The Die-Hard Role of a Victim

Through my 12 years of working as a psychotherapist the most common inner enemy I was trying to help people to cope with was a role of a victim. This role of a victim of circumstances, destiny, people and forces out there does not only seem to be a common favourite theme that connects us all (in the Western world at least), but also an unconscious mechanism that has roots stretching so deep down that it is almost impossible to cut out completely.

I knew about the dimensions and omnipresence of the role of a victim in human lives and personalities literally decades ago and used to make, in my lectures and trainings, lots of jokes about victim’s dramas and acts – until one day it finally dawned on my slow mind that my own self image and personality was actually built on the drama of a victim; of my childhood, parents, schooling system, society, individuals and groups, destiny and even God… I almost could not find anything in my life that was not coloured with this “victim” colour. This realization shut up my mouth for quite a while. It was such a cold shower to realize how much I actually loved self-pitying and provoking sympathy and pity within others. And this urge is still there, to be honest. In particular I love to be a victim of my wife and my kids, of course.

I guess the story of our love affair with the role of a victim starts with our conflict with the world and with other people which just don’t meet our expectations and needs. People behave out of their free choice and do not perform quite according to our standards, furthermore even gravitation, time and other physical constraints do not strictly follow our needs… And since we do not want to feel there is anything wrong with us, therefore it must be that there is something wrong with other people. So it is them who are doing it to us thus making our lives miserable! It must be them, who else could it be? And so we sit down with couple of like-minders and indulge in our favourite sport, which is whining over an enemy out there. With a cup of coffee or a bottle of bear, it does not really matter.

The way that Erich Fromm in his book The Fear of Freedom and Irwin Yalom in his capital work Existential Psychotherapy explained our urge to hide behind the role of victim may not have as much to do with our traumas from the past as it has with the difficult and yet unresolved existential question of freedom. It appears that we are scared to death of being free. Yes, we do pray and wait and fight for freedom, but once we start having it we are terrified of the fact that freedom brings along the responsibility. Now this is heavy. To be fully responsible for our lives and existence with nobody and nothing to blame anymore – this is almost unbearable and so we prefer to create our lives in a way that we are not really free, but can at least go on being victims.

I wouldn’t want to sound as suggesting that if other people are not guilty and wrong and to blame, than it must be us who are. I do not think an issue of guilt applies in this context at all. I believe it is really crucial to be constantly aware of our own limited perspective and conscious and unconscious interpretations of what we experience to be the reality around us. And within this very relative point of reference we are left with basically two choices: accept things as they appear to be, take a deep breath and make another responsible step into the unknown, or to rather choose to sit down, point our fingers out there and blame it all on everybody and everything around and indulge in self-pitying for the rest of our lives.

I know than we are not omnipotent and that we cannot absolutely freely create every bit of this reality, but what helps me in almost every possible circumstance is to ask myself: “Now, if Buddha or a perfect Zen Roshi was in my place here and now, would he complain and whine over other people, feel he/she is a victim of circumstances?” In the next fraction of a second I most often immediately become aware of an immense room for improvement in my world and choose to make another step into the unknown. With a smile.

The Ethics of Parenting

The more my teenagers develop their own value systems, the more inner dilemmas I have. What begun many years ago as my wondering about HOW TO get across to them some values and virtues, for instance about honesty, respect of diversity, being responsible for ones deeds…, is now more of a questions WHETHER TO try doing it at all.

The first question is about the way of teaching kids some principles and values that I believe are universal. For example, I feel it is extremely important to be respectful and empathic towards others, no matter how similar or different they might be. Now, if I go on preaching to my teenagers about this, they will fall unconscious instantly or at least start rolling their eyes, shutting their ears and switching their brains to the stand-by mode. And I can easily understand them, I was there as well. The more I preach and try to influence them, the more resistance I will face and less likely they will get it. They are teenagers, building up their own identity which is supposed to be different than mine, by default. So not only will it be difficult for me to get anything across, they will, in order to become themselves, tend to go in a opposite direction. Just for the sake of it.

