The Temple Space

We have to start to recognise the Shame Epidemic in our midst, and not just in violent offenders but in all of us when driven to react ‘out of character’. Men, please come and join the conversation and share your wisdom or learn from other men talking about this over at the Ancestral Fire Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/malepathway/ * * * Men are NOT the only cause of Violence I have been caught up recently in the argument that ‘Men are the only cause of violence’ , which is an argument I wholly disagree with. The statistics look to bear this out, I cannot argue with them and I dont wish to. Violence perpetuated by males is clearly currently the statisticians truth. Emergency Wards and Prison Cells speak volumes on this. I also have no interest in arguing about all the unreported incidents of non-male gender violence, nor the definition of violence, and whether an incident of aggressive, emotional cruelty by a mother to a child, might also be classified as such. There is a simple equation to all this, and it requires looking at violence not as the cause, but as the symptom of something else. Shame. And Shame exists in all of us, in such a way that it is an unrecognised global epidemic that most every person alive on the planet is infected by. It is that big when we start to consider the true power of Shame upon humans. The proof for my stance comes from two distinct places. Jonathan Asser and James Gilligan. There are others, but I have focused on both these men primarily because of the kind of work they have achieved on the extreme end of the anger scale. They have both dealt with the most violent offenders known to society, the ‘beyond hope’ criminal, and they have both had near 100% success rate with them. In the field of violence, both these men have come to the same singular conclusion: Violence is triggered by Shame Rather than stretch out the details here in explaining how I come to the conclusion that in many cases the antagonist is not the person who ultimately resorts to violence, but rather the one who triggers the shame that leads to it. Instead we have setup a Facebook Group for Men Only to come and share their experiences, because there are so many men that this truth will resonate with, but who are being told the opposite out there – that it is all men’s fault. Yes, it is men’s responsibility to address any violence, or even anger in their nature, of course it is, there is never an excuse for violence, I am not saying this to exonerate men from their obvious responsibility. What I am saying is we are all of us looking in the wrong place for solution and we are all of us forgetting we are also infected with this Shame Epidemic. Normal, sane folk lose their minds and attack someone every day. Look at the news. I bet even you can think of a time when you lost your cool with someone you most likely loved deeply, maybe your kid, your partner, someone and you went that bit too far. It was out of character, right? Consider that as I expand further on this concept. ‘Shame Awareness’ is key Without the correct knowledge, without the correct learning behaviour, without Shame Awareness. we have only 2 choices when we become violently shamed – Fight or Flight (also Freeze actually but that’s another story). As Jonathan Asser has proved in his 100% effective SVI workshops for hardcore violent offenders, if we can learn simple ‘Shame Awareness’ we discover we have a 3rd choice. That choice he called the ‘High Status Option’. It involves keeping your power, not giving it away by running, nor getting it back by beating it from the other person. It is all about perception really, but it has some supporting factors to take into account, and this we will be talking about in the Facebook group in more detail, rather than here. What is Shame Exactly? Shame is the sense of disappearing ‘self’ that occurs when someone consciously, or often unconsciously starts to disempower you. Shame can not only happen to individuals, there is group shame, there is cultural shame, and there is the shame an entire country can experience and react from. Shame is NOT guilt, guilt may be an after effect resulting from a shame reaction, but they are very different monsters. Shame is something that happens in the ‘here and now’. When we feel it, it envelops us right there and then. We feel the experience of Shame like a ‘wash’ and then our body and mind goes into reaction, we almost change personality in fact, and it is directly proportional to our sense of ‘self’ starting to diminish. The smaller ‘I’ get, the more reactive I am likely to become to balance that disempowering experience that is happening to me. Then if it continues, we hit TILT. Boom we react! We enter the Reptilian part of our brain, the oldest part of us that knows how to just react not question why. Then we go into fight or flight mode, and very intensely when it is driven by Shame Tilt. The physiological aspect of shame I will talk more on shortly. Another essential defining factor and possibly the key to resolution in a deeper long-term sense is that Shame challenges our most basic need to belong. Our Western Culture is so bereft of true community we once had, that it is hardly any wonder that violence is on the increase due to this primary need being so lacking. Our sense of belonging is constantly being challenged in modern day life. The Karpman Drama Triangle (Click to read post on this subject) The Karpman Drama Triangle plays a very important role in the sequence of events leading up to a violent incident, and plays a big part in its aftermath & continuation. This is a whole other subject but the victim/perpetrator/rescuer roles defined by for example, women/man/a court of law, allow this drama to unfold in all sorts of curious and confusing ways. If you have ever witnessed