Monday, June 16, 2025

Wake Up Villain! Part 2: The Many Faces of the Villain

 


I used a string of cuss words to pop you out of numbness and into awareness of your actual feelings....

In the first part of this series of posts, Wake Up, Villain!, I found myself using a bunch of cuss words when talking about the feelings evoked in me when told I was a sinner: "In their eyes, we humans are nothing but sorry-assed, worthless pieces of sinning shit--from birth."

The monitoring editor in me was saying, "Pen, maybe you should tone that down a bit." 

But the empath in me said, "No. No more numbing and watering down the feelings of guilt and shame and unworthiness this puts on every single human being who accepts this suggestion as their truth. These swear words help convey the reality of what you haul around every moment of every day when you perceive yourself as being a sinfully-born human being, someone unworthy of existing."

In that case, my unladylike string of awful words actually seems pretty mild.... maybe I should even add a few more....

We've all been taught to tamp down, water down, edit, and suppress our feelings. But the swear words are still there, regardless of whether or not we let ourselves say them out loud. I can cuss like a drunken sailor--obviously--but I don't do it all the time because they lose their oomph, their effectiveness, when used too often. People get desensitized to them and quit listening. I've discovered there is a balance to everything, even cussing. (Grinning). And I've never been struck by lightning or bad juju when using them.... I don't use them to curse anyone, but I have been known to tell someone to "Shut the F up!"

The Parent-Teacher-Preacher Tapes reeling through my mind....

Fairly early on in my awakening, I became aware of the Parent-Teacher-Preacher- and Peer tapes looping through my mind throughout my days. I was constantly mentally monitoring myself and commenting, usually in a negative way, on how I was performing in life. I never measured up. This mental self-monitor is constant and often triggers an emotional response of energy-field contraction within oneself in order to defend and protect from perceived attacks. And that contraction of oneself just creates more villains for us....

I didn't realize how hard on and unforgiving of myself I was until I saw myself crying in the mirror as I was berating and belittling myself for falling way short in my taking care of the needs of others when I felt stretched as it was with all I had going on personally. When I finally realized that what I was doing to myself I would have never done to, or expected of, another, I apologized to the lady in the mirror. I hugged her and told her I would uplift and encourage her instead. No more beating on myself. I was doing the best I humanly knew how to in the moment at hand.... and when I did so with myself, I discovered it became so easy to do so with others....

I realized these mental voices--not actually audible in nature, but perceived and felt--were often unhealed, unresolved wounded aspects of myself from previous experiences and from even other lifetimes. They were trying to guide and protect me from getting hurt again in the same manner, thus all the self-monitoring. But they were hijacking and running my life, getting in the way of me allowing into my experience something different, newer, possibly easier, and more joyful and graceful.

I learned to open up and feel these old wounds through, to invite them in to return to neutral, zero-point energy and reintegrate into my soul, bringing with them all the wisdom distilled from their experience. And the quicker I gave myself a safe space to take a few deep breaths and open myself to feeling them through, the more quickly they passed out of my reality. 

Sometimes, the really scared and tantrum-throwing crabby aspects just had to be told to "Shut the effenheimer up!" and take a time out. They were always welcome home to me, but they had to let go of hanging onto their Poor, Pitiful Me story. It was important that they--like all my villains--had to wake up and remember the grand service they gave me in allowing themselves to be wounded in order that I have better understanding of all that I am.... and that ultimately, they were okay. I am okay. It's all worked out. Gratitude for all parts played has replaced the fear of not being good enough.

The Many Faces of the Villain

It's easy to pick out the Villain when it's someone actively attacking us, but the Villain energies are all around and within us in more subtle ways. And you just can't address something until you recognize it for yourself. And, to begin with, you have to be open to shifting your perspective.

Every one of us has a Villain aspect running our show anytime we're feeling WRONG about something. In fact, ALL the manifestations of villains in my life are my own energies in service to me. They are mirrors reflecting the self-monitoring judgments going on within me. Showing me how I'm struggling and fighting to control myself and my world. 

My outer villains helped me become more clearly aware of my inner demons by bringing them out into a more experiential and gritty-feeling reality. That's all. And when I viewed them from a more opened-up, divine perspective--where I saw this human experience as "Let's Pretend" role playing--it was easier to disconnect from being emotionally triggered by them. Then it became easy to finally release them to my soul for wisdom distillation, and my villain became obsolete. We were both set free....


Old beliefs that keep us imprisoned can be our villains.

For instance, the Born-in-Sin dogma I wrote about at the beginning of this article has definitely played the role of abuser for me. It was triggering me to close down my energy field out of shame and guilt. 

