“How could they do this to me?”
We are all familiar with the topic. Someone feels deeply wounded by his parents, who bequeathed to him a poor self-image. This victimization explains who he currently is and how he feels about himself. It also justifies his own anger and viciousness; because of the massive injustice by his parents in his formative years, life has overall been unfair to him. Why wouldn’t he be angry?
Robert Perry, founder of the Circle of Atonement, dives deeper into the issue using four simple points.
First, you were not victimized by your parents. You yourself chose to internalize their image of you. You didn’t have to do that. And you yourself chose to hang onto that image once you grew up and left home. You didn’t have to do that, either. After all, you did not hang on to your parent’s political views. Anything less than perfect love on their part represents a false view of you, and in the end only truth has power. If, then, your parents had an unloving view of you, that view, being false, was ultimately powerless. Only your election to take it in and hang onto it gave it any power over you.
Second, this naturally brings up the question of what to do if their image of you was correct. The right-minded answer to this is both extreme and refreshing: No image of you is correct because “You are not an image”. Your reality as spirit is completely invisible. It cannot be seen. It can only be known.
Third, why did you choose to accept your parents’ misperception of your worth? To accept someone’s negative view of you may seem like humility, yet it is never more than simple spite. Although this may seem shocking to hear, it is really quite logical. They didn’t actually do anything to you. You stabbed yourself and then put the knife in their hands. You’ve now framed them for a crime that you yourself committed. You burned your own house down and then planted the gasoline and matches in their car. You’ve made them to blame for something they didn’t do. How can this not be vicious? How can it not be punitive and spiteful? One of the great attractions of being the victim is that you get to be innocent while also being angry and vindictive.
The assumption is that you innocently got hurt and then, as a result, understandably became angry and vindictive. What if we have gotten the order wrong? What if the vindictiveness came first, and as an expression of that you hurt yourself and then blamed someone else for it, so that now you could be justifiably vindictive? This takes all the payoff out of being an innocent victim, for it says that you were not innocent and neither were you a victim.
Fourth, to heal you need to replace this viciousness with a kind orientation toward others, particularly toward those you see as having hurt you. You need to acquire the right frame of mind to help one another. Rather than being spiteful and punitive, you need to be courteous and forgiving.
Notice how the first three points make this forgiveness fully justified. First, they didn’t actually hurt you; you did that to yourself. Second, their image of you is powerless over you, because no image of you is true. You are not an image. Third, your woundedness came out of a vicious impulse within you, which led you to hurt yourself and then blame them. And if your hurt came out of your own viciousness and blame, your healing will naturally come out of the opposite of that—out of kindness and forgiveness.
If you can forgive your parents, there will be nothing left of the original hurt, because there was nothing to it in the first place.
How to Deal with Other People’s Unloving Perceptions of Us
Robert summarises the above discussion in the following 12 points:
Someone misperceived you—saw you in an unloving way, as lacking in worth.
This is an error, but you elect to treat it as true. You accept that you are lacking in worth. You thus feel hurt by their error.
You have given them the power to make you over, a power they do not have. In the process, you tell them they are right about you and grant them approval for their misperception.
You now hold a low opinion of yourself, one that mirrors what they think of you.
This makes you resentful of what they have done to you.
But they didn’t do anything to you. You did it to yourself.
Why do you side with their error? Because of a viciousness in you that wants to make them look deserving of punishment.
The answer is to absolutely refuse to side with their error.
Realize that you are not an image. Who you are is not up to them (or to you).
Forgive them by understanding the powerlessness of their error, by realizing they didn’t really do anything to you.
Having withdrawn the faith you placed in their error, now place that faith in the truth in them. See only their perfection.
This will validate the truth in them, canceling out their misperceptions (and yours) and healing their minds.
Exercise
Let’s put this incredible insight into practice. Think of a person who, from an earthly standpoint, has misperceived you and apparently hurt you—a person about whom you’ve said some version of “How could he do this to me?” Now, take a step toward forgiving this person by reminding yourself of the right-minded view of this situation:
[Name] has misperceived me in many ways, but why should I accord an obvious misperception so much power? [Name] made an image of me, but I am not an image. And it is my duty to establish beyond doubt that I am totally unwilling to side with anyone’s misperceptions of me, including my own. Therefore, rather than viciously blaming [name] for hurting me, let me be willing to demonstrate, through forgiveness, that he has not hurt me.
For reflection
1. How much have you blamed your parents (or anyone else, for that matter) for what they did to you? How much has your own self-image been influenced by them? Have you ever felt like a victim? Have you even worn victimhood like a badge of your own innocence?
2. As you reflect on what is presented here, what are your reactions? To the statements that: 1) They didn’t do anything to you? 2) Their image of you has no power over you. You chose to accept it? 3) Your hurt came out of your own viciousness and was an act of “simple spite”––a way to frame them for something they didn’t do?
Suggested practice
Say to yourself often:
It is my duty to establish beyond doubt that I am totally unwilling to side or identify with anyone’s misperceptions of me, including my own!
