A Precarious Juncture
Returning to Center Amidst the Irresistible Pull of Sway
There’s a fantastic book called Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, which makes the case that when we are faced with loss (or a potential loss), we are at greater risk of making irrational decisions that can lead to our downfall.
I remembered that book when I read a message today in the following post:
"Corporate media’s talking heads can analyze the data all they want. But there is a simple explanation for why Trump was elected. He was elected because America is pissed off. It’s no more complicated than that. Corporate media keeps crying about how President Trump wants revenge. They’re missing the real story, maybe intentionally.
"It’s not that President Trump wants revenge. A furious America wants revenge.
"We want revenge for lost jobs. We want revenge for lost small businesses. We want revenge for boys cheating girls out of their athletic trophies. We want revenge for bizarre cross-dressers appointed to high offices. We want revenge for wretched drag queens exposing themselves on the White House lawn. We want revenge for the “Pride” flag hoisted above Old Glory. We want revenge for $7 butter, for open borders, for children’s lost educational attainment, for “six foot distancing,” for streets lined with homeless tents, for sneering, hubristic elites commanding trust in “the science,” for soccer moms raided by FBI SWAT teams, for raw political prosecutions, for lives ruined by fentanyl, for euthanized pet squirrels and cats butchered by Haitians, for kids sterilized by trans-affirmed drugs, for elderly parents dying alone, and for chronic, untreatable, disabling vaccine injuries."
I want to urge caution about the concept of revenge and the kind of sentiment or reaction that this word may stir.
Yes, I agree that real harm has been done (and is continuing to be done), and none of that is okay.
However, the desire for revenge is also dangerous. Revenge is what happens when we are consumed by the darkness and thereby join forces with evil. Revenge is a lazy and perilous reaction to injustice and harm.
As the saying goes, Hatred is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
The article above also says:
“The Ancient Greeks believed that Nemesis was the goddess of retribution and vengeance. Nemesis hates hubris, or excessive pride. Nemesis balances the cosmic scales of justice by suddenly and unexpectedly appearing to punish mortals and gods alike just when they think they have won the day.”
Revenge is the behavioral product of a combination of wrath and excessive pride.
Revenge is not the same as justice and it’s not about making right the wrong that was done.
Revenge is how you become the evil that has harmed you. It is a raging fire that will consume you and destroy everything that matters to you if you give into its seductive force.
Only in retrospect of acts of revenge will you likely realize that the enemy was already within the gates and you have destroyed yourself.
Some years back, I had a client who came to me in the middle of terrifying acts of vengeance that his ex was waging in reaction to the revenge that the client had done to get even for the abuse and trauma he experienced.
Before contacting me, the client had sought advice from a well-known YouTuber in the realm of narcissism and psychopathy, one who self-identifies as a narcissistic sociopath—in other words, one who thinks like the client’s ex. The YouTuber gave him tactics to use in order to get revenge that would hurt his ex the most, though he also warned him what would likely happen if he did.
The client didn’t heed the warning and instead sought revenge with the playbook he received from the YouTuber. His wrath and pride won the inner battle, delivering him to the dark side.
He went to jail for his acts of revenge, and years later, he was constantly plagued with terror from both threats and acts of vengeance that his ex was still doing to get back at him. He underestimated the nature of a narcissistic injury.
He regretted seeking revenge, yet he continued down the irresistibly seductive path of darkness, which was consuming his soul and his entire life. That was easier than facing himself and doing the inner healing work. Eventually he gave into the demonic oppression and there was nothing I could do to help him because he wouldn’t help himself.
Regrets are more challenging to heal than resentments because it hurts a lot more when we harm ourselves (sometimes through the empathic reverberation of the act of harming someone else) than when others hurt us.
The best advice I can offer at this precarious juncture is to stop outsourcing our power to external sources, and instead start by setting appropriate boundaries.
That includes boundaries of containment—saying NO to our own misguided internal impulses, which are often based on a trauma response, as well as boundaries for protection—saying NO to others or external forces when something isn’t okay for us so we can heal our battered backbone and reclaim the inner territory that was lost.
Boundaries are not the same as healing. Boundaries support the healing process.
Then we can work on grieving as well as processing and releasing the resentments that were caused by all the harm done to us as individuals and society.
The past has to be resolved in order to create a new path forward.
Trying to create from a place of grief, anger, fear, self-deception or loss will only manifest more of the same. It may look shiny and great at first—like the answer to all our problems—but inevitably it collapses and the past continues to repeat itself.
Grieving involves emoting and releasing the angry cry. It’s okay to be angry and it’s okay to cry. In fact both of these must be processed in order to metabolize the painful loss. This is inner work. It can be supplemented with a container held by another, but ultimately no one else can do this for us.
When the grief is constipated, it causes a lot of secondary symptoms such as emotional numbness, feeling stuck in life, chronic illness and misdirected rage.
When the anger is directed at others with aggression, violence and revenge, that is not a healing process and it will only incur more trauma.
Whinging and complaining while waiting for someone to save us from our circumstances or feelings is also not a healing cry and will not bring lasting relief.
Focusing on revenge and / or rescue fantasies are both paths of disempowerment—two sides of the same coin.
No one is coming to save us, despite the hopium that's being dosed by the recent headlines. That drug will only numb your critical thinking and tempt you to outsource your power to a savior.
If you're emotionally triggered by the wrath or the rescue fantasy, you're being swayed to give away your power.
None of us are immune to this temptation (including myself) and it is the continual work of self-responsibility and self-regulation that will keep bringing us back to center. This is the foundational inner environment that is necessary for us to co-regulate and create positive solutions at a macro level as well, whether in a local community, a country or the global village.
I have faith that some good will be done over the coming years to shift our country and the world in a more positive direction amidst the chaos. Yet this will depend on what choices we make as individuals. Have we learned from the past or will history continue to repeat itself?
Trying to heal the country or heal the world is a coping mechanism. Codependency, the rescue fantasy, and the hero complex are all ways of avoiding self-honesty and doing one’s own inner work.
The collective is a sum of the individuals. When individuals are well, the collective is well. As we take personal responsibility over ourselves and our choices, generating inner healing and thriving, we are contributing to a healing, thriving world.
As we take on personal responsibility to heal, joy can start to reclaim the inner landscape so we can create the life we want to live (despite whatever chaos is happening out there), rather than giving our power away to it all.
The best "revenge" is healing, thriving and living a joyful life despite the abuse, deception and betrayal that tried to destroy us or seduce us into destroying ourselves.
If you want to empower yourself and resolve the past, you can use my free tools to build those muscles with Rescue Yourself: How to Self-Regulate Your Triggers in Stressful Times.
Well said!
Few people seem to understand that those that are guilty of horrible actions were most likely once innocent children that were put through horrors and tortures that are too hard for most people to read about, less comprehend.
So revenge requires no under- standing, just over- standing and beating a tortured creature ( once human creature) with, like you say, hubris and total moral self justification.
A problem in this empathetic way of thinking is that there is no " humane" way to remove power from the traumaticly split personality/ insane, once human vessels, without becoming akin to them.
Not giving them power is nigh impossible in this human form.
Yes!
Revenge is not what a wise person does.
Humanity has moved on from revenge to seeking understanding and solving problems.
We have learned much after being hurt and manipulated by predators, whether in politics and business or at home.