We are each on a journey. In my opinion, that’s why we’re here – to play out in concrete form our own belief systems, for the sake of consciousness, and so that we might learn to adjust our thoughts to a higher frequency and bring an end to our own, self-made,  suffering.

Nobody said it would be easy. Earth life is boot camp for the practice of remembering who we truly are. 🙂

For it is our thoughts that determine the quality of our life experience. Some of our thoughts have been with us since the beginning; they are ‘core' beliefs, those ever present assumptions, that most of us have never questioned, and that, we believe, define us and the world. Our core beliefs dictate the route and the unfolding of our consciousness journey.

Our thoughts transmit an energy, the frequency of which is then transmitted out to the world around us. The vibrational quality of our thoughts and beliefs exude a magnetic charge (mental energy IS electro-magnetic) that attracts to us the people and events that will, in fact, mirror back to us, in technicolor, (I like to say, “for our viewing pleasure,”) the harvest of our own thoughts and beliefs. This is the way life in Reality works.

Our core beliefs therefore become the vibrational foundation of a psyche that is built on a (most often unhappy) story about who we are and what we can expect from the world. The victim triangle is where that story gets played out. As I've said many times, “the Victim Triangle is the playing field for ALL dysfunctional interaction. Moving around the triangle is the way we play out our unhappy core beliefs and prove to ourselves that they are true.

When we are on the victim triangle, we live in a state of , what I call, “victim consciousness.” Dr Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle defines the three basic roles of victim consciousness as the Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer; these roles are actually defense strategies that we resort to whenever we get into believing our unhappy story. As with most defenses, rather than to protect us, our defense strategies simply end up helping us gather evidence for our unhappy story. This is the root cause of all dysfunction and suffering. For those who live in the shadow of an unhappy story about who we are, life becomes miserable, even intolerable.

Most of us automatically believe the unhappy thoughts/stories that we think; it never occurs to us NOT to believe them. It’s all we’ve known or seen. Our parents and grandparents, generations that go all the way back in time, lived their lives blindly believing similar unhappy stories about themselves and the world. They, like us, never questioned their thoughts. How, therefore, were we to know that we don’t have to believe what we think? As a race, we are only now beginning to awaken to that realization. And what freedom it brings when we DO finally get it!

How we prove our life beliefs, whatever they are, is encapsulated in what I call the “Reality Formula™, which outlines in simple terms how we, as humans, set about proving the thoughts we believe. The Reality Formula says this: “When we believe what we think, we automatically feel as if it's true, and act as if it’s true, which prompts us to react in ways that prompts others to prove us right.”

Interesting, isn't it, how consumed with being right we are? We are willing to live years – for some of us, our whole life is spent in a miserable competition, set on proving we are right in our unhappy convictions about ourselves and others.

For instance, if Sue believes that others abandon her, she will automatically feel all the feelings that go with that thinking, and she will act accordingly. She will be paranoid and distrustful, always suspicious of their motives, and interpreting their behavior in ways that confirm her suspicions. She may become needy and clingy, hoping to convince the other to stay … however the very things she does to try and keep from being abandoned, actually drive them away instead. Is it any wonder that she gets left, as predicted, once again? What Sue doesn't see is her own part in the act, i.e., how it is she abandons herself by acting in ways that push her loved ones right out the door! This is one small example of what it is to live in victim consciousness. We blame the world around us for the unhappiness we feel, and remain clueless  that it is we who hold the key to freedom and peace, that comes automatically when we learn to question our beliefs.

Once we become aware that we don’t have to believe the unhappy thoughts we think, we have officially, and consciously, begun our spiritual journey Home. This is the long, winding road off of the victim triangle and out of victim consciousness that we each must take, one step at a time, towards higher ground. In the process of awakening, we will move in and out of our unhappy stories, on and off the victim triangle, becoming increasingly conscious as we go, which allows us to reframe our old, unhappy beliefs to a gentler, kinder vibration, opens us to a happier perspective, and makes possible a more peace-filled world.

This then is the path to enlightenment, which is simply  to awaken and align, here and now, with Reality, which sheds the light of Understanding upon us. Through its radiance, any and all unhappy story about ourselves or the world is abolished, allowing us to see clearly instead the Truth in the Way things are.

I had the following analogy come to mind as a metaphor for our life journey to consciousness:

I saw the consciousness journey in comparison to being on a road trip and pulling into a gas/convenience store to “fuel up” for the trip. (It is our cravings in life that often determine our stops and starts) We stop, not only because we need to fill up our vehicle with fuel, but because we seek distraction from the long road ahead. We want something to make the trip more appealing, and being relatively new on the road (to consciousness), we seek something “for the palette”  in the form of a treat that we fantasize we will find on the aisles inside the store.

This is how we often start out on the road to consciousness. We want to make the trip, but we seek distraction, the easier, softer way of traveling. What we often don't see is that our so-called treat quickly turns into an unkind treatment of ourselves!

