Lesson 31: “I am not a victim of the world I see.”
The Course reminds us to forgive ourselves when we have those moments of feeling like a victim.
Victimhood is one of the most key elements in the world of our ego’s. We all find ourselves with that victim mentality.
What the ego likes to do when we feel like a victim is stay fixed in that mentality- in that stuck place where we are too paralyzed to move.
Here, when we get stuck, we just keep reinforcing our victim ideas. Then we suffer immeasurably because we lose our capacity to get up and move.
This is why the Course gives us that amazing salve of forgiveness that always works to heal our limitation when we don’t know how to move.
The problem is always ourselves.
When we are stuck, it is always an inside problem.
We have to look first at forgiving whatever is our part in the equation.
No matter how much it seems in the ego’s world that whatever the outer transgressor did against us is our main problem, the Course reminds us that we have to appreciate that we all play a role in whatever happens.
This is why we must always forgive ourselves throughout the process of gaining understanding about how to heal when we get stuck.
The other reaction that happens when we find ourselves immersed in victim mentality is that we feel guilty about it.
Guilt is always the reaction of the ego to whatever we deem not good that we have done. The problem when we feel guilty is that we no longer want to get up and get out of the ego’s mentality.
The Course reminds us that our guilt is never helpful or appropriate.
We are meant to look on what we do and notice.
We evaluate the situation and then we get the hit from he Holy Spirit about how to respond.
We have no reason to feel guilty when we evaluate because we stay in a state of being neutral and able to be proactive.
We are asked to just not judge the situation. Then there is no reason to continue to feel like a victim.
When we give up that need to be right or have everything be a certain way then we can act in appropriate and helpful ways to resolve our victim mentality.
The Course teaches us that we just need to remember that when we feel like a victim on occasion, we want to accept this and forgive it as we go so we have no need to feel reactive about it.
Then we can stand up and do something about it not just wallow in self pity.