You Are Not the Victim

                                                       

By Pamela Chapman

Why Victimization Is So Not Cool

• It decreases your self-esteem and self-worth
• It gives your personal power to someone else
• It always sees life from a negative perspective – the glass half empty
• It always self-negates and self-sabotages
• It causes depression and fosters oppression
• It sees discrimination and evil in every person
• It keeps you looking back
• It promotes weakness and dependency
• It negates your inner abundance
• It feeds on pain & darkness
• It thrives and feeds on fear
• No one wants to be around someone who is always the victim

Why Leaving Victimization is Way Cool

• It increases your self-esteem and self-worth
• It empowers you
• It lets you see life from a positive perspective – the glass half full
• It self promotes and brings about self-sufficiency and self-realization
• It produces a fulfilling, joy-filled life
• It acknowledges the good in every person
• It keeps you looking forward and working toward your goals
• It promotes happiness and good vibration
• It helps you realize your inner abundance and realize your purpose
• It reflects Energy & Light
• It thrives and feeds on faith
• Everyone wants to be with this person; in fact, they attract fabulous people

Which life would you rather live? Many of us have had bad things happen to us. All of us go through difficult life-transition at some time in our lives. Far too many have had horrendous experiences and trials. And, it is always our choice, a decision on how we go forward. Will we use the experience to help and lift others and eradicate the wrongs of systems? Will we choose to advocate for truth and justice? Or, will we just play the victim role feelings sorry for ourselves, looking for attention and sympathy; forever angry with ourselves and the world?

That abusive relationship, that injustice, that heinous crime done to you did not come as a surprise to your Creator. He knew it was going to happen. He is all knowing. He also knew He had made you strong enough to go through it. My mom has always said, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.”  Well, there were times when I felt like I was going to die—I wanted to just to get out of the situation.

Just know when the crushing feels like you just can’t take it any more…when it feels like if one more “bad” thing happens it’s going to take you out, just when you plead, “God please take this cup from me,” that’s exactly when the Glory of God will come in taking you over and bringing you forward into your purpose and the calling He had for you before the foundation of this world.

Crazy, it may seem; but true. And, even in your going forward you  may fall and become the victim again, either by circumstance or because your past experiences have you believe it, is so Get Up; Brush Yourself Off; and get right back in the game of life again.

You are Not the Victim

Revelation 3:21

Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne.

For a no-nonsense look at victimization and how you can break free from the bonds, visit Pamela Chapman's site:  You Are Not A Victim

Cliff Divers and Rabbit Hoppers

By Jillian Maas Backman

I want to dedicate this entry to my good internal emotional friend,   Fear.  One of the most mis-understood emotions and yet, has the greatest potential to be our working warrior beside all of us in a time of need.  

  

So much is written about this illusive emotional condition.  Just the word alone conjures up a negative reaction and sends people into a tailspin.  Why?  Along the way, we have received implied mixed messages, finger pointing towards FEAR as the “evil one” from our emotional piggy bank from which to draw from.  Origins deriving from such statements, as “We must conquer our fears!”  “That fear is going to kill you!”  “FEAR is the root to all evil!”  This kind of verbiage sets up a battlefield inside your conscious mind.  Think about it this way, whenever someone goes into battle there will always be a winner and loser.  When we apply this same kind of tactical representation towards fear, it is no longer an ally.  It becomes an adversary to suppress.  Nothing good comes from this kind of thinking in your head.  We end up segregating pieces of ourselves and assign judgment.  A power struggle ensues between good and evil.   

We have humiliated ourselves into thinking it is cowardly if we admit experiencing some form of fear.  Somehow, we are less emotionally healthy if we have bouts of fearful momental breakdowns.  What a set up that is, in so many sad sad ways.  Fear is a human emotional conditions we should honor and respect on different levels.  It is not meant to be a comfortable state of being, by any means what so ever.  

NEVERTHELESS, it can be an immutable force behind your intentions! 

Every human emotion was given to us for a higher purpose of some kind.  I believe we are trying to think our way through changing the human archetype we were heavenly blessed with from inception.  Impossible and a waste of human time.  My ability to feel fear is necessary for my survival in certain situations.  It is how you act upon those internal markings is a gift not a punishment.

Let us take the fear out of “being in fear.”

First, there is lots of wiggle room between using fear as a catalyst for expansion and creating a fear addiction.  As always, I am addressing a healthy dose of “fearness” herein.  This is not intended for those of you that feel you may have crossed into the danger zone of a “fear addiction.”  As with all addictive behavior, intervention prevention by trained professional is always advised. 

Please do not abandon your sense of fearing.

