IS THIS BLAMING THE VICTIM?

I recently moved to a small town in Maine and at the center of the village one can find a post office, a fire station and a country store. I was alone in the tiny dining room of the latter, having breakfast the other day, when an older couple came in and sat down. This being a friendly community we soon were chatting away. They asked what I did  and I replied I was a semi retired Mind/Body Counselor, who had specialized in cancer, but was now writing a book about it. They asked more about that and I told them it was called "SJ" and it was a novel based on Steve Jobs' life--a fantasy in which I met him and helped him to heal himself of cancer.

I noticed that their friendliness was chilling a bit and soon the woman shared that she had had cancer 40 years before and had looked into all types of cures. Then her mind took a leap and assumed that I was talking about Faith-Based Healing, which she stated she detested because it "blamed the victim" as she put it.

The husband then added that he was furious with the parents who had taken their daughter out of a hospital because they believed God would heal her--and she died. He got up and left at that point. The woman changed the subject and I did not try to pursue the subject further as I could see their minds were made up and there was no purchase there for new information.

This accusation though--that the method I offer blames the victim--is one I have heard many times before--from perhaps 1/3 of the people I discuss it with. The other point people often bring up is that children get cancer--even babies-- and so this method cannot possibly be based in truth. But there are very good answers to both of those objections--if people will listen.

I will address the "blame the victim" issue in this post and "why children get cancer" in another.

With "blame the victim" there are various hidden suppositions and false premises lurking. There is also the ego mind doing a few of its favorite tricks--namely judging, fearing truth and change, and being pessimistic.

The major hidden false premise is that "someone must be at fault when something goes wrong." This is typical of our left brain, rational mindset. I call it a masculine mind set also. It prevails at this point in our human evolution, but it did not in the early days of our evolution and it will not in a future evolution of our consciousness. There is another mindset which is more feminine, one that does not need to place blame. If you do not believe me about the masculine feminine slant to this mindset then I would invite you to think of the last time something went wrong when a man was involved. Most men seem to immediately go to feeling responsible for it, then to guilt, then to shame and then to placing blame elsewhere. Their ego cannot tolerate being thought badly of--or of having made a mistake.

Women who are not too deeply steeped in the patriarchal mindset do something different when things go wrong. They try to create community in order to find a solution. This community might be an external social one or an internal spiritual one.

What my spiritual understanding has led me to is that when something goes wrong, there is no one to blame, but everyone involved is responsible for it to one degree or another and there is no use in trying to figure out who is most responsible. In fact it could easily be said that everyone involved is 100 percent responsible.

So here is where people really get uncomfortable and start to scream "you're blaming the victim!" But that is really a very pessimistic and negative point of view. It is calling the glass of water half empty rather than half full.

What we are really talking about here is power and responsibility. They are flip sides of the same coin. And when you give one away you give the other away as well. It is best to keep the whole coin in your own pocket. In truth that is where it belongs and it cannot be given away anyways.

What I am saying is that we all have the power to heal ourselves, by using our minds properly. In fact Dr. Albert Schweitzer said, and I fully agree, that "all healing is self healing." He meant that no one anywhere on the planet at any time in history was ever healed by somebody else--no matter how many people believe that doctors and medicine and their various machines and chemicals and whatever healed them. No Reike, no faith healer, no herbs, no Christ, no diet, no form of outer healing whatsoever ever healed anyone. It was always, without exception, the person themselves that healed themselves. They might believe someone or something else healed them, but invariably the person underwent some change within their consciousness in which they aligned themselves more closely with their Divine center and Ultimate Spiritual Truth--and it was THAT that healed them. Nothing else.

So when I ascribe full healing power to you, if you are an optimistic and positively inclined in your thinking, you will respond, "Wow! I have the power to heal myself! Cool!" But if you are pessimistic and negatively inclined you will respond, "You are blaming me, the helpless, powerless victim, for my own suffering!" And you will reject the awareness of your own innate power to heal yourself.

Your having cancer is not a bad thing. It is a gift, a teacher, an ally you have called to yourself in order to come back into alignment with who you really are--a Divine, Sacred eternal being who chose to live a human life in a human body that will give you constant feedback as to your alignment, or lack thereof, with Truth. Your emotions will too. Ill health and negative emotions mean you are out of alignment. Good health and positive emotions mean you are in alignment. However, beware of pasting happy faces on over genuinely unhappy feelings. You must first feel the uncomfortable feelings honestly, then change the negative beliefs behind them, act on the new positive beliefs, and feel the new genuinely happier feelings that arise from that.

We live in very outer directed times. That is the nature of the left brain, rational, male mind at this point in history. It is the mindset of choice of most adults in the world today. Be aware though that the rational mind can be directed to look inward, and would do well to do so. But ultimately there is a right brain mind that is vastly larger and more powerful, a mind that we can engage that will do all the hard work the rational mind thought it had to do--and do it much more easily, efficiently and quickly.

And the good news is that we all have one of these and it costs nothing to engage it and use it in our self-healing. In fact the Universe is so wise that it is making all other form of so-called "healing"--or "false healing modalities" more and more painful, costly and esoteric, as well as less and less effective. And the insurance to pay for them is also becoming more costly and less available. This is no happenstance, nor is it bad news.

A friend of mine wrote today that when adversity strikes, she no longer asks, "Why is this happening TO me?" But rather, "Why is this happening FOR me?" She looks for opportunities. And the opportunity that is being offered by cancer, by rising costs of conventional treatments, by the physical pain of these, by ineffectiveness,  by the invasiveness,  by immune system compromising chemical and radiational treatments-- is this: YOU HAVE BECAUSE OF ALL THE ABOVE THINGS YOU DON;T LIKE, THE OPPORTUNITY TO FIND SOMETHING VASTLY BETTER. YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE CURE FOR CANCER IS HERE NOW. IT LIES WITHIN YOU--WITHIN YOUR MIND. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL YOURSELF NOW. IN FACT YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HEAL YOU. NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT TO YOU OR FOR YOU. AND THAT IS GOOD NEWS. YOU ARE WEARING THE RED SHOES. NOW JUST CLICK YOUR HEELS.

Here is how to click. Accept the coin of power and responsibility, which you can spend on making yourself well. Here are the basic steps again:

1. Ask yourself what is bothering you most in your life. 
2. Be brave and face the truth around this, even if the position seems untenable. (Eg. my husband no longer loves me and that feels unbearable to look at.)
3. Assume that, since it feels bad, that you have a misconception (false belief) around it. (Eg. I am unlovable, or I can't live without him. This is horrible!)
4. Imagine that the converse of that misconception or untrue belief is the actual truth.(Eg. I am lovable and I can thrive without him. This is a great opportunity!)
5. Notice how good it feels to believe this positive thing.
6. Embrace the positive Truth and apply it in your life.
7. Enjoy your spontaneous healing from cancer.

So if you have cancer I invite you to try applying this formula. Keep facing down more and more uncomfortable truths and looking for the empowerment and spiritual expansion that is the opportunity within each seeming crisis. 

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE!