I was sitting with a sister in a kava bar conversing about community, consciousness, and stuff of the cosmos. A normal day in my surreally ordinary waking reality.
Amidst our dialogue, we began having a conversation about abuse in its subtler forms and how it shows up in relationship.
The abuse I am talking about in this case, is not the obvious form of physical or sexual abuse, but instead abuse that occurs on the level of subtle emotional and psychological energetics.
As she was speaking about abuse, the image that immediately came to mind for me was the act of spinning an invisible energetic prison for the person, that is built out of subtle comments, actions and mannerisms that systemically invalidating a person's belief systems or emotions.
The person who is perpetuating the abuse as described above, often may not even consciously realize what they are doing, but instead is unconsciously perpetuating a pattern of self-protection that they have learned to cope with their own fears of inadequacy and abandonment over the years.
What also feels important to note here is that no abuse on this level of subtle awareness happens in isolation or a vacuum.
This type of subtle abuse that systemically disconnects a person from feeling conviction and grounding in their own inner guidance system, does not work unless there is a part of the abusee that believes playing into this dynamic is what will help love stay.
When we grow up in a culture that perpetuates the belief that we are not worthy or good enough as we are...
...and many of us are recovering from parenting models that didn't have access to the levels of freedom or spiritual awareness that many of us are privy to now...
...it can be easy to become an active or passive co-creator in our own relational and spiritual demise. A perfect example of the "boiling frog analogy" (which I'll attach a video about in the comments below).
Kinky, right? That we can find seduction, desire, and longing to lean into these patterns of relating that perpetuate our own victimhood and debilitation of self and soul.
What I would love to encourage in these words that I share here, is to shift our primary focus away from attachment to villainizing the accused "perpetrator", and instead shift our awareness to questioning what within ourselves believes we are worthy of being treated in this way?
Asking ourselves questions such as:
What is the type and quality of love that I wish to believe in?
What part of me deep down knows that the way I'm being treated isn't right? And why do I ignore that voice?
What part of me is addicted to the paradigm of clear "rightness" and clear "wrongness", in order to avoid being in the profound ambiguity of the inevitable gray area that is reality and human relating?
What fear do I have about standing in the conviction of my truth? And where am I still more attached to being chosen than being authentic?
There are many more questions I could ask, and do ask in the intimacy containers I create with my clients, but for now, I invite each of us to consider where we have found a debilitating sense of safety in channeling our precious life force energy in turning others into the villain.
Validating or our own ineptitude and inability to change our circumstances by affirming external forces that limit our capacity to do so.
YES, these external forces do exist, AND, again it comes back to this question of which wolf (fear or love) we choose to feed on a daily basis.
I am not attempting or intending to offer an answer of how to dismantle these collective pre-inclininations towards subtle forms of control and manipulation oriented abuse in order to "make love stay"...
...In this moment, I simply want to bring awareness to that danger in trivializing what it means to be a perpetrator or an abuser, and how it can perpetuate an ostracizing and condemning of qualities that *inevitably* exist within all of us.
We all want to be loved. And we are at the tipping point of a collective awakening to the realization that love cannot exist when "power over" is the agenda.
We are learning a new way. And we are all on this ride together. I love you, and I am an ally for you in this deep and significant remembering of who we truly are.