Sexual Assault Law Of Attraction And Child Abuse

[miss_isolated]

I find the law of attraction very interesting... BUT the experts in it say that whatever has happened in your life - good and bad - you have attracted it to yourself.

So I don't get it...

...are these experts saying that it's a child's own fault if they get abused by anyone? Or that it is a persons own fault if they got murdered or mugged? I don't understand. How on earth could we have attracted these things ourselves? We are not responsible for other people's actions. Why would anyone want to will these things into their lives?

Is there something I'm missing here? Is this what the law of attraction is really about?

 

[Broken2]

You might be overthinking.

I think there's some validity to the "law of attraction." It doesn't seem any more valid than the "shit happens" rule though.

I don't think it's a direct correlation kind of thing. It's more subtle than that. And it might just be a modern, western-world interpretation of karma. Where I have seen it actually work is in the "fake it till you make it" method--socially, at least. I get along reasonably, if superficially (at least from my own perspective) well socially because I consciously greet people with a smile. They smile back. I feel good because they're smiling at me, and showing pleasure at seeing me. Then I smile some more. Then I feel myself smiling,

That's kind of weak, maybe, but it's the best I got.

Children are innocent. Regardless of what is done to them.

As adults, we do have more control of what happens to us than we think. It is sometimes harder to see because the link is often over the horizon, so to speak. People sometimes put themselves in situations where they increase the likelihood of being hurt. Sometimes though, shit happens.

 

[Tarot]

I personally believe in karma. I feel that the things that happen to us in this life-- good or bad-- are there to help teach us lessons so that we may grow. I also believe in the law if attraction. My ex-therapist used to insinuate it was my fault, pretty much, for not "sending out a certain vibe" to others that would stop the victimization cycle over and over again. I found that to be complete and utter b.s. because I think he was careless in his wording and thinking. He was assigning blame to someone who was taught to be a victim from a young age instead of first acknowledging that it is not my fault these things happen, it is just a subconsciously learned behavior. Big difference and he should have had a more compassionate approach instead of being so accusatory.

Anyway, that's just my view on it. I feel this life and the things happening to us happen because I'm meant to learn and grow spiritually. It's hard bc when you have the "I'm a victim" mentality you can't see the lesson through the trees. But I do agree with the law of attraction on that level. When I feel more positive and my outlook is more positive, the bullies and such are nowhere to be found. When I become depressed, it seems everyone is out to screw with me. I think this applies to the world in general, not just childhood victims of SA.

 

[cherryblossom]

What's the law of attraction?

I personally believe in karma. I feel that the things that happen to us in this life-- good or bad-- are there to help teach us lessons so that we may grow.

I don't believe in Karma. I'm not knocking you for believing in Karma if it helps you. Whatever works for an individual is fine in my book, but I just don't understand it. . . .

I can't see that I had any reason to be a taught a lesson by being brutally raped at knife point. How does that help a person grow? I have learnt to accept what happened to me, but seriously? I can't believe that bastard that hurt me, humiliated me, cut me, hit me, raped me and threatened to kill me, and caused me years and years of suffering was there to teach me a lesson to help me grow. How come none of my friends who lived a similar life to me weren't sent the same lesson to help them grow?

What kind of lesson does a small child of 3 or 4 need to be taught to help them grow?

Personally, I think there are just a lot of sick and immoral people in this world who enjoy hurting others due to sick sexual fantasies, and 'victims' are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Where do the abusers stand in all this? Are they just let off, because they were just delivering karma?

Please believe that I'm not criticising you beliefs. You are completely entitled to your opinion . . . I just don't 'get it', and would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Miss Isolated, I don't know what the law of attraction is. If I taken your thread off topic by further discussing karma please say so, and I will move my post to a new thread.

 

[Ice_Fire]

I don't understand this either- is it meant to be a 'get out of jail free card' for abusers? I don't get it, maybe I'm misinterpreting, but does the 'law of attraction' mean that I somehow drew my parents and N and the others whose name I don't know to me? I can see how it works later on, I think. That because mum and dad abused me, I was more 'open' and vulnerable to further abuse? But how could I attract it in the first place when all I did was try to please my parents?

Sorry I'm only adding more questions, I find this topic intriguing.

 

[miss_isolated]

What's the law of attraction?

Their mostly seen as the same thing as each-other.

There's loads on the web about it. It's very in at the moment.

This is what I understand it to be:-

It's supposedly a universal law that states like attracts like. Doesn't matter if your good or bad, it applies to everyone.

If you are constantly thinking about money you will attract situations circumstances and events that will bring money into your life. Think negative and you will attract negative people, things and situations. If you think about anything including things you don't want you'll still attract those things.

And if you are in a car crash or anything else you were on the same frequency as that incident.

I'd like to use these ideas of attraction to improve life area's but... I just can't for the life inside of me understand how the bloody hell starving children and murdered people and every kind of human suffering imaginable was caused and attracted by the victims.

Maybe I am just totally 100% missing the mark here when it comes to the message of the law of attraction?? maybe there's some kind of middle ground?? I'm confused!

Sorry this is such a heavy or offensive thread and thanks for the replies.

