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Breaking Free of Victim Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Visit our bookstore to purchase our ebook, Breaking Free of Victim Consciousness. http://weinholds.typepad.com/main/bookstore.html

Introduction to Victim Consciousness
As we move fully into the galactic alignments of 2012 and the Shifting of the Ages, human consciousness is also shifting from duality-based, Piscean victim consciousness to unity-based, Aquarian multidimensional consciousness. Experiencing this shift can be challenging for people if they don't realize this shift is happening, recognize that they are trapped in victimhood dynamics or that other models of reality that are available.

We've studied victimization and studied it from many angles. We’ve particularly focused on what is "right" about it; knowing that even pain, suffering and victimhood are an integral part of living in duality. Out of our very personal research and journey, we assimilated a framework for not only understanding the multiple aspects of this shift but also a host of tools for identifying victim consciousness, embracing everything associated with it and exposing it all to unconditional love. Here we share with you a brief overview of the shift from victim consciousness to multidimensional consciousness -- one that we also present in workshop on this subject.

In this Section

:: The Drama Triangle: A 3-D Victim Consciousness Trap
:: The Role of Projections in the Drama Triangle
:: How to Break Free of Victim Consciousness

"At last! Workshops that synthesize and teach information in an easy to understand format. They not only helped me to put the puzzle pieces of my life together, but also gave me skills to help me heal past trauma, break painful cycles of destructive behaviors and create more joyful, loving and peaceful relationships. The Weinhold's are master teachers with integrity who create a fun, supportive and loving environment for transformation."

Valerie A. Kratz
CEO, President
HVS Laboratories, Inc.

Barriers to Multidimensional Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

We live in third dimensional reality — a vibrational frequency anchored through relational structures guarded by reality "gatekeepers." These folks appear as teachers, scientists, government workers, the military and the media and in personal relationships as partners, parents and children. Families serve as the primary gate keeping institution-the central programming source for restricting consciousness. Larger social systems then reinforce this programming, beginning with schools and churches and extending into higher education, the corporate world and government.

The goal of gatekeepers is to keep you embroiled in victim games that serve as a dysfunctional or even toxic kind of relational glue. While these games keep you in relationship, they also prevent you from experiencing intimacy. It is like living on a merry-go-round or a 3D soap opera. Ultimately, these sick power and control games prevent you from accessing other frequencies or realities that are available to you. If this scenario seems familiar, it was the basis for the Matrix movies. If you are wondering how to break free of the 3D matrix, we believe it begins with breaking free of the Drama Triangle.

Testimonial from  workshop participant:

"At last! Workshops that synthesize and teach information in an easy to understand format. They not only helped me to put the puzzle pieces of my life together, but also gave me skills to help me heal past trauma, break painful cycles of destructive behaviors and create more joyful, loving and peaceful relationships. The Weinhold's are master teachers with integrity who create a fun, supportive and loving environment for transformation."

Valerie A. Kratz
CEO, President
HVS Laboratories, Inc.

The Drama Triangle: A 3-D Victim Consciousness Trap

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Victim consciousness is so pervasive that it is virtually impossible to grow up without being exposed to and impacted by it. While we all learned it in our families, we believe the cause of victim behaviors is the important emotional and psychological tasks that were not completed in our psychological development between two to three years of age.

The first piece of unfinished psychological business is becoming emotionally separate from your parents so that you can operate on internal, self-directed power. The second is moving from black-and-white or duality thinking and into both-and or unity thinking. If your parents had not completed these two things, it is likely that they did not know how to support you in finishing them.

When you are not able to operate on internal power and still think in dualities, the Karpman or Drama Triangle appears. It not only obstructs psychological development but also anchors victim consciousness in family members. 

The Karpman Triangle involves family members rotating between Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim roles and happens when people split their life experiences into opposites of good/bad, all/nothing and always/never. 

The two-against-one Drama Triangle game prevents the Persecutor and the Rescuer from communicating directly. You can see in the Drama Triangle diagram below that there is no direct communication link between the Persecutor and the Rescuer.

The Drama Triangle contains an underlying premise that there is not enough of "something" -love, money, toys, and parents-to go around. If you asked for this something that is in short supply family member would consider you "selfish" and therefore it was taboo to ask. The only legitimate way to get the something is through the Victim role. This rule makes the Victim role the most coveted of the three. Those who fear looking needy or helpless often get their own needs met vicariously by playing out the Rescuer role. This not only helps soothe their feelings of neediness, it also offers an opportunity for them to look good.

Both Victim and Rescuer roles are associated with being "good" and the Persecutor role with being "bad." While these roles typically rotate in intimate relationships, the ultimate goal is to be the Victim. Another rule is that the Rescuer usually gives the Victim what he or she personally needs rather than what the Victim actually needs. The result is that the Victim is unhappy with the Rescue. This gives the Victim permission to attack the Rescuer, which then shifts them into the Persecutor role. At this point, the Rescuer shifts into the Victim role. Most people discover quickly that a quick path to the Victim role is through Rescuer role.

We believe that the dynamics of the Drama Triangle represent dysfunctional attempts to become emotionally separate from your parents that should have happened between two to three years of age. Without the proper support of two conscious, evolved parents, hardly any one completes this on schedule. The lack of emotional separateness keeps you locked in polarized thinking and victim consciousness.

The resolution to Drama Triangle dynamics is quite simple. 

