*Warning: well-deserved naughty language below!
Were you the scapegoat in your family?
The fuck up?
The one who couldn’t get it right—the one who couldn’t be accepted no matter how hard you tried? The one for whom approval, validation, and even basic human respect stayed just out of grasp?
And on a darker side—did you experience the brunt of physical or emotional abuse in your family—while others got through unscathed?
Do you now, as an adult, play the scapegoat often? Do you get blamed for things whenever there is blame to go around? Do you try to prove yourself, only to be invalidated time and time again? Is it hard for you to feel like an adult after being treated like a child for much of your life?
Is being misunderstood a way of life for you?
Me too, man. Me too.
Even as I write this, I am inwardly flinching at the remembrance of being unheard. Unseen. Invalidated. Gaslighted. Projected onto. Hurt, abused, choked. All of it. Fucking all of it. And the worst part is that part of me believed I deserved it.
But, despite all this, the scapegoat holds remarkable power. Great awareness. Great potential.
If you are or have been the scapegoat, you experienced the projection of dysfunctional people. Bottom line: healthy people do not project all of their darkness and all of their issues onto one person. Healthy people do not use blame as a way to relate. Healthy people do not condemn or marginalize others for no reason, or really, at all.
You were likely the scapegoat because you were different. You did not toe the party line. You refused to, on a certain level, engage in “tribalist” dynamics and the in-group, out-group rules of dysfunctional systems.
You were, dear soul, likely, a more awakened being to begin with. More aware and more awake coming into this life, and that scared those around you. It scared them because it threatened them—your awareness, your intuitiveness, your refusal to conform—on an energetic level, it was terrifying to their egos.
So, they made you the scapegoat. They made you doubt your own perception. They made you feel like you weren’t good enough, and cruelly punished you when you didn’t fit in. Soon, you became the scapegoat of your own volition. You gave up listening to the truth inside of you, because who can live with that type of rejection? We all need to survive. Some kind of social identity is better than none at all. Your scapegoat gave you a role to play. Your identity soon became that of the rebel, the reject—the outsider.
But my dear light being, you aren’t here to play a role. You are here to shine, with the magnificence of all of your deep truth and beauty lighting the way.
If you were the scapegoat or you still are playing this role, your job is to heal the scapegoat inside of you. And you can heal her by listening to her. Her stories of being wounded and rejected. Her confusion as to why this happened in the first place.
But on another layer, she is the key to your freedom. She is your way to awareness and to innocence—awareness of what your truth is, and the innocence of pure seeing. Awareness of the deep dysfunction some families and systems expose. Awareness of your soul’s purpose and your ability to be your real, honest, truthful self.
The real power of the scapegoat is in being rejected for what one is. At first, we might reject ourselves in the ways others rejected us.
But, if we use the power of the scapegoat, we learn an incredible lesson: the power of self-acceptance and self-respect. The power of believing in ourselves and believing in our own truth. No one can take this away from us, and no one can deny it.
The beauty and power of the scapegoat is true sovereignty.
~
AUTHOR: CLAIRE BOYCE
IMAGE: MBARDO/PEXELS
This account does not have permission to comment on Elephant Journal.
Contact support with questions.