life, and this family and all what was going to happen, prior to coming to life in the body of the 2 years old girl. 

 

or the soul chooses what it wants to learn or the energetic environment that want to experience and so align itself with that situation and those people. (this assumption is valid, if we consider law of oneness or law of attraction)

 

what do you think?

Edited March 26, 2017 by Shad282

[Michael Sternbach]

In this discussion, we should consider what we mean by 'responsibility'. The way this concept is usually understood, no, the 2 years old girl clearly had no responsibility for what happened to her.

 

Does this mean she was just victim to circumstances that she otherwise played no part in? I don't look at it that way. This is a difficult topic though.

 

I will use another example to try to elaborate on my perspective, one that I have personally learned of. It involved a girl at elementary school age who was raped by a friend of her parents who was supposed to look after her for an night. Now her family was from a rigid orthodox Christian background, and talking about sexual things was pretty much taboo. This contributed to the girl's feelings of shame, and she never told her parents about what had happened.

 

When she reached adulthood, she had tried to commit suicide three times. She developed the normal sexual yearnings of an adolescent, but felt very inhibited in their expression, which affected her relationships in most unfortunate ways.

 

This obviously had much to do with the incident in her childhood, but it was my conclusion as a counsellor that she had also absorbed negative beliefs about sexuality from her parents (beliefs that had been reinforced by what happened to her).

 

With all compassion for her conflicted psyche, I did not regard her being born into such an environment in the first place as coincidental. The repressive beliefs that came with it had become her own, and in all likelihood already had been hers in past incarnations, and I felt it was for a reason that she had to work with them in this painful manner in her present life.

 

So did the man that her parents had entrusted her to, who was part of the enactment of this drama. And it is hardly coincidental that he later died of cancer slowly and painfully.

 

I do believe that we accept/create all our experiences on some level in order to work out certain issues, even over many lifetimes, as they are necessary contributions to the evolution of our souls and all of creation.

[blue eyed snake]

but how would you teach forgiveness ? A lot of times as i mentioned forgiveness is seen as you are blaming the person and so you forgive them for what they did, and in this way forgiveness is some kind of separation.

 

And a lot of people speak about forgiveness, but no one effectively teach it. I can just throw i forgive that person and feel like i forgave him, but nothing changes or heals. and i think it is because of a sense of separation and blaming that is in it.

 

yeah, well...

 

I'm not the one who can teach forgiveness...other people whom I respect deeply have tried it and there's no worldwide forgiveness yet.

 

but I can try to write what I think about it.

 

First the separation-thingie. There's much talk about oneness, but as long as you're not living that, the other is just that, the other. Some of us may have some growing towards the 'being one' but for most people it's nonexistent, for some a feeble starters. Can be a mostly intellectual realization, or having moments that you totally feel the truth of it.

 

When I try to get back the feeling of "the other is ( just like) me" I visualize that other as a being of light, as if she is emanating light from her heart.

 

The the idea of karma, that the raped little girl has some sort of 'responsibility' for being assaulted/abused/raped, or that she 'chose' it before she was born in that body. There are many who do not share this idea. Even though my knowledge of such things is only superficial, I think Christians would say something like "it's god's will and even when we do not understand his will, we have to be content that it's for the ultimate good. Or that it has to do with the sins of the fathers/ original sin. Taoist might regard it as just what is. Things happen, nice things and awful things, pleasure and pain, health and sickness, all without a 'big plan behind it' but still as humans we have to deal with it. I will go along with your idea of 'karma' but remember, karma is sort of unpersonal, it has nothing to do with 'sin' and paying for sins you have committed. that is an idea stemming from christianity.

 

When you would put it like that to a grownup, traumatized person. He or she would probably feel attacked, thereby getting more into his ego-boundaries. So as point of view for you yourself it may be useful, but i think you cannot transplant that to others. ( I mean, you can think about it that way, but its counterproductive to talk about it to people who do not share that idea)

 

Still, for the sake of the discussion, the idea of karma may about right. In that case the first step is to forgive with the intellect, then with the heart. 

 

You write  " I can just throw i forgive that person and feel like i forgave him, but nothing changes or heals." 

 

to me that means your forgiveness is not yet from the heart but on the intellectual plane, that's the first and important step. When forgiveness is felt by the heart thing do change, as i mentioned earlier. But I cannot help you as how to reach that state, because i do not really know how I arrived there myself. ( and it's not complete either, its a process, like the budding of a rose)

 

But it does have to do with really feeling the hurt that you felt as a 'separate person' being hurt by another separate person. I suspect many people do not want to feel their hurt, and in the case of trauma the hurt is so big that i cannot but feel compassion for their fear for there own feelings/pain/hurt.

