The terrified ego cannot stand for its vulnerability to be questioned. It will launch any attack upon another person to cut off connection and protect itself inside its fortress. I really trust the writings and work of Marianne Williamson one of many students of the Course In Miracles, who write on this subject Williamson explains how the terrified ego can only project guilt onto someone else, the person’s original innocence and essence is not truly seen it is erased by the one who stands detached and apart in a lofty kingdom on high decreeing who is saved and who is fallen, who is right and who is wrong.
This is not to say that there is not true evil out there in the world with people doing hurtful things not based in love. When we wont allow others to live as they truly are and follow their flow, when we try to control them or shut then down, or cut them off or clip their wings we get the live turned around backwards and things then become truly EVIL.
I always used to question evil, surely it was only hurting people that hurt people and if they went through enough suffering surely they would discover the error of their ways and turn things around but those who will only protect their own ego at all costs who will not allow them selves to be seen as just another vulnerable humble human set themselves apart and then love and vulnerability and true connection soul to soul is impossible. Of course according to many of them they are nothing but a helpless ‘victim’ of forces out there and the truth is at one time they may have been victimised but they never learned to turn this around and find their own power and joy in the simple purity of being and living and expressing and allowing in the natural spontaneous flow of their life force.
I have often felt that I was being ‘attacked’ by people when at times they were just living their own lives and going about their own merry way. I didn’t get ‘seen’ a lot as a child so for many years I was desperate to be truly seen as my true self. When I started to get this attention in therapy and understand the reason I struggled so, things finally began to turn around for me. I was no longer looking to be seen by those who could not really see me but only their own projections or defences. Now that I see and know myself I know I am ok even if people try to tell me I am sick. I know I am not, I just know I am a person who suffered a lot of trauma and mine involved a lot of cognitive distortions in my family. If I now sometimes cognitively distort things am I truly sick? I can own it, I had a lot of mixed up stuff go on in my childhood in terms of lies and truth and I wont always get things right but if its pointed out and I made a mistake and admitted it am I then to be demonised again?
I am seeking to no longer attack myself. For too long I tried to become what others wanted simply not to be abandoned but in the end I only ended up abandoning myself. I will not do it any more and neither will I attack another person or allow their attack upon me. The Course In Miracles says that all attack is a call for love but sometimes when we are learning to do the tough work of building a strong enough Teflon suit to deflect the attacks if in the past they have just penetrated so deeply leaving invisible shards of pain, for a time we will need our protections but we wont have to attack the attacker, just stay protected from them for a time. Leave them to their own devices, because anyone who keeps on attacking us is not someone we really need to stay close to. If we are trying to heal a damaging lifetime of cognitive distortions and projections for our own sanity we can only love them from a safe distance. After al its our life and sanity and spirit that is at stake here.
Emerging From The Dark Night 