I have noticed, over the many MANY years of the life that I have had, that humans tend to want a scapegoat. We are all familiar, after all, with the phrase, “The Devil made me do it!” It is my personal belief that this is why religion was created…by MAN…so that there would be a duplicity available. When everything goes well and wonderful we can thank God (or whatever else the belief calls it) that it did so. And when things go bad we can blame it on the Devil. Hmm…so…slough off personal responsibility much?
This then extends to others that we see as opponents. They are demonized and blamed for everything and anything that goes sideways in our lives. If we slide on ice and crash into another car, it was the other guy’s fault for not moving out of the way, not OUR fault for driving too fast on a slippery road. We get a poor mark on a paper and it is the professor’s fault for not teaching properly, not OUR fault for not being prepared or researching better information or communicating said information properly. When we go to a doctor or a healer and something goes awry, it is THEIR fault for doing something to mess us up, not our fault at all for all the things that led up to the disease, disorder, discomfort or injury.
Granted, if someone comes up to you and carves your face with a blade, that is their choice and their fault. But the thing is that humans are falible and, at the same time, don’t want to admit to their own failings. This leads to really horrible behavior in response to whatever the thing is that has gone sideways in their lives. It becomes so easy to just blame someone else and make them the “devil.”
There is an old saying in Shamanism that goes, “The Shaman is the first blamed and the last thanked.” Recently I had the delightful experience of having this happen. Being hired to do some work, which I did, the person then experienced some interesting and quite unexpected ripple effects. The initial email from this person stated that “nothing happened.” The second email was a knee-jerk (emphasis on “jerk”) response was to accuse me of doing something wrong. When I challenged and asked, “Well, which is it? Did nothing happen or did everything happen?” the reply was that they were being polite in the first email. I call B.S. Since when is LYING being “polite?” There was no ownership whatsoever of anything on their end that contributed to the unexpected responses. And when I tried to explore with them what was going on, they got rude, snarky, condescending and downright insulting. They wanted “nothing more to do with me.” By this time, I was quite fine with that, because I, too, wanted nothing more to do with them.
This is something that does not happen very often at all. Yet when it does it can be a total Sh#&$how. Now, I have learned something here on my end. I always find that, with poisonous situations, it is important to find the medicine that the experience has also carried. That way, we become innoculated against such poisons in the future. As I have previously mentioned, I do not believe that “everything happens for a reason.” That, in my opinion, is a ridiculous notion that leads people to being defeatists and finding the silver lining in abusive situations. And it also leads some people to blaming the victim in some circumstances. I have talked about this in previous blog posts, so won’t go into detail in this one. I like to keep things fresh for my readers. But I do believe in the art of transmutation…that of creating medicine out of poison. Just as some medicines in the physical world are created from, say, snake venom or spider venom, we can do the same type of transmutation with our experiences.
So what I have learned is that, even if Spirit itself tells me, “Yes, this person requires assistance,” it does not necessarily mean that it is MY assistance they need. This person was up front from the get-go that they had a bad taste in their mouth about a previous experience with another shaman. When I enquired about details, it had to do with that shaman trying to insinuate himself into the person’s life as a means of leaving his own wife. Okay. Well, that is nothing I would do, so it felt like that was checked off the box. But it wasn’t. That previous experience is part of, in my opinion, what led to this person going volcanic when I was trying to assist them in sorting out what went wrong on their end. We all have perspectives that are based upon experiences of the past. It became very clear to me that this person was slotting me into the past experience IMMEDIATELY. So really, I had no chance in hell of being able to assist when nothing I could suggest or would ask about would be taken as anything other than incompetent and with some undercurrent of an agenda, of which I had none. So…even if Spirit says the person needs assistance, from now on I am going to be paying very close attention to my own instincts when dealing with people. We walk into situations like these trusting that it will work well, but when someone holds such hostile energies in the first place, we are actually walking into a war zone that has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the others’ perceived situation.
I am a person who likes to learn from my mistakes. I know I made no mistakes in doing what I was hired to do. So the only thing left is for me to look at myself and see where I went wrong. And where I went wrong was in not trusting my own instincts. I am human, after all. And I know many of my readers will be thinking, “What? Trent flubbed up on THAT?” I know. Even the most experienced of gifted people can stumble now and then. This is why I choose to share this…so that others who are learning from me can also learn from my mistakes. Also, remember that this could happen to ANYONE and that does not mean that you necessarily did anything wrong professionally. It might mean that you had a blind spot personally. There is a difference.
Another mistake I made was in not challenging this person when their “scientific mind” kicked in and belittled what I was talking about in the emails previous to the session. Really, we were talking different languages, which I mentioned to them.. But I did not address the attitude or the arrogance. I should have done that and dropped the person like a rock. Instead, I took the humble approach and tried to help them anyway. Never again will I do that, because it simply set me up for this ridiculous circus act that followed. And at the end of all of that the person said that they have been doing energy work since 2001. TWO THOUSAND AND ONE. And that they know how to ground and did not appreciate my suggestions on that front. Wow. TWO THOUSAND AND ONE. Let that sink in. I have been practicing personally since 1963. I have been professionally doing this since 1989. What arrogance.
So the long and short of it, folks, is that, no matter how experienced you are, no matter how old you are, and no matter how much you try to assist and how well you do your job, you will, indeed, now and then, encounter a total sphincter muscle who will try to blame you for their unresolved baggage. Do not take it personally. Be professional about it. But let them go out of your life as quickly as they came in. That way you don’t get sullied by their noxcious behavior.
So, in the spirit of teaching (often what we most need to learn), here is a list of the major points of this blog:
- Transmutation of experiences is a thing, and it is a thing we all will need to master at some point in our lives.
- Detach yourself from the answers Spirit gives and find your intuitive Inner Wisdom Voice to guide you. That way one avoids miscommunication, misinterpretation and misunderstanding.
- NONE of the experiences that one has with others, personally or professionally, need to be about BLAME. If eveyone simply looks for what they are personally responsible for, then it can simply be about adjustments that can be made to right something. But that takes more than just one person’s efforts.
- Boundaries are also a thing. Do implement them as immediately as they are required. After all, the only people who will be offended by your boundaries are the ones who have been benefittung from you not having any.