 

When you are able to relive all the old pain there comes a moment that the hurt sort of dissolves and thereby does not stick to the original perpetrator anymore. At that moment you can see his/ her pain, his/her old patterns and then the uselessness of it all becomes clear. Then the heart opens and the process of forgiveness is starting.

 

At the moment I think, going along with the karma idea, that the next step is to forgive yourself in a larger sense. 

 

meaning: when you can forgive the original perpetrator and you're sort of aware that it is rebouncing karma. Then the next step is the realization that you yourself have probably been just such an asshole in some former life. And that asshole needs to be forgiven too... And after that i suspect another step, but thats too tentative to talk about,

 

love BES

[cold]

So the circle continues unbroken.

 

A person acts creating suffering, knowingly or unknowingly, suffering is endured, forgiveness occurs or not, actions continue, suffering is caused, forgiveness ...

 

Does:

awakening asking for forgiveness before stirring each day reduce release some suffering?

attempting to cause the least amount of harm lessen the suffering?

accepting many others aren't self aware, and don't intend harm negate their harmful behavior?

[Shad282]

....

The the idea of karma, that the raped little girl has some sort of 'responsibility' for being assaulted/abused/raped, or that she 'chose' it before she was born in that body. There are many who do not share this idea. Even though my knowledge of such things is only superficial, I think Christians would say something like "it's god's will and even when we do not understand his will, we have to be content that it's for the ultimate good. Or that it has to do with the sins of the fathers/ original sin. Taoist might regard it as just what is. Things happen, nice things and awful things, pleasure and pain, health and sickness, all without a 'big plan behind it' but still as humans we have to deal with it. I will go along with your idea of 'karma' but remember, karma is sort of unpersonal, it has nothing to do with 'sin' and paying for sins you have committed. that is an idea stemming from christianity.

 

.....

At the moment I think, going along with the karma idea, that the next step is to forgive yourself in a larger sense. 

 

meaning: when you can forgive the original perpetrator and you're sort of aware that it is rebouncing karma. Then the next step is the realization that you yourself have probably been just such an asshole in some former life. And that asshole needs to be forgiven too... And after that i suspect another step, but thats too tentative to talk about,

 

love BES

 

I get you but i m not linking that to karma and sins and such. I m saying that the spirit wanted to gain experience or learn something from this life or specific situation and so it aligned a goal to achieve on this earth. which in the case of the 2 years old girl.... the girl as a spirit before coming to materialization into a human body it chose to come to this reality to experience such kind of "energy situation" to learn what it came to learn and such. not because of a sin or Karma from past life.

 

 

In this discussion, we should consider what we mean by 'responsibility'. The way this concept is usually understood, no, the 2 years old girl clearly had no responsibility for what happened to her.

 

Does this mean she was just victim to circumstances that she otherwise played no part in? I don't look at it that way. This is a difficult topic though.

 

.....

 

 

I mean, a lot of people do believe in the law of attraction, as in you attract people that mirror you (and they are you aka law of the one) and your issues, which means they hold same energy, in order to trigger each others, heal and grow and get improve. 

 

But when things come to things that involves rape or kids or so, people do not feel right to make the person who got hurt and taken advantage of, have any responsibility to make this situation take place.

[Brian]

Maybe you can ? the soul already chose that life, and this family and all what was going to happen, prior to coming to life in the body of the 2 years old girl.

 

or the soul chooses what it wants to learn or the energetic environment that want to experience and so align itself with that situation and those people. (this assumption is valid, if we consider law of oneness or law of attraction)

 

what do you think?

This is idle speculation -- details not entered into evidence. Unless you claim to have a factual knowledge of that little girl's other lives and can point to specific actions taken by that person in another life (a crystal ball or a wayback machine, perhaps?), you are merely projecting your belief system onto that little girl.