Fear, as with all other human emotions, will be present forever.  It is our natural sense indicator of change in the rawest form possible, an involuntary boundary sensor.  The minute you find yourself outside your comfort zone, that fear brain sensor will be busy transmitting all forms of warning signs.  Why in the world would you want to intellectually spend time fighting against this loving emotional companion is beyond me.  For goodness sake, walk with it. 

Years ago, I too was immobilized with my own fears.  My perceived options were either ignore the presence of it and force my way through or accept defeat and surrender.  Both seem ludicrate at the time.  Neither option was going to get me to my desired destination of transformation.  I trusted myself enough to know that fear was not my enemy.  I  was being guided to delve deeper for illumination on the gift of heavenly fear.  The answer was not about the elimination of it, more on how to manage my way through the consistency of fear.  How do you deal with the innate presence of emotional fear?

Which one are you;   Cliff Diver or a Rabbit Hopper:

Before I share the details, let me preface this by stating:  No one category is better than the other.  Each one has inherited advantages and disadvantages.  I use these labels as a fun way of stepping out from the wake of fear, observing how you personally deal with conflict resolutions, and possible modifications.

Cliff Diver:  Peaks of Fearlessness followed by Peaks of Fear

Now cliff divers are the ones that do exactly what the label sounds like.  Not literally, of course.  When they decide to make changes, they usually go big.  Not in the sense of crazy big, more like something out of the ordinary.  The opposite, they sit back, internally analyze, wait for the right moment to jump, and then jump long!  All the while, vacillating between moments of fear-ness and fearless-ness.  This reminds me of that old cartoon, Wily E Coyote and the Road Runner.  The coyote would chase the roadrunner off the end of a cliff.  His first reaction on his face described it all.  “Oh crap, what did I just do?”  Eyes wide as silver dollars, realizing his forthcoming quandary, flapped   his arms as fast as he could in the attempt to soften the blow with his eventual landing.  He always seemed   to survive another day of relentless chasing the Roadrunner.    

Advantage:  

-Fear instantly subsides.  There is immediate spontaneous resolve to the inaction of fear. 

-Go with the flow kind of people, flexible

-More times than not, this decision defines completion.

-  Meaning, you have completed a cycle in your life that has been festering for a long time and your inability for movement has stalled.  Your last bit of built up fears pushed you forward to a decisive action and possibly propel you to new territory of exploration.

- Feel your way through fears.  No intrinsic internal need to identify and label each fear individually. 

-Able to handle both conscious and unconscious pretara of “perceived fears” simultaneously.

-Insights always come from a multitude life lessons.   

Disadvantages:

-Be aware of compulsive fearless moments.  It is an incredible motivator but may also create lingering repercussions.

-Be conscious that you are a cliff diver.  The natural order of human fear will settle in again, but the configuration will definitely be different from before.  You will eventually decide to jump off the cliff of fearlessness once again and the cycle will repeat.  What measure have you set in place to reconfigure a new way of handling fears when it comes around again?  A good solution would be to adapt the ways of a “rabbit hopper…”  Therefore, when you decide to “jump” again the aftermath may have a softer landing.

Rabbit Hoppers:  Equal amount of fear and fearlessness

Bless them, for many do not understand their unseemly unassuming ways.  We are promoters of cliff divers in this country.  “Go Big or Go Home.”  Come on really?  Not every big way is the best way.  There are times when slow and steady is the best method to resolutions of all kinds.  I again reference a childhood story, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”  Even though the hare is portrayed in this parable as the one who lost in the end maybe both were correct. 

Advantages:

-Break down fears into workable “chucks of insights.”

-Deal with fear as it comes along.  They live by the rule, literally, one-step at a time.  In this case, one hop at a time. 

- Extremely methodical in handling all aspects of fear- based experiences.  Goals firmly placed in front of them.  Set in their immediate intentions.

-Can only deal with single fear issues one at a time.  Multi-tasking lessons are not an option. 

-Keep internal fear/fearlessness in balance.

Disadvantages: 

  -Assume fearlessness as being out of control.

-Tendency to avoid situations of complete fearlessness and spontaneous decision.

-Inflexible.  Rarely deviate from the pre-set course of action.

- There will be times of urgency to make a fast decision.  Fear is an incredible activator for quick movements.  Many times rabbit hoppers avoid this kind of situations at all cost.  That itself can create potential  danger.  You must adapt and take the “cliff diver” approach and jump in.

In order for rabbit hoppers to continue to move forward, they must always keep a balanced perspective on both fear and fearlessness.  That is a tall order, for the demure rabbit.  Fear has a tendency to silently take over the rabbit hoppers momentum.

I presented this fun fear quiz to demonstrate how each one of us handle and manage the stress of fear.  Both represent the beautiful ways in which we assimilate our fears, transpose them into lessons, and share our well -traveled  wisdom with others.   

