Transforming through the Heart

By Jenny Warner, ETJ Retreat Leader

There is a coaching tool called the Victim Triangle. This process includes a perpetrator, victim and rescuer at each of the 3 corners of the triangle. At various points in our life, we can experience ourselves in each of these archetypes.

The victim is pretty self-explanatory. It is the archetype of being taken advantage of, experiencing degradation, pain, suffering and feeling as though your power has been taken away by someone or something.

The perpetrator archetype is an energy of over-powering, inflicting, manipulating, coercing, or projecting onto another. This isn’t always physical, and it isn’t always intentional. Sometimes parenting can fall into this archetypal energy. When you really want something to go your way this archetype can show up too.

Finally, there is the archetype of rescuer. This is the archetypal energy of hero, helper, nurturer, healer, or savior. At first glance we feel like this archetype is the best and the others are horrific or bad. When the rescuer archetype is present, it can be an energy that continues to perpetuate the other archetypes. The victim still does not have power, and the perpetrator can still perpetrate.

When we look at it more closely, we realize that each of these has an undercurrent that is less than desirable.

This is where many people find this controversial until they allow themselves time to sit with this idea:

A victim needs to be able to be their own rescuer and have strong boundaries instead of perpetrating themself to be taken advantage of. – Triggering????

Yes, terrible things happen to wonderful people. Yes, some truly horrific things have happened to me. So was I triggered by this when I first came to be taken through this awareness in my Shamanic training? You’d better believe it. I said, but what about…, but then there’s this situation… but I didn’t mean to….

All of the questions, descriptions, scenarios are true and valid. The truth of the energies of the archetypes are also true and valid.

So, what I have discovered is that by turning inward, into the power that resides in your heart, you can start to soften the edges of the victim triangle. Almost like shaving them down.

With the turning inward and exploring, expanding the stories with bringing attention to them, taking an observer role gives you a different perspective to any situation. This broader view then creates more space between the situation, emotion, experience and step out of the triangle.

Here’s where I’m going to ask for some creative liberty…Think of that expansion of the triangle as now coming into the shape of a heart. ❤️ You can’t unsee that now, right?

Getting curious, exploring situations, relationships, emotions from an observer perspective…a little bit removed from the thick of things, helps you to breathe more freely. You don’t feel the same heat from the situation. This distance creates space for more love to be brought in. Compassion, love, faith and belief that the best will come out of this are what I describe love’s impact to be…in part.

One way that I have been so greatly impacted by experiencing the space to be able to go through these experiences has been doing this in a community of people that do hold you. People who aren’t trying to rescue you, but to love you enough to hold space while you find your footing, your own power and strength to take the next step or sometimes just your next breath. That’s what I have found in the Enjoy The Journey family. Even when we aren’t together in a retreat setting, the community container is still strong and present in my life. This group has been so alchemizing for me and my life that I have decided to become a retreat leader. No matter which retreat I’ve been to, or the free Sacred Sunday yoga practices online, I still feel held, supported and empowered. I feel the expanded state of my heart. Not a victim, not a perpetrator, not a rescuer. Just Love.

Thanks for being on this journey.

With Love,
Jenny Warner

Invitations:
Join us in Vermont!
Journey with Kate Lemay in exploration, “The The Direction of Your Attention”.
Journey with Christina Alexa through “The Sacred Mechanics of Change: When the Wound Become’s the Warrior’s Way”.