*OLD THREAD*: Submitting Questions for "In the Now - Q&A with Carla L. Rueckert"

[ricdaw]

I am repeatedly being offered opportunities to help big-hearted people in confounding situations. Mostly women: they are oppressed or ignored or abused or marginalized by otherselves. (Big heart chakras, closed throat chakras.) This isn’t about criminal-level abuse, but about the kind of abuse you might call exploitation by a boss, controlling behavior by a boyfriend, socially cruel behavior by a coworker, etc. (These abusers have some serious 2nd and 3rd chakra blockages.)

I accept that these woman have come to me for a reason and that I am being offered an opportunity to be of service. (I used to be a lawyer.) My question is whether I should or not.

To nourish empowerment for the victim (teach them how to speak for themselves), I know it will mean pain for the oppressor. It could be the pain of a work grievance, divorce, lawsuit, or direct discomfort by being confronted, but it is real pain for the oppressing individuals.

Is it ok to help these oppressed women, because they search me out seeking my advice? Or is the catalyst actually that I am supposed to see “the big picture,” and choose not help the oppressed because to help these women is highly likely to hurt the oppressors? What do you do when your heart-felt principles (defend and empower the oppressed!) conflict with the larger reality that the oppressor too is another self? (Who knows what pain or abuse they had while growing up that made them into the cruel people they have become. In all likelihood, they are victims too.) What action comports with the Law of One? To engage or not to engage?

(Never once has an oppressor come to me saying, “I keep falling into a pattern of dehumanizing my wife, can you help me break this cycle of abuse?” So there has been no opportunity to offer loving help to the oppressor, which would solve my quandary.)