"Prove yourself worthy of taking up time, space and air on this planet." That's a tall and daunting order for anyone. And when you take into consideration that most of us humans are a bunch of now-recovering amnesiacs (this is from my perspective) who forgot we each were the creators and experiencers of our own realities, well, that just overwhelms.... What do you do? 

I refrain from asking high school graduates what they plan to do after school, because I can feel the pressure of that statement on someone just heading out into the world, not yet having experienced it fully at such a young age. I just desire for people to live a joyfully abundant life.... that's it.... 

According to that "I'm a sinner" belief, which is very much a system at this point, I wasn't worthy of existing unless I accepted someone else as my savior or some other being as having ultimate authority over me. Someone else was supposedly responsible for my life, and that was in total contradiction to the free choice concept preached to us. We were duped into staying disconnected from our own divine source and souls by being told we had to have someone else mediate that relationship for us--we couldn't allow it on our own. We had to glorify some other entity. Ultimately, it was just a method used to enslave and control--it was a form of the Villain.


When people I love or admire are fighting and at odds with one another--that is a villain for me.

This has been a story playing out before me my entire life. And I feel this tug-o-war within me trying to handle and protect all parties, including myself. It's only recently I discovered that I was closing down my own energy field in reaction to feeling stuck in the middle.

I was never meant to be the co-commiserator, mediator or the referee of the fight, or even the commentator. I was only meant to see how it was serving me by being in my life story. It was simply there to help me become aware of the consciousness I was radiating out into my world--it was a limited consciousness flow because I was internally contracting my energy field inward, and putting up armor to protect myself from the pain of the conflict.


People who let us down are our villains.

The Epstein and P. Diddy files may possibly expose awful, evil deeds committed by people whose works I've admired and enjoyed. They're going to have to address those things with their own souls--discover for themselves how to neutralize those energetic stories--just as I had to learn. But what benefit am I getting from them playing that role for me? 

After all, This is happening in my world reality--in my own creation. When I asked myself what gift they were bearing me in being that way, I realized I was inwardly contracting my energy field at the news of certain people I liked being some of the worst of culprits! I was shutting down, hopeless and helpless to change it.

Okay, Penny, take some deep inhales and releasing exhales, open up your own energy field. You can't control others, but you can unstick, open, and flow your own energies; and by doing so you illuminate more clearly your own life. You saw the gift of this particular villain for yourself when you realized you were bracing and stopping the flow of your own energies. And when you choose to open and flow instead, that in turn illuminates your world. You allowed the villain in this case to go obsolete--their service to you is fulfilled, and you both are set free from having to experience that particular potential ever again. It can sink into the background of my soup of potential experiences and something better can emerge and take its place. At least, this is so in my own reality world.


Diseases are villains.

In recent phone conversations with loved ones who are experiencing troubling--almost hopeless at times--illnesses, I found I was empathically bracing myself as I was hearing out their stories. I couldn't fix them. I had no answers for them. I couldn't change them. These were, at some level, their own choice of experience. I just listened and felt helpless and hopeless, given that I sensed some of them weren't open to a different perspective than the one they had. I hurt for them--for all the good that does.

Afterwards, I realized I was once again pulling in my energy field while listening to them. This was another Villain for me to become aware of. It was like being attacked within. Their loss of hope was being conveyed to me through their lackluster energy and tone of voice--and that was the gift they were bearing me in being just as they were. 

I could change my own world by inhaling and exhaling a few good deep breaths and instead open up my energy field in this instance. And I could potentially set us both free without having to utter a single word to try to convince the other person to my way of seeing things. I took the pressure off myself and them, and just let myself open and expand beyond the old narrative....


"Permanent" diagnoses are villains.

Be aware of health practitioners who diagnose illnesses and physical disabilities as permanent. I don't care how expert or professional anyone is, don't shut down your energy field just because, in this case, someone out there told you you're stuck in some form of imbalance for the rest of your life. Wake up! You put this situation into your experience, you magnificent creator, you! 

Question these things that affect you! I've done this throughout my awakening life, and my health is way better now than it ever has been since I was a kid who really didn't pay much attention to these types of stories, for the most part. When these things did come my way later in life, I ultimately chose to take full responsibility, and care for and appreciate myself. I chose to stay hopeful and open to a better outcome than the one they offered me. I made a conscious choice to live a more abundant and joyful, grateful life,  and to not be a burden to anyone else.

How often have I heard the statement, "That's just the way it is."? 

As if in a constantly changing world, this is the one area that is unfortunately permanent?

I hadn't realized how true that statement is for most people until I just wrote it out.

We can either curl up into a fetal ball of hopelessness, despair and self-pity. Act out a full-blown victim of a villainous disease or human condition story.... 

or.... we can say, "HELL, NO to that shit!" and take a few good deep-down inhales and releasing exhales of breaths and OPEN UP OUR ENERGY FIELDS and CHOOSE abundant, joyful lives. 