domestic violence from the outside, you will likely concur. Cause and effect isn’t simple, even if the perpetrator of the violence is obvious. If you consider Shame as the root antagonising factor that drives Violence in the first place, then you can start to see how the victim could actually manipulate the situation very well from start to finish in any violent encounter. I am not saying they do, I am just highlighting a reality of human nature, conscious or otherwise. It just aint black and white, Villain and Victim stuff we are dealing with here. Except actually maybe it is, when we look at Shame as the real Villain, then yes it is very black and white and it maybe even has a solution too. That solution begins with Shame Awareness. Natures Hand in escalating Anger into Violence (Any Age, Class, or Gender!) Violent physical reaction for many is beyond their control so long as they have only ever experienced punishment for their violent behaviour, or never experienced being violently triggered before. Consider it. There is much documented proof of this that James Gilligans work has shed light on. How many imprisoned offenders regret the moment they ‘Went postal’. How many violent offenders live in guilt and shame of the day they reacted in a way so often defined as the one time ‘I just lost it’. Why are so many people beyond the capability of being peaceful all the time? Because it is programmed into us all by Nature herself. Men and Women for that matter. It is often just a matter of whether we have been unlucky enough to find an incident in life that drove the trigger in any of us to ‘Tilt’. We all have a ‘Tilt’ point. The trigger is always going to be Shame, and this is what most people are totally unaware of. It isn’t just ‘them’ the violent criminals suffering this problem, it is all of us at risk, it is a Shame Epidemic time bomb. (The Clip from ‘Falling Down’, the Movie, when he ‘loses it’ is a perfect example of a shame trigger that may not be obvious (or even fair) until we start to analyse what drives him to Tilt) If we look at the effects on the Amygdala (the part in the brain that deals with fear responses) when it becomes ‘hijacked’ by Shame. Then any man, or woman, becomes no better than a reptile the moment it takes over. They fight , they freeze, or they run. It is an attempt to reclaim power, or abandon it, either way will have consequences. Recall any relationship argument you felt strongly intense about, but were challenged over and you started to Tilt, to lose it, and you will see it at work. But you may well struggle to remember the details after you went on Tilt, why? Because you were more like a reptile than a human and your memory processing was functioning differently, it wasnt needed really, in case you experienced something horrific like a larger reptile ripping your limbs off. Your brain actually thinks it is helping you out by shutting down the modern day social part of you and sending you back into your Reptilian response mode. Modern Society thinks otherwise. But the evolution of our Neocortex, the part of the brain hat makes us human & socially civilised is only 400,000 years old at best. It is even referred to as ‘Natures latest experiment’. ‘Shame Awareness’ is our only option to learn how to manage this Reptilian reaction. In our relationship fights, in our work place fights, in street fights. Or even in fights that turns inwards when we choose to disempower ourself by NOT fighting. This is a very real phenomena happening to men out of fear of their own reaction, shame, fear, and an accumulated guilt in a society that says ‘It is all your fault men’ then punishes you, shames you, making it only ever worse. It doesnt have to be this way. Shame Awareness requires understanding Shame Dynamics but it also requires ‘real-time’ experience to really wake it up, else we remain just theorists. We talk about this more in the Facebook Group in trying to grasp it for ourselves. Shame Tennis Escalation In any argument, with a partner, with a spouse, with a friend, with that guy in the pub, it gets started the same way and escalates the same way. Someone triggers a Shame response, they probably dont even know they did it, and we fire a Shame volley back immediately, and probably just as unconsciously at the target. It always hits. And then it starts the Shame Tennis and the Amygdala gets closer to the moment it gets ‘hijacked’. Once it does, someone goes into Tilt and it may just be vocal and loud, or it may become full on violence. To some extent it hardly matters which because the Tilt happened, and that is the problem right there. The Shame Epidemic is global. Shame Awareness on an individual and personal level, is the only real way to start to deal with it. Look to ourselves not look to blaming others. If we don’t understand the solution, we are supporting the problem. A Voice to Men from the Darkness You may be a man or a woman reading this, don’t think you are exempt from the Shame Epidemic. We are all infected. Most people are just time bombs waiting to go off and most will never go off and that is great but for the ones that do, what then? Most of us hide from Shame or aquiesce to it rather than react violently, but to some extent this is disempowering ourself in order to avoid confrontational situations, but again thats a whole other story. Many of you may recognise from what I have shared here the time you have used Shame to push someone over the brink and into Tilt. It is a great tool to avoid you being held responsible. Get someone else to ‘lose their shit’. I used to do it all the time to start fights in pubs because it put me at the advantage, once they go on Tilt they no longer have the capacity to strategize, they are just Reptilian, and that puts them in a losing position if you can remain in your human mind, I know how it