 

[Girl Power]

I believe in both Karma and the Law of Attraction. They are slightly different and I did use to get very confused as a child about a karma as I thought a lot about "did I do something so bad in a past life that I've been punished in this lifetime?" Maybe that was the case. But at the end of the day karma basically says what goes around comes around. So whatever my Dad chose to do he will be punished for it - either in this lifetime or the next. This is the thought that helped me survive the abuse as a teenager and I also became very religious. I couldn't explain why I got abused like no one can explain why a child is born with a disability or a life threatening disease or innocent people are killed by natural disasters. The best you can do is to survive it and make the best out of your life afterwards - don't let it get you down. So this is how I survived the abuse with the strength of God and the belief that although I couldn't punish my Dad directly by telling my mum or the police, he would still get punished one way or another.

The Law of Attraction is something I've learnt about only recently too. It is what miss_isolated says that whatever vibes you put into the universe then you will attract those same vibes. It's like what Broken2 says - smile and the whole world smiles with you! I was a bit sceptical at first but then I met my boyfriend who's a great believer of it. His sister died last year after battling cancer for years and we met and started dating soon after her passing away. He explained to me there was no point in him feeling suicidal because his sister had died. She wouldn't want that. He said he had been a practicing the the ideas in the laws of attraction for a while and felt that if he kept thinking about positive things thien positive things would happen. He'd managed to set up a charity walk for his sister and raised lots of money for her hospice, he got a new job and he met me. I was still sceptical but quite inspired and through positive thinking and actions I've recently managed to land myself a brilliant job, after being in and out of work for the last year. I've got a great boyfriend and I've got a supportive and loving family and friends and I feel these are the things I've attracted in my life.

I won't always have positive thoughts about me and because of what I've been through and I don't think highly about myself a lot of the time. In many aspects of my life I think I'm a screw up and damaged. But I'm working on that with my counsellor and I really believe that it's important for people like us to keep putting good and positive thoughts out there and we will reap the benefits. I think negative thoughts will make us more miserable and can have a negative impact on your life, whether through the law of attraction or otherwise and we end up letting our abusers win by ruining the rest of our lives!

 

[cherryblossom]

I don't really get how Karma or the law of attraction explains how bad things happen to seemingly good people?

Using the idea of karma, I must have been raped because I did something bad in my life of my previous life to deserve it. What goes around comes around. So presumably in a previous life I raped and battered someone.

Either that or, by the law of attraction, my thoughts were about being raped at knife point. When I was walking back to my car that night I must have been putting out vibes to have someone attack me with a knife?

Did your boyfriends sister do something bad in her life or a previous life to get cancer? When she was fighting the cancer, was she actually putting out negative vibes?

I just know of far too many good positive people who have had seriously bad things happen to them. I can't believe that they were all evil in a previous life, or that they sent out vibes asking for devastating illnesses or injuries.

I frequently think about winning millions of pounds on the lottery, but so far no event has has happened in my life where I have won millions of pounds. Perhaps I need to just think about it more often to make it happen ;)

I do agree that if you are miserable then those around you are likely to be miserable too. Not because your vibes rub off on them, more because they are the people with a similar mind set to you, who stick around, while the positive, happy people run for the hills! Having a positive outlook will certainly improve your life, it will make you more likely to achieve your goals, but not because of karma or the law of attraction - because you are prepared to work hard and put the effort in to achieve your goals.

Maybe I'm playing devils advocate by adding my thoughts :devil: .

I'm a very logical person who likes to see scientifically proved evidence before I believe in something. I'm also an atheist because I don't see any evidence for the existence of a God or higher power.

I need to re-iterate, that I'm not knocking anyone who does believe in any of these types of things. If it helps an individual, and causes no harm to others, then everyone is free to have their own belief systems. I guess its just not for me.

 

[megnut]

I have also heard folks speak of the laws of attraction or that we are here to learn lessons and everything that happens to us is a teaching experience. I have not been able to wrap my mind around this as it pertains to all the evil I have encountered in my life.

I think that the human race is constantly trying to figure out 'why we are here' or 'what is the purpose of life' and other such heavy questions. I think we have a difficult time with evil and try our best to explain it. Perhaps it just exists, as great good also exists. I cannot subscribe to the notion that bad things happen to teach us. Yes, I have learned a great deal from my traumas but I have also learned a lot from wonderful things happening.

I do not think anyone, particularly children, deserve to have bad things happen to them. I think we are just desperate to explain things that we cannot otherwise explain. I do believe in reincarnation and past and future lives just because I have encountered people who know things about past lives that would be impossible to know if they did not live them. The universe is a very strange place, indeed.

I definitely attract negative people and events with my behavior. But I do not think children do, and my childhood abuse was the result of sick adults making poor choices.

Whatever the Truth is, I do know that what happens to us is less important than what we do with it. Will we choose to heal and grow, or will we choose to let our abusers continue to torment us by keeping our victim mentality alive? I know it is easier said than done, and I struggle with it every day, but I am trying to live a good life in spite of all that has happened to me. And I choose to assist others who have gone through similar traumas.