First of all--accept that YOU gave yourself this experience.... 

That totally empowers you and puts the ball in your court. Do what it takes in the moment at hand to encourage and to take care of yourself. Take the medicine if it gets you over the hump. Trust that it will all work out. Laugh, dance, sing! Enjoy your life!

Unless you are having fun being sickly and letting whomever poke and prod and pity you to death.... whatever.... it's your experience, your life to live or suffer through as you desire.


The Tattling Teacher's Pet is a villain.

This monitor of mine reminds me of the class tattle tale who informs the teacher of all the indiscretions and bad deeds of all the other kids in the classroom. She's always pointing fingers at others in order to keep from having to feel bad about, and look deeper into, herself. She's afraid of what's there....

I remember the parable of "The Little Soul and the Sun," by Neale Donald Walsch from the "Conversations with God" books I read back in the nineties. Unfortunately, some people are unwilling to look at the villains in their life from this viewpoint. Where some divine being just like oneself--who loves you beyond measure--is willing to forget who they really are in order to play the villain role for you here on Earth so you get to experience forgiveness. 

Some humans are unwilling to let go of their battling and struggling against someone or something. Too often I hear the excuse for someone hanging onto their story by telling me, "You just don't know what it's like to be abused until you're abused like I am. You can't possibly understand what I'm going through." As if I haven't been put down a time or two in my own experiences.

Frankly, it's whiny to me, and I have little tolerance for it anymore. It's apparent to me that that person likes what they have going. They like commiserating over their abuse rather than choosing to change the dynamic they have in play with their abuser. And some part of them has convinced themselves that it's their destined walk to suffer and sacrifice for what, I don't know. Maybe they think it makes them holier and cleaner in the eyes of their god. Does helplessly watching someone suffer make the rest of us feel and do better? Maybe they believe they deserve a difficult life. Whatever the rationale, they don't want to change their experience, otherwise they would take the steps to do so.

This person talks about their villain's negativity towards them--insisting on it--but is unaware that their own blaming of another is negative and energy-feeding to those of us listening. Especially when he or she is unwilling to listen to a perspective other than their own unwavering judgment that their villain is just plain evil. "That's just the way it is."

At that point, I can tell they are enjoying playing in the story they have going. They aren't open to anything else until they're ready.... and that's okay.... I just choose to disconnect from them regarding that particular story, maybe even going so far as disconnecting from them personally for awhile just so we can each get on with living out our own chosen creations, our own chosen lives.

I often sense that some people are afraid that if they let all their trials and tribulations, dramas and traumas go, they'll be left in a void, bored out of their minds.... and maybe even out of their bodies....


Other people playing out tragedies, illnesses, and handicaps can be our villains.

"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

An almost blind person struggles her entire life to act like she isn't blind. As a kid, she insists on riding bike along a very narrow shoulder of highway, putting herself and the drivers on the highway at risk. She obstinately goes out into a snowstorm and gets lost. Mishap after mishap happens. She balks against any kind of help or tools a blind person can be taught that might make it easier, with what limited vision she has, for navigating the sighted world. She wants to fit in, to be "normal." That's totally understandable. She fights the experience instead of accepting and opening up to it--and that gets her stuck in it. 

Bless her for playing this out for my benefit. It helps to get a bit of distance--have someone else act out the part in order to help me get a broader perspective from the observer or audience seat.

In this instance, she's played out a type of villain-victim/conflict scenario for me. She isn't the first one to play this particular game out for me. I've had quite a few individuals throughout my life who've had various types of tragedies happen. I asked for someone to play those roles for myself in order to help me understand finally that I was never meant to pity or fix them or carry their burdens. 

They were playing out this role in order to help me become aware that I was simply bracing and closing down my own energy field in relationship to interacting with them. I was feeling helpless and stuck, too, and that stopped my flow of consciousness and my ability to create something freer and different than what we had going. My closing in was keeping our story together in play. The story's purpose had zero to do with trying to figure out how to manage them or make them happier.

In the old consciousness, this is a very normal human approach for all the characters in the story. She doesn't remember she created her situation (on the other side of the Veil of Forgetting), and put it into play. Many of our belief systems reinforce this--humans just haven't known otherwise--we've been lost in our own creations. She and her loved ones FEEL like they did something WRONG to deserve this experience. They didn't know they could view it from a different, more self-empowering perspective: as a temporary experience that was selected by the Eternal Divine facet that is a part of every single human being. Everyone was trying to handle it the best way they knew how at the time.

Feeling sorry for someone doesn't change a thing.