To continue the analogy: We go straight to the candy row and walk up and down the aisles looking for what appeals to our taste buds – we see temptation on every shelf. The seduction of color and promise prompt us to totally disregard the contents or ingredients we are about to ingest; we are not concerned with whether it's nutritious, or the long term effect on us at all. Our ultimate well-being is ignored. We are looking for a shortcut to feeling good RIGHT NOW and this is the best promise of momentary distraction available to us now. With no regard for possible consequences at all, our cravings take over and dictate our choices.

Needless to say, much of our consciousness journey is spent here on the “candy row” of life – seeking distractions, palliatives that will medicate the discomfort and suffering that goes with believing the unhappy stories we tell ourselves about how hard life is. We want to progress on our spiritual pilgrimage … we have set our intention on movement forward, an essential part of getting there, but at the same time we are easily distracted by the glitter and promise of distractions along the way.

We pay the price of disregarding our well-being in exchange for fleeting pleasures, but there are benefits as well. Not only do we gain wisdom through life experience, but through sampling these distractions, we discover their illusionary nature and become better skilled at choosing eternal things instead. This is what it is to grow up spiritually.

The spiritual path is indeed about the maturation process. Spiritual Consciousness is the mature awareness that  allows us a depth of love and compassion for ourselves first, and then for others, that only those who have walked the byroads of life, learned from their life experience, and grown from their own mistakes, can offer.

And so it is for us on the journey to greater consciousness. We are led around by our cravings and carnal desires, with no thought of the cost to us. We simply react to life, with no real thought about what we are believing or why we do what we do. We live in this state of immaturity for a long time … some for life. Never mind, it IS a legitimate stage of the journey, for it is the place of launch. Sooner or later, we begin to make the connection between the suffering we feel and the beliefs we feed ourselves (we see the illusion of what the candy counter offers).

Perhaps you think that from here we should go immediately into changing our ways, avoiding those candy aisles, and never again doing anything that is not in keeping with our highest good, right? Not necessarily so. That is rarely the way it works. Instead, most of us keep right on making those trips to the candy row and suffering the results – but the effect is compounded now because we suffer the guilt and remorse from going against what we feel is best for us. We are embarrassed, or ashamed that we don't have more control … some of us may go into hiding about what we're doing. We may resort to denying or hiding or justifying our choices out of guilt, or for fear others may judge us as fiercely as we have judged ourselves for our “weakness.”

These are all common responses on the road to waking up. We see how we shoot ourselves in the foot, but we don't seem to be able to control it. We resort to feeling bad about ourselves, and think of ourselves as failures that can't ‘get it.' But it is actually the design of the road to consciousness, a road full of twists and turns, and double backs, where we get to see up close the workings of our own mind. We lear to meet temptation without self-deprecation, allowing us to learn from our responses, and become kinder and more accepting in the way we see ourselves.

Slowly, as we become more seasoned travelers, however, we learn to witness (developing our observer state) our doings without so much judgment. We grow in experience. From observing the outcomes of our choices we begin to slowly, ever so slowly, make healthier choices. This is what it is to develop an Observer Self, the witness who sees and grows from what is seen, without the need to resort to blame or judgment.

But even when we make better choices, we are often not satisfied. There is an inner craving for immediate gratification that may keep us fixated on the false promises held out by the little rancid snacks in colorful packages, that call out to us to save them from their dusty shelves where they have been stored for who knows how long; it’s the promise of something good, of something fun, that distracts us from the false emptiness of their offering, and promises us fleeting palliative distraction from our story about a monotonous journey that seems to us in the moment to be nothing but interminably long and boring.

This is just like us in real life. We live out our unhappy stories on the drama triangle, and find ourselves drawn to glittering promises of distraction and relief. We often become relentless in seeking distraction and escape from the path we are presently experiencing, simply because we tell ourselves we should be somewhere else, doing something more worthwhile, and then fail to see the immense possibilities offered us in this present moment. As a result, we miss out on the ever present aliveness that only life-in-the-happening moment can offer. Instead we too often settle for rancid candy treats to lessen the sting of not being in the moment.

As we progress (given we choose to progress), there comes a time when we walk right by the candy row, without giving it any notice at all. It no longer holds an interest for us, not because we are avoiding it, or ‘shoulding’ ourselves away from it, but because we are aligned with a higher frequency, and no longer find it enticing.

We have aligned with Reality, and come to recognize false promises for what they are, illusions that provide no nourishment for us. We have developed a taste for sweeter, more sustaining, long-lasting, things, with which no candy counter can compete, and we are no longer willing to settle for less.

This is a good metaphor for the way it is on the journey to Awakening, as I see it. Awakening is a process of learning how to choose what is real over false promises of fulfillment that leave us emptier than before.

I invite you to awaken from victim consciousness by questioning your long-held, blindly-believed assumptions about yourself and life. Allow yourself the process of a journey that takes you a step at a time closer to what’s Real, and to the memory of who you really are and why you are here in Reality.

Blessings,