Victim, Victim Transformer, Transcender

Good Morning!

Over the past several weeks, I have been listening to Ken Wapnick's audio CD, "The Meaning of Forgiveness." Ken is the head of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles - the organization that owns the copyright for A Course in Miracles. Ken was the person who worked with Helen Schucman, the scribe of A Course in Miracles, on the editing of the original manuscript.

From Victim to Victor

One of the points in his CD is that when we are ego-focused, we work diligently each day to expand our list of people we blame for our current situation. We blame our parents for us not being born in a better situation, we blame schools for not educating children better, we blame politicians for not making the decisions we "know" are right, we blame our significant others for not treating us the way we want to be treated. The list goes on and on. As Ken mentions in his CD, it is as if we are saying, "Before you came along I was okay, I was at perfect peace. Then you came and took away my peace! You're to blame."

But even on the level of the world as we know it, peace is a state of mind not a state of events. You can have 10 people in the same situation and all may be at different levels of peace. So if peace is a state of mind, the only person who can disturb my peace is me. It's not what happens in the world that changes my state of mind, it is what I think about what happens in the world that keeps me at peace or disturbs my peace.

And on the level of spirit, we know that - just as we sleep at night and have dreams that we create though we are really lying in bed - the world that we seem to live in is just a dream that our minds have created though we are really home with God. And so anything we create in this dream (happiness/sadness, peace/lack of peace) is OUR creation - even though it definitely doesn't feel like it, just as in our dreams at night when someone is chasing us, it doesn't feel like we are creating it.

And once more the only person who can disturb my peace is me. We have moved from victim to victor. We choose peace, love, joy or anything else, despite the circumstance.

From Victim to Victor to Transformer

With Ken's message fresh in my head, this week I facilitated a two-day teambuilding session with a group from a federal government agency. There were a number of people on the team who seemed to be taking a "victim" approach to their work, "Look what they did to me." As I planned for the session, I knew I wanted to introduce the concept of victim and victor, but my sense was that there was more to the message. As I got quiet, I received a wonderful insight.

Victim
• Focus: The past, self
• Action: Blame
• Example: "I didn't get the promotion"

Victor
• Focus: The future, opportunities
• Action: Take action
• Examples: Vanessa Williams (after being dethroned from Miss America), City of New York (after 911)

Transformer
• Focus: Making it better for others
• Action: Change the environment
• Example: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (a woman lost a child to a drunk driver and decided she would help prevent this from happening to others and started a national movement)
While the victor makes it better for himself/herself, the transformer makes it better for everyone. This insight helped the members of this particular government branch. Throughout the two-days we referred back to this concept of victim-victor-transformer as a standard of behavior for team members to focus on improving their environment.

But Still More...

This was very helpful to the team, yet, I still felt that there was more learning for me. As I continued to reflect, I got it: from Victim to Victor to Transformer to Transcender! What is a Transcender?

Transcender
• Focus: Seeing the truth that this is just our dream
• Action: Love and forgive
• Examples: Jesus, Mother Teresa

Whenever we are ready, we can choose to remember that this is just a dream and remember that our only purpose here is to practice the love and thought system that will allow us to reawaken to our home in God.

Of course I didn't think that my friends from the government agency were quite prepared to hear the "transcender" message from me, so I stopped at transformer!

Have a great day!

Michael