The Sexual Predators Among Us
CREATING INNER PEACE
By Kathleen Hoy Foley
By now it is obvious that sexual predators are completely integrated into every level, every corner of society. Despite the naysayers that work tirelessly to diminish the shockwaves each time yet another alarming incident of sexual crimes is exposed, the truth that sexual predators walk freely among us––freely among our children––wherever people congregate is irrefutable. Denying the occurrence of sexual assault, justifying the episode, or diminishing its impact, especially when it touches your own life, produces a powerful, corrosive force that aligns your thought processes––unites who you are––with the charged energy of destruction and disharmony.
Denial erects a raging wall of theatrical flames to banish the truth from sight. Denial of a dark truth creates a formidable obstacle that prevents victims as well as predators from any hope of obtaining wholeness. Given time, denial and justification hunker down into the tranquilizing world of fantasy with its emotional narcotics and harmonic lullabies. But the denial fantasy cannot be sustained. The charged energy of destruction is too powerful and will ultimately destroy the relief denial fantasy pretends to provide.
Everyone, including sexual predators, possesses the capacity to love and has creative genius within them. When we connect with the light of our souls, we are connecting with the universal, underlying flow of harmony. Even when that connection is only temporary. So it is that an actor can genuinely connect with their soul and present this soul light to the world. And a singer can tap into their inner radiance and pour love into our hearts, eliciting feelings of tenderness and intense connection to that which is larger than us. And so it is that a beloved can truly love with integrity and yet inflict injury with what lies hidden and unresolved in the menacing recesses of pain.
What if a sexual predator is someone who has brought genuine light into your life through music or the ability to express the soul’s truth through performance? What if these transformative expressions resonating from deep within the artist’s soul lifted your soul, even momentarily, from sorrow? What if the sexual predator is someone you deeply love? Someone who deeply loves you back?
Without the protection of denial and justification, and the diminishment of the impact of abhorrent behavior of a beloved, how can you possibly find peace and harmony ever again? Is true healing even conceivable in the face of such shocking deceit and traumatic devastation?
Healing is a restoration of harmony to the body, mind, and spirit. All healing, all repair comes from within. Healing requires truth. Without truth there is no healing. Truth requires clarity. Clarity illuminates. It begins the process of comprehension. Without light, understanding is impossible. Truth and clarity elevate and empower. Inner peace then becomes not only achievable, it becomes inevitable.
You initiate the energy of inner healing and peace by surrendering to the understanding that the person you know is not the person that the victim knows. The person that the victim knows is a sexual offender who has exposed the victim to sinister secrets, corrupt desires, and frightening, bodily nakedness. The sexual offender––the person that you do not know––has tormented the victim with raw, heaving acts of sexual depravity, violent incidents, and abusive behaviors you simply cannot imagine being perpetrated by the person you love. But only when you surrender to truth you do not want to confront can you begin your walk up the mountain path to awareness and clarity: the only path to inner healing. Walking this path, you will also illuminate the way and provide encouragement for others, including the sexual offender.
But what about forgiveness? Where does that fit it?
It doesn’t. Forgiveness does not heal. Forgiveness creates the illusion of healing. And all illusions––including the illusion of forgiveness––are obstructions that block the light of truth so essential to our personal and spiritual development. Forgiveness is an emotional response––a consequence of the cultural and religious imposition of guilt on the blameless––that attempts to bypass hidden truths, evade natural repercussions, and avoid necessary repair work. Forgiveness fuels the energy of inner chaos through the visceral, exhausting battle of struggling to sustain it in the face of repugnance and profound pain.
You do not hold the power to forgive a sexual predator. Forgiveness is personal. It requires deep self-care and self-honor, and is a result of individual, internal evolution. Forgiveness only has significance and magnitude––and genuine transformative power––when it finds its own way out of the disabling trauma of darkness. That complicated journey out of the dark occurs only when the desire for light and its healing properties are present.
All sickness–body, mind, spirit––is a materialization of an energetic disturbance, a result of some type of trauma inflicted on our living energy system–the structure that keeps us in physical form. Sexual predators are created by the overpowering energy of personal damage and unresolved emotional pain. They are completely and totally responsible for their abusive behavior and the permanent damage they create. They must not be enabled or excused…but they are not disposable. And they are responsible for all repair whatever form it takes.
If a sexual predator is lurking in your midst, you have decisions to make regarding truth and clarity, and necessary boundaries. You need to strengthen yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. You need to practice self-care and safeguard your wellbeing. This is vital for your protection and the protection of the vulnerable around you.
By aligning yourself with the forces of harmony, you are tapping into the potent, light-filled energy within you and around you. It is there always. You possess the power to create your own inner peace.
Namaste
* * *
“I have nothing for you,” I said calmly to my step-father who appeared to me during meditation decades after his death.
During his physical life, John J. Allen was a brutal, spirit-crushing child abuser. To the outside world, though, he was charming, sociable, well-loved. That is the man Phil knew. That was the grandfather to our daughters. But that nice guy was a stranger to me.
I studied this frail, in-spirit old man sitting before me slumped in a wheelchair, a threadbare shawl drooping from his shoulders. He bore the leaden energy of unseen burdens. I drew closer to him, curious but indifferent. I leaned down, kissed him on the forehead and whispered, “You have to go now.” And I turned around and walked peacefully away.
