Ok so let’s talk about X Men First Class and Star Wars, which may seem unrelated to rough times and trials. I know in my discussion of this, I’m really relating it to my divorce. But I think it can really be applied to any situation in life that’s rough, that’s hard to overcome. It’s this issue of when you are wronged—and I’m talking about specific situations in which you are the victim of someone else’s wrongdoing.
There’s always different ways to look at situations that involve pain. Sometimes we’re the perpetrators, right? We’re the ones causing the problem. We’re the ones that had an affair, cheated on a test, screwed up at work. If you’re going to overcome those situations, it takes a different kind of strength. It’s a different process that involves responsibility and taking ownership of your mistake and setting a commitment plan to not do that again, or to avoid doing it again as best as you can. So that involves taking ownership and that involves accepting the blame and changing. It involves true change, maybe repentance, but for sure feeling true pain, feeling true sorrow, admitting that you hurt other people and moving on from that. That’s very different. And I’ve seen people move on from that—from huge, huge mistakes. So it is possible.
Something that I’ve noticed is that it’s really easy for me to take ownership and blame and go ‘ I screwed up. Here’s how I’m not going to do this again. Here’s how I’m not going to hurt my loved ones again. This is what I’m going to do.” That, to me, is easier than when the wrong has been done to me and I’m dealing with that kind of pain—when I’m a victim. So I hate being a victim to an extent that I’ve even taken blame for huge things in life that were not my fault, but in a way to explain the situation and explain someone else’s crazy actions—which we can’t actually do, right? We try to, but we can’t. in a way to explain those, I took blame on myself and took blame on myself for a situation involving some verbal sexual abuse from a pastor when I was 17. That’s another story.
As much as I hate being the victim, and this is what I was told when I was in counseling sessions when they said ‘you need to accept that you’ve been wrong and you’re the victim here,’ and I would say, ‘no I’m not! If I hadn’t been interviewing this pastor, I wouldn’t have even gotten to know him and I must have been giving off signals subconsciously that this was ok.’ Even though I knew that wasn’t true! I was lying to myself in an effort to find some way to make sense of an inappropriate perspective about our relationship from this pastor who I had no control over. Trusted family friend to pervert overnight.
As much as I hate doing that, and I’ve done this a number of times, subconsciously I milk it for all that it’s worth. That’s really weird to admit. Some people have said to me, if you don’t like being a victim, you wouldn’t be milking it for all that it’s worth. You can’t have both things be true. Like you hate being a victim and you hate not being in control, but you’re playing the attention card, and playing the victim card—those things can’t happen at the same time. No it actually can be true at the same time, only I’m not aware of it. One is a brain thing and one is a heart thing, and mine typically operate on two different wavelengths instead of together.
In being a victim in that situation in my life, which was a big situation in my life that really changed me and affected me, I felt the power of the dark side. I felt uncontrollable hate and anger. I’m not one that collapses into a pile of tears. That’s not my initial response to pain. My initial response is anger and blame. And it’s easy to blame my husband who left and it’s easy to blame this pastor who was stupid.
What I didn’t realize for awhile is that you walk down this road and you start justifying the dark side. Under any normal circumstances—regular, sunny day, you’re walking down the street happy in your life. And you’re not going to pick the dark side knowingly. Nobody does. Even Anakin Skywalker didn’t. he justified his draw to the dark side by what? Some minor victim mentality issues (feeling taken advantage of, not appreciated blah blah blah) and saving Padme. Right? This is really making me sound like a nerd.
But that’s what you have to understand about the dark side. There’s always a way to justify it. For me it was when I was a victim and I can blame the wrongdoing easily and correctly on someone else—no questions. I started justifying feeling this extreme hate and anger. And with my divorce, I didn’t realize it had taken over until over a year after. I’m in a happy relationship, I’m in a great place in my life. I have so much to be thankful for and truly living an amazing life right now. Why am I upset? Because I let this take hold of me when I was in the middle of it, when I was in the throes of it, and I held onto it. I said ok this is truth. This is justified. I have a reason to be angry. I have a reason to be mad. This was their fault. so I started feeling the dark side.