In gracious love, Jillian Maas Backman

Jillian Maas Backman is an Intuitive Life, Author (Beyond the Pews, spring 2011), and Award winning Radio Host.  She can be heard on her weekly Sunday morning program entitled:  “It’s For You” on-air 9-10am(CST)  Lake 961 fm,   Lake Geneva, WI, North Shore Chicago, Ill or by listening on-line world wide  at  www.lake961.com   

The Gift of Fear/The Curse of Anxiety

By Sandra L. Brown

Is it Fear Or Is it Anxiety?

Women who have been in pathological relationships come away from the relationships with problems associated with fear, worry, and anxiety. This is often related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or what we call 'High Harm Avoidance'-- being on high alert looking for ways she might get harmed now or in the future. 

PTSD, by it's own nature as a disorder, is an anxiety disorder that is preoccupied by both the past (flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of him or events) and by the future (worry about future events, trying to anticipate his behaviors, etc.). With long term exposure to PTSD, this anxiety and worry begins to mask itself, at least in her mind, as 'fear.' In fact, most women lump together the sensations of anxiety, worry, and fear into one feeling and don't differentiate them. 

Fear is helpful and safety-oriented whereas worry and anxiety are not helpful and related to phantom 'possible' events that often don't happen. To that degree, worry and anxiety are distracting away from real fear signals that could help her.

In the book which is now a classic on predicting harmful behavior in others, Gavin deBecker in 'The Gift of Fear' delineates the difference between what we need fear FOR and what we DONT need anxiety and worry for. In some ways, the ability to use fear correctly while stopping the use of anxiety and worry may do much to curtail PTSD symptoms. 

deBecker who is not a therapist but a Danger Anaylst has done what other therapists haven't even done--nix PTSD symptoms of anxiety and worry by focusing on true fear and it's necessity versus anxiety and it's faux meaning to us.

The term fear was used by Freud (in contrast to anxiety), to refer to the reaction to  real danger. Freud emphasized the difference between fear and anxiety in terms of their relation to danger: 

~ Anxiety is a state characterized by the expectation and preparation
 for a danger--even if it's unknown ~ 

~ While fear implies a specific object to be feared in the here/now. ~

(Anxiety is: 'He MIGHT harm me' where fear is: "He IS harming me with
 his fist, words, actions, etc.")

If you heard there was a weapon proven to prevent most crimes (including picking a dangerous partner) before it happened, would you run out and buy it? World-renowned security expert Gavin deBecker says this weapon exists, but you already have it. He calls it "the gift of fear." 

The story of a woman named Kelly begins with a simple warning sign. A man offers to help carry her groceries into her apartment—and instantly, Kelly doesn't like the sound of his voice. Kelly goes against her gut and lets him help her—and in doing so, she lets a rapist into her home. 

"We get a signal prior to violence," Gavin says. "There are preincident  indicators. Things that happen before violence occurs." 

Gavin says that unlike any other living creature, humans will sense danger, yet still walk right into it. 

"You're in a hallway waiting for an elevator late at night. The elevator door opens, and there's a guy inside, and he makes you afraid. You don't know why, you don't know what it is. And many women will stand there and look at that guy and say, 'Oh, I don't want to think like that. I don't want to be the kind of person who lets the door close in his face. I've got to be nice. I don't want him to think I'm not nice.' 

And so human beings will get into a steel soundproof chamber with someone they're afraid of, and there's not another animal in nature that would even consider it." 

Gavin says that "eerie feelings" is exactly what he wants women to pay attention to. "We're trying to analyze the warning signs," he says. "And what I really want to teach today and forever is the feeling of the warning sign. All the other stuff is our explanation for the feeling. Why it was this, why it was that. The feeling itself IS the warning sign." 

What happens over and over again is that women dismantle their OWN internal safety system by ignoring it. The longer she ignores it, the more 'over rides' it receives and retrains the brain to ignore the fear signal. Once rewired women are at tremendous risks of all kinds...risks of picking the wrong men, of squelching fear signals of impending violence, shutting off alarms about potential sexual assaults, shutting down red flags about financial rip offs, squeeking out hints about poor character in other people...and the list goes on. What is left after your whole entire safety system is dismantled? Not much....

Women, subconsciously sensing they need to have 'something' to fall back on, swap out true and profoundly accurate fear signals with the miserly counterfeit and highly unproductive feeling of worry/anxiety. 

LADIES-- WRONG FEELING! 

Then they end up in counseling for their 4th dangerous relationship and wonder if they have a target sign on their forehead. No they don't. They have learned to dismantle, rename, minimize, justify, or deny the fear signals they get or got in the relationship. As if their ability to 'take it' or 'not be afraid' of very dangerous behavior is some sort of win for them. As if their ability to look danger in the face and STAY means they are as tough or competitive as he is...