CREATING INNER PEACE
By Kathleen Hoy Foley
By now it is obvious that sexual predators are completely integrated into every level, every corner of society. Despite the naysayers that work tirelessly to diminish the shockwaves each time yet another alarming incident of sexual crimes is exposed, the truth that sexual predators walk freely among us––freely among our children––wherever people congregate is irrefutable. Denying the occurrence of sexual assault, justifying the episode, or diminishing its impact, especially when it touches your own life, produces a powerful, corrosive force that aligns your thought processes––unites who you are––with the charged energy of destruction and disharmony.
Denial erects a raging wall of theatrical flames to banish the truth from sight. Denial of a dark truth creates a formidable obstacle that prevents victims as well as predators from any hope of obtaining wholeness. Given time, denial and justification hunker down into the tranquilizing world of fantasy with its emotional narcotics and harmonic lullabies. But the denial fantasy cannot be sustained. The charged energy of destruction is too powerful and will ultimately destroy the relief denial fantasy pretends to provide.
Everyone, including sexual predators, possesses the capacity to love and has creative genius within them. When we connect with the light of our souls, we are connecting with the universal, underlying flow of harmony. Even when that connection is only temporary. So it is that an actor can genuinely connect with their soul and present this soul light to the world. And a singer can tap into their inner radiance and pour love into our hearts, eliciting feelings of tenderness and intense connection to that which is larger than us. And so it is that a beloved can truly love with integrity and yet inflict injury with what lies hidden and unresolved in the menacing recesses of pain.
What if a sexual predator is someone who has brought genuine light into your life through music or the ability to express the soul’s truth through performance? What if these transformative expressions resonating from deep within the artist’s soul lifted your soul, even momentarily, from sorrow? What if the sexual predator is someone you deeply love? Someone who deeply loves you back?
Without the protection of denial and justification, and the diminishment of the impact of abhorrent behavior of a beloved, how can you possibly find peace and harmony ever again? Is true healing even conceivable in the face of such shocking deceit and traumatic devastation?
Healing is a restoration of harmony to the body, mind, and spirit. All healing, all repair comes from within. Healing requires truth. Without truth there is no healing. Truth requires clarity. Clarity illuminates. It begins the process of comprehension. Without light, understanding is impossible. Truth and clarity elevate and empower. Inner peace then becomes not only achievable, it becomes inevitable.
You initiate the energy of inner healing and peace by surrendering to the understanding that the person you know is not the person that the victim knows. The person that the victim knows is a sexual offender who has exposed the victim to sinister secrets, corrupt desires, and frightening, bodily nakedness. The sexual offender––the person that you do not know––has tormented the victim with raw, heaving acts of sexual depravity, violent incidents, and abusive behaviors you simply cannot imagine being perpetrated by the person you love. But only when you surrender to truth you do not want to confront can you begin your walk up the mountain path to awareness and clarity: the only path to inner healing. Walking this path, you will also illuminate the way and provide encouragement for others, including the sexual offender.
But what about forgiveness? Where does that fit it?
It doesn’t. Forgiveness does not heal. Forgiveness creates the illusion of healing. And all illusions––including the illusion of forgiveness––are obstructions that block the light of truth so essential to our personal and spiritual development. Forgiveness is an emotional response––a consequence of the cultural and religious imposition of guilt on the blameless––that attempts to bypass hidden truths, evade natural repercussions, and avoid necessary repair work. Forgiveness fuels the energy of inner chaos through the visceral, exhausting battle of struggling to sustain it in the face of repugnance and profound pain.
You do not hold the power to forgive a sexual predator. Forgiveness is personal. It requires deep self-care and self-honor, and is a result of individual, internal evolution. Forgiveness only has significance and magnitude––and genuine transformative power––when it finds its own way out of the disabling trauma of darkness. That complicated journey out of the dark occurs only when the desire for light and its healing properties are present.
All sickness–body, mind, spirit––is a materialization of an energetic disturbance, a result of some type of trauma inflicted on our living energy system–the structure that keeps us in physical form. Sexual predators are created by the overpowering energy of personal damage and unresolved emotional pain. They are completely and totally responsible for their abusive behavior and the permanent damage they create. They must not be enabled or excused…but they are not disposable. And they are responsible for all repair whatever form it takes.
If a sexual predator is lurking in your midst, you have decisions to make regarding truth and clarity, and necessary boundaries. You need to strengthen yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. You need to practice self-care and safeguard your wellbeing. This is vital for your protection and the protection of the vulnerable around you.
By aligning yourself with the forces of harmony, you are tapping into the potent, light-filled energy within you and around you. It is there always. You possess the power to create your own inner peace.
Namaste
* * *
“I have nothing for you,” I said calmly to my step-father who appeared to me during meditation decades after his death.
During his physical life, John J. Allen was a brutal, spirit-crushing child abuser. To the outside world, though, he was charming, sociable, well-loved. That is the man Phil knew. That was the grandfather to our daughters. But that nice guy was a stranger to me.
I studied this frail, in-spirit old man sitting before me slumped in a wheelchair, a threadbare shawl drooping from his shoulders. He bore the leaden energy of unseen burdens. I drew closer to him, curious but indifferent. I leaned down, kissed him on the forehead and whispered, “You have to go now.” And I turned around and walked peacefully away.
