An important part of becoming transformational is the journey through the roles of victim, to victor, to transformer. Let’s look at each of these in turn:

What are the essential characteristics of a victim?

One of the things that makes living a meaningful, transformative life difficult is that we live in an upside-down world. What does this mean? Let me give you an example: I recently watched a true crime show where a woman was found murdered in her home. The woman herself, a loving single mother, was completely blameless. The only clue of any suspicious activity was a neighbor who had seen a strange vehicle parked in an empty field behind the woman’s house the night she was killed.

The problem that many people have with mortality is less about death, and more about having been born in the first place. There is something about accepting having been born that is scary for many people. Take a look at how many people live their lives either mired in thoughts and emotions about the past, or racing ahead to a nonexistent future that is being constantly constructed in their mind. Anything seems preferable to actually accepting their present state of existence – right here, right now. This inability to exist completely in the present (rather than in one’s imagination) is another way of describing the state of not having completed one’s birth.

Einstein once said, “One cannot solve a problem on the same level on which it was created.” In order to transform this world, we need to be able to transcend it. In order to live transcendently (being in the world while at the same time operating from a higher level), we need to overcome our fear of death. Our fear of death keeps us earth-bound in the same way that someone who fears airplanes will never be able to fly. When we fear death, everything in this world takes on a distorted significance. Every loss is an ultimate loss, every deprivation is like the end of the world, every blow to our self is a fatal blow. That is because this world becomes all that we have, and that makes us hold onto everything with (pardon the expression) a death-grip.

Calamities happen – large and small. People die. You miss the bus. It rains. Wars begin. Children starve. You forget your lip balm. Are these things proof that the world is falling apart? While it may seem wrong to put all of these things in the same category, they are all ways in which the world fails to conform to our desires and our plans. It may seem funny to state it this way, but really what we are saying is, “The world is good when it is doing the things that I think it should and that make me happy – and when it doesn’t, that is proof that the world is falling apart.” Stating it in this way allows us to see how limited our thinking really is. In order to have a world that makes everyone on the planet happy, we would have to have seven billion different worlds, each world tailored to the preferences of each individual human being. Obviously, in our present world, that is not the way that it goes.

When it comes to creating transformation, whether or not the world is broken is a very important question. The reason why this question is so important is because transformation is created out of the ability to see wholeness and light where others only see darkness, brokenness and concealment.

According to the creation story (in several different religions), God created the world perfect and whole. Well, not quite…

What is empowerment? What does it mean to put it in practice? In her latest column, Miriam Mendelson shows you how the actions you take can empower those around you!

The third pillar of creating transformation in practice is the pillar of Empowerment. This can be a somewhat confusing concept – what does it mean to empower others? Read on to find out!

The second pillar of transformation is the pillar of caring for others. These are simple actions – but they take on a powerful significance when they are performed out of a transformative vision for the world.