Furthermore, there is always a question about who am I at all to be so sure about the universality of my own values and to be sure this is the right thing for other people to be and to do? What gives me the right to try to shape my kids according to me as a model? When my father was trying to do this it not only drove me crazy, it was also like listening to messages from another universe – there was such a huge generation gap in between us. He was a nice man, but hey, I felt like he was trying to sell me some really rusted and outdated material.

And, last but not least, whatever I have learned in my life and whatever I have become I certainly became through my own experiences, through my falls and mistakes and wounds. Through my own research into life and by making every single possible mistake on my own. Now that I think of it, there were really smart things my dad was trying to teach me when I was a teenager, but it just wasn’t the right way and it just wasn’t the right time. After ten or fifteen years life has thought me the very precisely same things, but again, it was through my own processes rather than through following his advice in a deontological fashion.

On the other hand, if I just give it up and do not do anything about anything, just let them develop their own perspective to life completely on their own, they will perhaps need decades to get in touch with certain aspects of life. For instance, I value certain collectivist virtues really high, like mutual help, support, helping other people without expecting anything in return, taking responsibility and thinking and doing in a humanitarian way, in a nonviolent way, in a respectful way, with love and compassion. Now, if I just leave them grow the way they want, safe in their world of sweet little denial, blurring their contact with life with TV, PC, MP3, GSM and the rest of the virtual gadgets, they may need decades to get in touch with certain aspects of life which, I dare to say, are not only universally important, but also crucial for the quality of ones living.

I truly and deeply believe in a nonviolent way of relating to the world and in the acceptance and respect of diversity. And in the relativity of it all. But to just let my kids be the way the feel like certainly doesn’t feel right. As it also doesn’t feel right to push and force them into anything. Every word that I say to them actually goes through certain confusion of this kind, back and forth, back and forth.

So, for the time being, I can only hope that by me just being and living certain values and virtues, some seeds actually do get planted somewhere in their minds and hearts in a way that will, by softly growing, support the beauty of their own existence and help them develop a life that will be meaningful and fulfilling.

The Responsibility of Parenting

A couple of days ago I came home from Norway where I was giving another Conflict resolution training to students at the Red Cross Nordic United World College. Working with eager kids from literally all over the world is such a breeze and immense inspiration for me after loads of workshops and trainings given in the business environment. With the absolutely serene nature around being a cream at the top.

On the other hand, it always brings up quite some memories and emotions from within me. Not only does it strike me that my kids are already of this college age (therefore I am not as young as I like thinking I am), during the training and working on questions of needs, free choice, inner conflicts, inner obstacles, lack of self confidence etc, students come in touch with some deeper realms of their beings. And when they come to see me in the breaks to share some intimate problems they have, seeking empathy and support, I am always touched by the fragility of us, human beings, on the one hand, and with the amount of burden they already carry around with them at their age, on the other.

From a certain point of view it is really sad to see how deeply they (and all of us, of course) were shaped by the countless influences from their social environment, starting with their parents, families, schooling system and the culture as whole. As Foucault would have said (I guess), the individual is so utterly manufactured within the discourse of the culture and social environment that we can hardly speak of anything like an individual at all.

From the day 0 our children are left at the mercy of all almost omnipotent adults around, bossing them around and pre-shaping them, willingly or unwillingly, in all sorts of directions. And this process continues on a daily basis, for years after years, forcing them to hyper produce strategies to emotionally survive.

Now, the scary part for me right now is the fact that I am shaping my kids as I write this – and have been doing it all along the way. Thousands of to me seemingly unimportant events and hundreds of those that even I can see as important have left piles of scars and wounds, without me even being aware of them. From their most early childhood my words and my silence, my actions and my non-actions, kept creating certain confusions, fears, pain and so directed their inner emotional life in certain directions. Yes, I also have given them love and support and respect and all of that, as much as I could and probably above average, however this does not change the amount of the painful impact I have caused. And does not provide me with much comfort.

Couple of months back when I realized the amount of love I have, completely ignorant of that, withheld from my kids, my heart almost fell apart. All those years have seemingly rushed by like a tornado and soon they will be leaving home, off into the world and into their independent lives, with all the luggage they will be taking away and having to struggle with for the rest of their lives.

Little did I know about the responsibility of parenting when, many years ago, the idea of having a child or two seemed like a very nice, easy and romantic one.