This is a really great, in depth interview with Cameron Clark. Her months long experiment in living and working in Teal Bosworth Scott Swan's "intentional community" has been previously discussed in a lengthy interview posted here and in the Cameline video posted here. This discussion brings much needed clarification of some of the finer points of her experience and perspective.
Cameron endured a great deal in a relatively short period of time, including not so subtle pressure to kill herself. Despite all this, she says that she has never considered herself to be a victim. She feels she made choices and learned valuable lessons. So, I thought it was awfully funny that the Ask Teal episode posted the following weekend dealt directly with victimhood. That whole idea of not seeing yourself as a victim? She's against it.
For a true believer in the "law of attraction" to stand against the idea of personal responsibility requires some rather profound convolutions of thought.
The unhealthy Ego is concerned with power. Not the good kind of power (like empowerment), the kind of power that needs something to be less powerful in order to feel powerful by comparison. And the ego can gain this power by being the good guy. People who are trapped in victimhood mentality are after the kind of power that belongs to someone being righteous or good. But the ego that is concerned with being righteous or good needs someone to be the bad guy to exist. Similarly, an ego can gain power by being the victor. People who are trapped in victor mentality are after the kind of power that belongs to someone superior and strong. This kind of person cannot ever admit to vulnerability. This kind of ego may be unwilling to admit to any negative emotions at all. Or it may not have a real problem with expressing anger or negative emotional states that it perceives as strong, while refusing to admit to negative emotional states that it perceives as weak. This ego crumbles at the thoughts of admitting to fear and especially hurt. Admitting that their feelings got hurt is like a death sentence. This ego thinks that by denying vulnerability, especially any notion of victimhood, it is a victor. It was won.
See? Feeling like a victim is bad, except when it's good.
She knows she's being internally contradictory which she explains by stating that, Goddess help me, "both truths are true." Really? Truths are true?
This stuff hurts my brain.
See, teal has spent a lot of time explaining how "from a universal perspective" there's no such thing as a victim. But this shouldn't stop us from feeling like victims when bad things happen. This she describes as a contradiction, but it isn't really. It's just a matter of perspective. When we're in human form, all of this, um, bad stuff, like the Holocaust, feels pretty effing real and not like we're in a "movie theatre" at all.
Seeing how many contradictions can dance on the head of teal's hat pin is nothing new and not the most interesting part of this video. What makes this thirteen minutes of pure entertainment is seeing how hard she's trying not to say what she really means, which is probably something along the lines of, Fuck you, Cameron.
She devolves several times to a middle school gossip, particularly around the 5:00 minute mark. There's no mistaking her contempt for the arrogance of anyone who dares to say they're not a victim.
Not only is this a thinly veiled shot at Cameron Clark, it's yet another example of teal's obsession with breaking people down into emotional jelly. No one is being authentic unless they're as miserable as she is. As I wrote here, I think her version of "shadow work" is potentially dangerous. Her "processes" are based on the assumption that you had horrible parents and that your life is not working. That Cameron is a resilient, self-actualized person who could not be reduced to a suicidal wreck must have driven teal absolutely bonkers. That she's announcing that fact in interviews has teal acting like a Heather on camera.
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