Are you a Hero... or a Victim?

So, do you like to nurse injured animals, rescue people from fires, and chain yourself to trees in endangered forests? Do you put others ahead of yourself? Cultivate relationships based on your strong desire to help and nurture and give back to the world? You do if you're a hero.

Heroes find themselves sacrificing for the greater good much more often than others around them. Heroes know they're more capable than the other people in their lives, so they're careful not to abuse their power. They do this by taking on the harder jobs that others can't do. Heroes run women's shelters and bring words of comfort into maximum-security prisons. Heroes want to take home every injured or hungry child in the whole world. Heroes look at the addicts and the downtrodden and think "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Heroes feel guilty about the slightest trace of greed or selfishness on their part, so they undercharge and give much to charity... and don't even tell anyone about it. "How can I put a price on giving another something that they should never have to do without?" asks the hero. After all, so many people have so many needs, and the hero is so lucky to have the gifts that life has given him.

Victims' lives have no meaning without others. Victims are mistreated and misunderstood by everyone. It's because they are so full of love they can't help but fall in love with the wrong people. You see, victims have problems controlling their own great passion. Without the chance to give this love to others, they find themselves dealing with addiction and compulsion. Life is a great trial when you're misunderstood and unappreciated despite all the amazing energy you have to offer. The best, most just thing for a victim would be to win the lottery or marry a prince, because victims deserve to live well... but life is so hard.

Victims, despite their hopeless romanticism, are realists too; the victim grabs what little happiness she can get when she can get it. Victims demand that their rights be respected... though, of course, few people are so decent. And so, victims usually know who is at fault when bad things happen. Sometimes it's God.

Fiddle-dee-dee, poor, poor me!

The deal is this: heroes feel victimized, and victims think they're heroic. Some people are such victims that they are heroic in being able to bear it. Some heroes are so busy fixing everyone else's lives that they have no lives of their own and they fall victim to the consequences of that. 

Heroes and victims are all part of the same crowd. We keep close company. Heroes are always looking for victims to take care of, and victims are always looking for heroes to treat them right. Plus, we have a lot in common, like keys fitting in locks, or yin matching with yang. Heroes and victims need each other.

It's uncanny: we victims and heroes meet at a cafe and feel like we've known each other forever and a week later we've moved in together. That's why we can abuse each other in ways that nobody else would understand (or put up with); we know each other that well. We're like two sides of a coin, always seeking one another out in order to make balance.

The balance we seek from one another is karmic. Essentially, in the Big Karmic Ledger Book of Life, heroes perceive that they have a balance owing because they have received so much. They need to give back, make things fair, solve all the suffering in their world. Victims perceive that they've done way more than their share; they've got a lot coming to them and they've got to make things fair by getting what they're owed. Why should they get the short end of the stick when others who are so much less deserving get so much?

Victims and heroes have the same basic problem: a dissatisfied sense of energy balance in their own lives. This comes from not knowing their rights or being able to assert their personal boundaries. It's a form of arrested development.

Each of us has two requirements in order to grow up:

1. Nurture: we must have our survival needs met by unconditionally others until we are able to meet them ourselves; and

2. Structure: we must not have our survival needs met by others when we are able and want to meet them ourselves.

If either of these requirements is violated by our adult caregivers when we are children, it is a form of abuse. If we do not have our needs unconditionally met, this is neglect causing shame, guilt, and lack of identity. If we are not allowed to meet our own needs when we are ready, this is a boundary invasion causing blame, learned helplessness and lack of identity.

In our culture, our nurture and structure requirements are almost always inadequetely fulfilled and as a result most of us don't fully grow up before we start taking on adult roles such as marriage and parenting our own children. Parents attempting to complete their own childhood nurture or structure needs will over- or undercompensate with their own kids, just because they don't really know what it feels like to experience normal nurture or structure. In other words, parents will screw up according to whether they themselves are heroes or victims. Parents will either be more concerned with lack of nurturing in their own childhood or lack of structure in their own childhood and will attempt to balance the ledger accordingly with their own children.

>It's pretty simple: if you don't have your survival needs  met unconditionally, but you're allowed and encouraged to meet your own needs, you'll become a hero to complete the nurturing you didn't get enough of... only you'll unconsciously give the nurturing to others instead of yourself. You'll control others in order to take care of them. If you have your survival needs met unconditionally but you aren't allowed to make important personal choices, you'll become a victim in as you focus on structure... by unconsciously imposing it on others. You'll criticize others in order to help them be better people, giving structure to others instead of to yourself.

Healing is the same in both cases. Forget about others. Go back, find the places you got hurt, and start giving yourself the structure and the nurture that you need. Everyone will benefit... even you.