 

Worse than that, though, you are establishing a cosmic judicial system in which you get to decide who deserves bad things to happen to them, who gets a free pass to do bad things, who is accumulating bad karma and who is balancing out an old imbalance. Perhaps that little girl deserved to be violently raped, perhaps the people mowed down in London last week deserved it because of past-life bad actions but perhaps the people against whom those people acted badly in a past life deserved it because of their actions in a prior past-life. Perhaps elephants deserve to be wiped out because they acted badly as rattlesnakes in a previous life. Perhaps South Koreans deserve to be nuked by North Korea but perhaps the US should nuke North Korea first because they earned in in a previous life. Perhaps the Brazilian rain forest deserves to be cut down and perhaps Europe deserves to collapse into anarchy and crushing tyranny. Perhaps the "victims" of ISIS deserve to be beheaded and perhaps the people living in the Middle East deserve to be nerve-gassed. It never ends, you see, and it is entirely at the discretion of the individual speculator. Wanna rape and rob and pillage? Justify it on the basis of the subject's past life. Not only did they deserve it but you actually did them a cosmic favor 'cause now they've paid off that karmic debt.

 

The idea of karma as a cosmic judicial system is whacked. This was one of the main reasons I rejected dharmic systems on a rational basis before I understood that this is a faulty understanding of karma.

[Brian]

I get you but i m not linking that to karma and sins and such. I m saying that the spirit wanted to gain experience or learn something from this life or specific situation and so it aligned a goal to achieve on this earth. which in the case of the 2 years old girl.... the girl as a spirit before coming to materialization into a human body it chose to come to this reality to experience such kind of "energy situation" to learn what it came to learn and such. not because of a sin or Karma from past life.

 

 

 

 

I mean, a lot of people do believe in the law of attraction, as in you attract people that mirror you (and they are you aka law of the one) and your issues, which means they hold same energy, in order to trigger each others, heal and grow and get improve.

 

But when things come to things that involves rape or kids or so, people do not feel right to make the person who got hurt and taken advantage of, have any responsibility to make this situation take place.

The spirit wanted to be raped as a two-year-old girl so she wasn't a victim? She asked for it?

 

Really sure that's the argument you wanna try to float???

[liminal_luke]

Maybe forgiveness in the larger sense involves moving beyond the concept of blame altogether.  This excerpt of a Rumi poem comes to mind...

 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.


When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense

[blue eyed snake]

Maybe forgiveness in the larger sense involves moving beyond the concept of blame altogether.  This excerpt of a Rumi poem comes to mind...

 

see, in some short words you say what I meant,

 

thank you

[Shad282]

The spirit wanted to be raped as a two-year-old girl so she wasn't a victim? She asked for it?

 

Really sure that's the argument you wanna try to float???

 

I m not on this website to argue or debate, i m here trying to share what i know and learn what other people know, if you want to argue and have debates on beliefs or such, please not on my thread. 

 

All i said, is that if we consider that law of oneness and the law of attraction apply in all situations, then how it fits this situation. 

 

from a spirit perspective, it is just a game and play on here, it is not so serious as your mind is living it. and yes it is possible for aligning with such situation, it is all about the lesson/teaching that will eventually learn. it is its own game and free to choose what it wants to experience within the limitation of this earth reality.

Edited March 26, 2017 by Shad282

[Brian]

Takes quite a twisted imagination to believe 'the law of attraction" (or any other philosophy) justifies the rape of a two-year-old with the rationalization that she wanted it but it's your thread...

 

You can put me on ignore if you wish.

 

<out>

Edited March 27, 2017 by Brian

[thelerner]

JUSTICE, Justice.   Punishment.  hurting the perpetrator and taking away an appropriate amount of there goods and freedom. 

 

Forgiveness is great,  it can great help the person victimized heal, but I give equal time and effort to Justice; and if when that means retribution and punishment, I can live with that. 

 

Justice and punishment help the healing and forgiveness process.  When a perpetrator gets off scot free or lightly, it creates another festering wandering wound. 

[roger]

I was wondering do you think that in almost all traumas, there is no an offender and a victim ?

 

There is always some kind of responsibility in which the victim creates an environment for which it attracts the offender? (on different levels)

 

and would you think forgiveness in traumas actually work ? because forgiveness is a way of blaming the other person for what happened. Like when something happened, you go like, i forgive you for what you have done, which comes in way of blaming the other person for what happened and we remove our responsibility of what happened, thus leads to no healing and moving on to happen.

or else you can just throw forgiveness around and done you healed your traumas.

 

what do you think ?

 

My view is that the only person we really need to forgive is ourselves.

 

The reason people have anger and hurt towards others is because of their own guilt, shame, and self-judgment.

 

When one forgives themselves, anger towards others naturally slips away.

 

Self-forgiveness is the key to healing oneself of traumas, and to inner peace.

 

We all have to learn to love and accept ourselves.

 

Why not now?