And I just recently watched X Men First Class, which is my favorite of the XMen films for a couple reasons-I love the focus on Professor X’s back story and I also like James McCavoy who plays Professor X. and so in that story, you see Magneto. You see his back story. He’s in a concentration camp in WW2. His mom was killed in front of him because of his powers and you see his reason for becoming what he did become. And you see this interesting relationship between him and Professor X because you see this battle between good and evil and you see the same things in the world with the mutants and the way they are treated. The same things affect them both in different ways. The way the mutants are treated inspired the darkness in magneto. And that’s based on what? Based on his experiences, based on what was done to him that was wrong, based on his victim experiences. Professor X didn’t have those—the same going on in the culture about the mutants affect him a different way. He wants to save them, he wants the world to accept them and Magneto wants to turn mutants against the world. SO you have to understand the reason for that and it’s because of what was done to Magneto and what he went through. There’s a line in that film when Professor X is talking to Magneto when they are younger and he says, ‘You realize you’re so much more than that, don’t you? You’re so much more than all that pain and anger.’
So I just wanted to caution you. I’ve been thinking about this recently and now that I’m out of the aftermath of my own divorce, I can see what I did during the time—and I thought I was innocent and didn’t realize I was doing it—I see that I was justifying the dark side. I was justifying the anger. I see that that happened while I was in the middle of it, thinking that it was righteous anger. Be very careful about righteous anger and playing your victim card one too many times. One day you’ll believe it and you’ll end up tricking yourself into holding pockets of hate that you didn’t even know that you had, which is what I’ve been dealing with recently. And I’ve been cautioning a few friends going through rough times saying let it go…don’t hold onto it. Don’t be angry at this person that’s hurting you and I know you’re not going to listen to me at first. But do what you can to separate yourself from that anger and don’t let it become part of you and eventually let it go.
You feel this immense power and drive that’s given you. Anger is a way to survive—it was for me. It was a way to keep me in school, keep me working, it’s a way to handle life and not just collapse on the floor paralyzed and limp and crying. So use it and use it carefully is what I’m saying. I caution you against the power of the dark side so you don’t become Anakin Skywalker and you don’t become Magneto in my little world of fictional characters that I actually think are real.
So those are my thoughts of the day and I wanted to reach out to those of you who are going through rough times. Or maybe you’re past a rough time and you don’t know you are still holding onto it. That was me. I was past this stuff and I was like why am I not fully happy? Why am I not fully living? And I realized just recently within the last month that I’m holding onto stuff and I really thought it through and went through the rough days, and the fog when I thought I was crazy. And I came out of it going, ok, this is the root of it. I played my victim card one too many times. I played the game so well that I tricked myself into thinking it wasn’t a problem and it was. And when I see what started it—always go back to the root. Question yourself, question, pray about it—get to the root of why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling. For me it was because I took that pain and anger and I felt powerful and I felt stronger and I kept it and held onto it because I justified it by being I the victim.
You know what? Let it go. You can admit that something was done wrong to you,d eal with it and then get over it. Is tayed the victim. So did magneto. So did Anakin. Charles is the most powerful character in that story because of his perspective and the way he thinks. Random thoughts for the day. I wanted to get them down before I forgot them. It’s so hard knowing you’re doing it when you’re in the middle of it. It’s so hard. So as I come out of it, I see red flags in friends of mine and I’ve been thinking…hey, wait a second. Be careful. You need to stop overthinking things. Stop analyzing. Get to a point to where you can let it go. Let those people go. Let the situation go. Let it go. Keep checking yourelf after as your’e going through the aftermath—whatever the issue is whether it’s a parent dying or somebody being mean to you, or marriage problems—maybe you’re not even divorced, maybe it’s problems in your existing marriage. Check yourself to make sure that it’s not there and that you’re not holding onto that. I know with me, my alter ego, my subconscious, my flesh is so good at doing what I’ve taught it to do that it tricks my spirit, the innocent part of me that doesn’t want to be like that. And then I get stuck and I don’t know why and I get all this garbage off the top and I’m like oh my gosh—this is why. I did this to myself. So watch that.
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