 

[Red Feather]

I had the same question and posted in the Ptsd forum about this. I think there is a flaw when it comes to trauma and the law of attraction. Children are innocent. Pure and innocent. Children do not attract the bad things that happen to them. Period. As adults we spend our lives trying to find that innocence which was taken from us a child. Compassion and love, and embracing the shadow is what helps me. That is something that the law of attraction books forget to mention. It doesn't fit into their claim, i.e. to have found a solution to all problems. That is why trauma is so rarely dealt with when it comes to the law of attraction.

 

[Tarot]

I don't believe in Karma. I'm not knocking you for believing in Karma if it helps you. Whatever works for an individual is fine in my book, but I just don't understand it. . . .

I can't see that I had any reason to be a taught a lesson by being brutally raped at knife point. How does that help a person grow? I have learnt to accept what happened to me, but seriously? I can't believe that bastard that hurt me, humiliated me, cut me, hit me, raped me and threatened to kill me, and caused me years and years of suffering was there to teach me a lesson to help me grow. How come none of my friends who lived a similar life to me weren't sent the same lesson to help them grow?

What kind of lesson does a small child of 3 or 4 need to be taught to help them grow?

Personally, I think there are just a lot of sick and immoral people in this world who enjoy hurting others due to sick sexual fantasies, and 'victims' are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Where do the abusers stand in all this? Are they just let off, because they were just delivering karma?

Please believe that I'm not criticising you beliefs. You are completely entitled to your opinion . . . I just don't 'get it', and would be interested to hear your thoughts.

I think we are thinking of karma in two different ways. I agree with you-- karma is not and should not be a system of checks and balances. My view of karma is this:

(taken from: [DLMURL]http://impermanence.xanga.com/516613205/item/[/DLMURL])

Ajahn Brahm

The Law of Karma

Most Westerners misunderstand the law of karma. They mistake it for fatalism, where one is doomed to suffer for some unknown crime in a forgotten past life. This is not quite so, as this story will show.

Two women were each baking a cake.

The first woman had miserable ingredients. The old white flour had to have the freen mouldy bits removed first. The cholesterol-enriched butter was almost going rancid. She had to pick the brown lumps out of the white sugar (because someone had put in a spoon wet with coffee), and the only fruit she had were ancient raisins, as hard as depleted uranium. And her kitchen was of the style called "pre-World-War" - which World War was a matter of debate.

The second woman had the very best of ingredients. The organically grown whole-wheat flour was guaranteed GM-free. She had trans-fat-free canola-oil spread, raw sugar, and succulent fruit grown in her own garden. And her kitchen was "state-of-the-art," with every modern gadget.

Which woman baked the more delicious cake?

It is often not the person with the best ingredients who bakes the better cake - there is more to baking a cake than just the ingredients. Sometimes the person with miserable ingredients puts so much effort, care, and love into their baking that their cake comes out the most delicious of all. It is what we do with the ingredients that counts.

I have some friends who had miserable ingredients to work with in this life: they were born into poverty, possibly abused as children, not clever at school, maybe disabled and unable to play sports. But the few qualities they did have they put together so well that they baked a mightily impressive cake. I admire them greatly. Do you recognize such people?

I have other friends who have had wonderful ingredients to work with in this life. Their families were wealthy and loving, they were successful at school, talented athletes, good-looking, and popular, and yet they wasted their young lives with drugs or alcohol. Do you recognize such a one?

Half of karma is the ingredients we have got to work with. The other half, the most crucial part, is what we make of them in this life.

- Ajahm Brahm
British-born Theravadan monk (ordained for over 30 years)
Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, Australia

I love Ajahm Brahm. Whether you live a Buddhist lifestyle or not, I highly recommend his teachings. You can find him on YouTube. Brilliant man and I must admit I have a bit of a crush on him. Lol

But anyway, yes, this is my concept of what karma is. As you can see, it is not the cruel, heartless view most of us have grown up to think of it as (i.e. I hit you so someone will hit me back someday). No, karma just is. And being a survivor of SA, I try to do like the parable states and work with what I have, live in the present, and learn from what life has dealt me. No one ever said that life would be fair. It's not and won't ever be for anyone. But we can't compare our lives to others'. We can only do the best with what we have been through and not dwell on our own suffering. It's hard to do, of course, but that's the goal. Once we realize this goal, we are free from all suffering.

 

[miss_isolated]

I had the same question and posted in the Ptsd forum about this.

I only joined that forum today. I saw your thread and we have a very similar question about metaphysics/the law of attraction. It seems from Tarot's post that appreciation is a massive thing and is basically what gives you true power in life.

I find it very difficult to find something to be glad about (Pollyanna comes to mind) Hmm.. I have a roof over my head... I'm healthy because I'm not in a hospital and I'm glad I found this forum to go to where people just like me are able to unite so strongly.

Like you mentioned in your post in the other forum, I wish the experts would include how to embrace and face your dark side. Instead you get the message that you should just hide your negative feelings and thoughts and just cover them up with positive ones.

And anyone that thinks that people who are victims of: disease, natural disasters, extreme hunger and child abuse can be to blame for other people's actions, nature, and being born in a poor country are simply pure evil.