As we become more and more ultrasensitive in this budding Intuition Age, as we learn to live by and use “frequency principles”—the way energy and awareness actually work—we must penetrate into the reality of the Golden Rule and realize exactly why it is the core truth in every religion.

I recently encountered a handful of situations where people were trying to understand and recover from the hurt caused by seemingly intelligent, spiritually aware friends and partners. These partners had been abused and abandoned in childhood, and periodically, like clockwork, they would erupt in cycles of rage and passive-aggressive behavior. These abused and wounded people have a double standard they don’t see: after having craved, solicited, and even demanded unconditional love and support, they seem not to mind abusing and wounding those who actually do love and support them—the moment they begin to feel scared.

During the acting out episodes, they say cruel things, throw objects, destroy property, and impulsively try to ruin their relationship by blaming the other person for the very things they themselves are doing. They cannot see the parallels—how they are becoming the abusers they hate, and how they are actually re-abusing themselves—and don’t want to because that would mean taking responsibility for their actions and having to face a painful (though false) idea of who they think they are.

In this pattern, the wounded partner often walks or storms out of the room/house with no communication about where they’re going or when they might return, leaving the other person to worry about their safety and the future of the relationship. The heart and all empathy is shut down; there is no capacity to feel the other’s pain, or goodness.

There is, however, a will to deflect one’s own pain, a will to blame others, a will to wound. I suppose, below the surface in some level of the crazy victim-mind, they are letting themselves off the hook because, “I was hurt, so I’m not responsible for what I do. I deserve to be mad. And I can make it all better later, or act like it never happened. Or, I can always leave and start another relationship.”

I remember watching, with morbid fascination, a reality television program that dealt with celebrity rehab from drug, alcohol, and sex addiction. It was interesting to watch the difference between the two states of awareness the addicts swung back and forth between. When they were high they isolated themselves, acted impulsively and narcissistically, and put down or destroyed anything relating to “normal” life. Whatever substance they relied on to cover their pain became the Authority and demanded attention and obedience.

As they detoxed, the frightened mind acted out in ways I described above: behaviors marked by lying, whining, making excuses, avoiding truth, going into apathy and dissociative states, and becoming cruel and violent to distance others who might want to “judge” or “change” them. When they came through the detox process and were clean, their sweetness shone through, they cared about others, and expressed themselves clearly and intelligently. Their talent emerged. As I watched, I began to discriminate times when the disease was talking vs. times when the soul was talking.

Many people are not addicts to the extent those television show people were, but many of us manage or medicate our early wounds similarly, in a variety of tricky ways. The behavior is the same: when faced with feeling that the old painful pattern might repeat, or with the reality of having to give up the core addiction to being a victim, the mind pulls out every possible mode of distraction and avoidance. A gap opens up and it’s so easy then to say any hurtful thing, or to use energy to whack someone. This is something we need to own up to and be able to change.

(to be continued)