No--it means they have a fear signal that no longer saves them. Their barely stuttering signal means it's been over-ridden by her. She felt it, labeled it, and released it all the while staring eye-to-eye with what she should fear most. 

Then later, or another day or week passes and she has mounting anxiety--over what she wonders? She has a chronic low grade worry, whisps of anxiety that waife thru her life. She can't put 2+2 together to figure out that ignoring true fear will demand to be recognized by her subconscious in some way---an illegitimate way through worry and anxiety that does nothing to save her from real danger. Her real ally (her true fear) has been squelched and banished. 

When coming to us for counseling she wants us to help her 'feel safe'again when actually, we can't do any of that. It's all in her internal system as it's always been. Her safety is inside her and her future healing is too. 

She will sit in the counselor's office denying true fear and begging for relief from the mounting anxiety she is experiencing. She doesn't trust herself, her intuition, her judgments--all she can feel is anxiety. And with good reason! True fear is her true intuition...not anxiety. But she's already canned what can save her and now on some level she must know she has nothing left that can help her feel and react.

Animals instinctively react to the danger signal--the adrenaline, flash of fear, and flood of cortisol. They don't have internal dialogue with themselves like "What did that mean? Why did he say that? I don't like that behavior---I wonder if he was abused as a child." 

An animal is trained to have a natural reaction to the fear signal--they run. You don't see animals 'stuck' in abusive mating environments! In nature, as in us, we are wired with the King of Comments which is the danger signal. When we respond to the flash of true fear, we aren't left having a commentary with ourselves.

"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” - John Schaar

The Empowerment Of Understanding Fear - Don't Allow It To Steal Your Dreams

By Anny Jacoby

Whether you get stung by a bee or simply watch as a friend gets stung, you might start to run and hide every time a bee buzzes across your path. Why do you do this? It turns out that your brain areas that respond when fear is learned through personal experience are also triggered when we see someone else afraid. This definitely explains why some people are afraid of things like spiders and snakes despite little contact with them.

You learn fear by observing other people's emotional expressions that can be as effective as having direct experiences yourself. This certainly explains one of the reasons why a lot of people have phobias of certain kinds of stimuli, such as rape, assault, abuse, stalking, abduction and much more. Just the thought of the aforementioned makes individuals extremely uncomfortable and justly so.

Fear is defined as an emotional response to an unknown or impending danger or as in expectation of harm or evil. Fear can create feelings of apprehension, anxiety, alarm, dread, fright or terror. When you are in fear, you are scared of someone, something or a potential outcome.

We all experience fear at one point in time or another. Actually, fear is a great way to keep us from hurting ourselves. Fear keeps us from putting our hand on the hot burner of the stove. It keeps us from jumping from high places, or leaves us tentative when going into a darkened room. These types of fears are good. They keep us safe. They make us think before we do, knowing full well the potential outcome and repercussions of our actions.

We can experience fear of closed in spaces such as elevators, afraid of the water or flying in airplanes. Fear is a reaction or response to some previous life experience or trauma or even the thought of any potential dangerous situation. Fear can impact us in many ways and it can steal our dreams. The bottom line is.......fear takes away our choices. It can keep us from doing the things we want or need to do for ourselves. It limits us, constrains us and can end up ruling our lives. It can consume our energy and enjoyment of life, leaving us experiencing additional unexplainable stress, frustration or feeling just plain stuck in the mud.

Being in or living in fear is all about choices. You can choose to move forward, or you can choose to stand still marking time.

Fear does not have to be a "freeze" mechanism that prevents a beneficial reaction. One must decide what frightens you more - being dominated, injured or killed by an assailant/batterer, or taking a risk and fighting back. You may hurt yourself somehow by protecting yourself against your assailant, his knife might nick your ear, a bullet from his gun may graze your head, or you might end up with bruises and your body sore; but you're chance of being alive is much greater than not. Learning personal safety (realistic self-defense) mentally and physically is a means to escape and ultimate survival. If you are too scared to react defensively and decide to remain under an assailant's control - he will have his way with you. Your mind can be more dangerous than your assailant. You must turn your fear into an effective reaction thus allowing yourself to be empowered.

Psychological fear leads to doubt and hesitation. Unchecked it can result in anxiety and/or panic. When you begin to doubt yourself you start to think, "What if I lose?", "What if I get hurt?". Thoughts of this sort must be eliminated from your vocabulary. You must remain positive, assertive and focus on the ability to motivate yourself=empowerment.

Miraculous things happen to those who consciously choose to overcome your fears and embrace them. You gain certainty in your safety skills, abilities and downfalls.

What do you fear? Perhaps it's time to turn on the light and step through the door of empowerment.

"Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out."

-----Karl A. Menninger

Take care and STAY SAFE!