I see all the loved ones in my life as Magnificent Divine Beings having their own Human experiences within their own personally created realities. For me, it helps me let go of trying to fix anyone--that just doesn't work. Nor does it work to take on their painful stories as my own to suffer through for them. As for pitying them--have you ever been the recipient of pity? How does that feel? Does it help at all?.... Been there, done all of that.

"If it's in my life, I ALONE put it here. I am the only one who can un-create my own creation."

Instead, I found it empowered me to view my entire human life as something I created. It helped me to open up to the MORE--the grander, more magnificent beings that we are and have become BECAUSE of having been in a very limited human body, mind, and environment. Where we can appear to be born into life and also die. We are each just having a temporal--even changeable--experience, and it's up to the individual creator how they choose to play it out, moment by moment.

When I view someone as an amazing and courageous fellow angelic being who created a particularly difficult and challenging life story for themselves as a human being, then the pity and sense of helplessness to handle their suffering is replaced with my admiration for their heroic endeavor to dive so deeply into an experience of such limitation. That perspective opens me up....

None of us has ever done anything wrong!

I've loved and resonated with this concept from the first time I heard it, but now I truly get it. You're going to have to open up your hearts and your perspective beyond your very narrow, limited human self. You have to step out of your human costume and into your own soul or divinity to see this. The human just can't do this itself--we've been through too much pain, drama, trauma, and suffering these many lifetimes. 

The Human Experiencer needs its Soul/Divinity to help it see the greater, grander view of what's really going on. The Human can see only the narrow slice it's in. Whereas the Soul as the view of the whole pie.

It takes a great deal of courage to play the Fool and Victim. And it takes a great deal of spiritual amnesia to forget who you truly are in order to play the dark parts of the Villain. To do the evil deeds requires complete forgetting of the authentic self. You have to see yourself as a totally unworthy Little Human just trying to survive in a cruel world set against you from the get-go. It's a game of power, an illusion that the winner takes all--no matter what it takes to do so, even if you have to lie, cheat and steal. What a horrible state to be in....

This is all just an act. Just like the actors in movies pretend to be people and character types that aren't who they really are, so it goes with each and all of us. Once the movie is done, we revert back to our real selves, but a bit wiser because of the story we acted out. We're acting out stories and situations together to get a better understanding of who we all are and the qualities within us. Nobody is eternally harmed or killed off, even if killed while in the human form. And we exchange playing out bad guy/good guy roles so that it balances out and we all get a well-rounded education.

With that said, if you find yourself backed into a corner by one of your own raging demons, whether it's a physical illness or handicap, or a mental imbalance, or a really bad deed--and there seems no safe way out--just stop flailing around for a moment. Give yourself a safe space alone with you and your divine facet--invite that spiritual part of you into your life. Close your eyes and take some good deep inhales through your nose and into your lower ribcage and then blow out those breaths through your mouth. Do it a few times to lower your heart rate and blood pressure, shut off the mental tapes. Open up your energy field and invite your divinity (the god within) into your being--let that heart light burst wide open....

Saul persecuted a lot of Christians before he had his realization of the Christ within him and changed his name to Paul. He changed his name in order to reflect his complete change in nature. Back in those days, it was common practice to crucify--hang the "criminals" on a cross upside down and leave them there as an example to the rest of the populace what would happen if they didn't go along with the tenets of whomever was in power. It was illegal to take them down and bury them. 

My point here is that Saul committed some pretty atrocious, evil acts on his fellow man. I used to wonder how Saul-who-renamed-himself-Paul could live with himself once he realized the error of his ways. He had to have the divine viewpoint of his soul. Otherwise, he'd have taken the Judas Iscariot route and killed himself. I know I couldn't have lived with myself in those circumstances--not without a broader perspective than that of just the Little Human trying to survive in a tough, often cruel-feeling world.

How to Diffuse the Villain Energies: "What gift are you bearing me?"

The most recent gift to me in all the various faces of the Villain these past months is that they've helped me become aware of when I'm bracing and closing down my personal energy field. Energy Field Management 101. 

Everything is my energy field in service solely to me. I no longer fight with or brace against any of it when I become aware of what is going on inside me. No more waiting for the next shoe to drop or trying to figure out how to handle the next travesty. I just BREATHE, OPEN and ACCEPT, RELAX, and FLOW.... I'm safe! And so are all my loved ones!

Another gift of the villain for me is that it has helped me realize how unconditionally I am able to love--to the point of even sincerely feeling grateful for everyone and everything, regardless of the situation played out for my benefit. That is the ultimate gift--to know that I can love so purely and sincerely....


Related posts:

Wake Up, Villain! Part 1: I KNOW that's NOT the REAL YOU!

Wake Up, Villain! Part 3: Let's Build Bridges!


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