1. Commit to stop getting your needs through the Victim role and ask directly for what you want and need. 

2. Connect the missing communication link between the Persecutor and the Rescuer on the triangle as shown below. 

When you learn how to do these two things, you will find yourself off the Drama Triangle and out of victim consciousness.

Core Beliefs of Victim Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Beliefs form as the result of intense or traumatic emotional experiences during childhood. You cannot think away or eliminate trauma with your conscious mind. Trauma is wired into the central nervous system and operates through the autonomic nervous system and the reptilian brain, which is why it is so difficult to eliminate. Here are some of the core beliefs that are characteristic of people with victim consciousness:

• I am not okay, neither are you and it's someone's fault.
• Someone has done something bad to me they are responsible for the lack of peace and happiness in my life.
• I wouldn't be having all of these uncomfortable feelings if only ____would stop doing what they are doing.
• Most of my problems are cause by things outside of my control.
• The world is a big, scary place and I cannot change things.
• The whole world is against me and is trying to keep me down.
• It is my destiny to be crushed and sacrificed when the chips are down.
• I did everything for so and so and they just took advantage of me.
• I wish something outside of me were different so that I could feel better.
• If I listen to what others say, I'll be talked out of my own beliefs and views.
• Every time I get close to someone, he or she sees how unlovable I am and reject me.
• I can't listen to other people's feelings because it may stir up my own.
• If people get to know me they will see how weak I am and lose respect for me.
• If I open up to someone, he or she will abandon me and I may die.
• If I cry, I will never be able to stop.
• If I get angry, I might kill someone.
• If I expressed my pain, it will be so much that I might go crazy or die.
• If I was rejected, I do not know what would happen to me.

While victim consciousness is part of virtually all social structures, it is learned first in families. From this view, victim consciousness is social problem. Once you recognize that you are contributing to the problem, you can graduate from victim consciousness. You can find a more complete description of this process in our book, Counter dependency: The Flight From Intimacy.

The Role of Projections in the Drama Triangle

Barry K. Weinhold

In the clever little ditty about "me and my Shadow," the singer/dancer is in relationship to his Shadow as they stroll together down the avenue. However, if you operate out of a False Self, you cannot be in relationship with your Shadow. You may not even realize that you have a Shadow part. The Shadow in psychology usually refers to those unwanted aspects of your Self that you choose to ignore by splitting them off from your awareness and then can see only in others. Projection is seeing your own Shadow parts in other people and judging them for being the way they are. This defense mechanism is a way to avoid or hide aspects of yourself that you learned as a child were unacceptable.

Interestingly, what you try to avoid is often what you attract to yourself. Have you ever experienced something, such as angry people that you want to avoid, suddenly showing up everywhere, in the aggressive server, the over-bearing friend, the demanding boss or the complaining spouse? Those you wish to avoid all show up in your life for a reason. The Law of Attraction causes you to draw them and their issues to you in order to complete some karmic issue or heal some trauma. In addition, the natural learning style of human beings is to repeat something that is unfinished or unresolved until it they understand and feel complete.

Actually, there is a mythical place called "central casting" where they have an unlimited supply of actors and actresses that they can send into your life to help you resolve the inner split, deal with the karmic issue or heal the trauma. They will continue to send these people into your life until the unresolved karmic issue involving these kinds of people is resolved. Then they will stop sending these people into your life. You will know that you have resolved the karmic issue when you no longer have to deal with people who dial up a reaction in you.

When you live out of your False Self, you tend focus your awareness on the unfinished business or issues of others and often are very unaware of your own karmic issues. You use projections to keep yourself from having to look at and face your own karmic issues. If you are in a relationship, you may see the other person as the sick or needy one in the relationship. This often enables you to continue to live out of the False Self to avoid looking at your own Shadow.

Your Shadow as a Barrier to Unity Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Your Shadow consists of all those aspects of yourself that you want to keep hidden from others and from yourself. These are usually the aspects of your self that not accepted in the matrix and reinforced by your parents or teachers or society as wrong, deviant, bad, unruly or uncivilized. Your parents may have told you things like, "Don't be so active, sit still," or "Don't play with your food," "Sit up straight," "Don't play with yourself, that's bad and dirty," or "Good girls don't get angry," and "Big boys don't cry." You then learn to hide all of these rejected or unacceptable feelings, thoughts and behaviors. You put them away in a "bag," so to speak. Hiding these natural aspects of your True Self, at a young age, allows you to please others and just plain survive. However, it is also traps you and keeps you a prisoner in the Matrix.

As you grow up, you drag this bag of unwanted or unappreciated aspects behind you everywhere you go. For most people, by the time they are nineteen or twenty they have put almost everything of value about themselves into this bag: their creativity, their passion, their sexuality, their ability to have deep feelings, their energy, their spontaneity, their hungers, their enthusiasms, their dreams, and whatever else that they deemed frivolous, unattractive or unacceptable by others.

What's left? The only things left are those behaviors, thoughts and feelings that peers, parents, teachers and other adults found acceptable or non-threatening, which is usually not much of who you really are. You can easily get over-identified with your False self and still try to look acceptable enough or non-threatening enough, in hopes of getting you unmet developmental needs met. Your hope is that if you do enough of the right things, you will finally get the respect, love and recognition you have always wanted. Of course, this doesn't work. Instead, you find yourself on a treadmill, doing as much as possible to look good to others, but feeling empty inside.