Huna Article

Huna International

Who Are The Victims?
by Graeme Kapono Urlich

In Huna thinking, all experience is self generated, created out of our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Therefore, the victims actually attract people who are willing (subconsciously) to play the role of the bully for them. The bullies, similarly, are attracting people who are willing (subconsciously) to play the victim. If the victim stops being a victim - the bully must also stop being a bully. If the bully stops being a bully, the victim can still perceive a threat or injustice, so who really has the power? I believe it is the "so called" victim. No-one consciously wants to be victimised and usually don't understand why these things happen. What then, creates the beliefs that attract such behaviour and experience?

There is the case of the young woman who grew up in a family with an alcoholic father. Her mother was always saying that "all men are worthless alcoholics", a most unrealistic and unfair generalisation. The young woman however, had known nothing else, so this belief was ingrained into her memory. Young children may not understand consciously what adults say, but they do remember subconsciously, everything, and formulate beliefs from it. In later life, she went through a succession of marriages with alcoholics.

Most of her partners were not alcoholic when she married them, but responded to her subconscious belief and expectation, and soon became alcoholic. This does not mean that she actually turned these men into alcoholics. She simply attracted men who had latent alcoholic tendencies that resonated with her basic belief and became prevalent in their behaviour over time in cooperation with her expectation. The same is true of abusive partners (both men and women), abusive parents, rapists and burglars, etc. They are all responding to the "victim's" basic beliefs about themselves and the world, acting out a role in the "victim's" movie (and vice versa).

This is not an excuse for such abusive behaviour, but it is the main reason. Nor does it mean that the victim should be blamed, it is simply the way they have learned or decided (subconsciously) to be. In working with such people, first heal the wound then teach them how to create a different reality without fear and hurt for themselves. It doesn't have to be that way for them. The world is not like that for everyone. Indeed, the vast majority of people do not personally experience such things.

In the case of young children, you might ask, how can this be true? They can't understand or have such beliefs at that age. In reality, everyone is born with a basic set of beliefs that create our first set of experiences. These experiences may be a mother who smokes, drinks or has contact with genetically damaging chemicals during pregnancy, a difficult birth, state of health and living environment, etc. All these, reflect the basic set of beliefs that we are all born with. Most are born with much more constructive beliefs than these and where they come from, is another story.

From these initial experiences, we make decisions (assumptions), about the world and build on the basic beliefs. New experiences are then generated and more decisions are made. This process continues through life forming our blueprint for the future. These decisions, like feeling unhappy or angry in a given set of circumstances, become habit and we go on repeating them throughout our lives until we decide to respond differently and create a new habit. Once we let go of the idea that "other people are doing this to me and I have no control", and accept that we are either actively attracting this behaviour or, at least, passively accepting it by not choosing an alternative, we realise that we have the knowledge and ability to change our experiences and situations, simply by changing the way we think and act.

It is that simple, but it is not necessarily easy. We must make new decisions about who we are, what we feel, and what we think, and we must continue to consciously focus on, and act out, these new patterns until they become the new habits. It may be necessary to refine these new patterns over time, but if we lose sight of them before they replace the old habits, we begin to slip back into the old patterns and recreate the old experiences. When this happens, simply refocus on the new patterns and remember that they are changing. Keep on going, the rewards are tremendous.

Graeme Kapono Urlich is an Alakai of Huna International living and working in New Zealand. His website is at Aloha New Zealand

Graeme Kapono Urlich (1992)