works even though I was unconsciously using this method at the time. I believe most men out there who have experienced violence in some way, especially men who have sadly reacted in a way to hurt a child or woman, will know that for most in their heart of hearts something triggered them that was beyond their control at the time. Men who were violent just once maybe, for the shortest time, are condemned to feeling like a monster. Left feeling guilt that will eat them away, and grow the fear of it happening again, which sadly may increase the likelihood too. But there is hope if we look in the right place. Look to Shame Awareness. Learn about Shame Dynamics and understand that we are all in the grips of a Shame Epidemic, nothing less. James Gilligan 2 minute Video Talk – “No One Is Hopeless” Men, please come over and join the conversation, share your wisdom or learn from other men talking about this at the Ancestral Fire Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/malepathway/

An Audio/Video reading of this blog is now available via Podcast above, or on YouTube below Shame is one of the most powerful, and unrecognised, driving forces in our society, and this is especially true where sex is concerned. Maybe we arent as well educated as we think we are. I have recently been talking to people about so many ‘Shame’ topics, from Porn addiction to Anti-Abortionism, Feminism to Domestic violence, The illegal sex slave trade industry to the (virtually unrecognised) life of happy, healthy, legal escort workers, and from Tantra to BDSM and beyond. Each subject a minefield of triggers for confusion and anger, and points that will be argued into eternity. The heat of debate is rife, everyone has an opinion, almost everyone stubbornly, aggressively clings to their point of view absolutely certain that they are right and frustrated by those that don’t see it, myself included. It was because I was so overwhelmed by the un-scalable size of it all and the ferocity with which many normally calm people reacted, that I started to notice a funny thing; if I considered what was being said, we all actually agreed on a lot of what we were arguing about, so why the hell were we all arguing? Different Values, Same Problem. I realised it was the Values we each held that was driving the direction of each argument. All aimed at the same end result, yes, but often coming from opposite ends of the spectrum. Values were different for different people, and different between genders too. That was when I looked for the underlying commonality and it was not hard to find. Shame was at the root of each and every problem associated to Sex. And adding to this sense of Shame was misinformation, a lack of real up-to-date valid knowledge, many assumed judgements, many projected assumptions, and quite a lot of coffee-table magazine style myths that people were beligerantly clinging to in the absence of any other kind of real knowledge source. (And I dont mean Dr Phil, Oprah, or thinly scripted sex documentaries) Human Evolution is being held back by Sexual Shame I recently watched the ‘Masters of Sex’, a documentary about Masters and Johnson’s work in the 1950’s and watching it I realised that to a large extent nothing has changed since civilisation first started to become vaguely ‘civilised’ about 2000 years ago. Sure, thanks to M& J we now know about the clitoris, and that women can have orgasms, but in our sense of Sexual Shame, very little has changed since post Roman times. Why? Surely we are more advanced as a species today than 60 years ago or even 2000 years ago, surely we are more educated? Well actually it seems that in many ways we arent. In family, in community, and in society we remain full of Shame around sexuality because for all our physical education about sex and its technicals, it has not helped us really understand its darker nature one bit, nor how to deal with it when it unexpectedly pops into our lives in some way. So, terrified, we shut it out, or try to, and worse we further demonise it. Media loves to jump on demons and glorify them. So too the rough end of the Feminist movement, waving it around as a whipping-stick against males. Todays hard-core porn sure looks like something demonic to most people, and I can understand why. I have certainly given up trying to explain how maybe it is just a predictable expression of the suppression and misinformation our society is experiencing. Whatever it is, the mysteriously unfathomable and uncontrollable dark side of sexuality appears to be the problem and it is breaking out like suppressed steam bursting from a broken pipe. The Dark Side of Sex & our Medieval Reaction to that which we Fear. The dark side of sex runs riot in media and on the internet. Social media is a potential sexual disaster zone, our cities see rape and domestic violence constantly, our prisons hold many sex traffickers and sex offenders, drinks get spiked in night clubs, booze leads to trashy car-park sex, or ‘yes’ means ‘no and ‘no’ means ‘yes’ , yet still no one really seems to be able to define exactly what the differences are or how it applies when alcohol or drugs are involved. Then 50 Shades of Grey pops up and glorifies the ridiculous side of broken & naive people getting kink all very wrong. There is a smorgasmabord of sexual disaster waiting for us out there, if we want to risk it. The older we get, the more we know the risks of sex, and the more we avoid it because it just aint worth it. The more ‘civilized’ we get, the more we fear and judge it and the less we seem to understand its’ place in our world. The further away from actually experiencing sex we get, paradoxically the more obsessed with it we become, until the media portrayal of it will make us think the impending demise of human civilisation itself, is being caused by the porn industry & the sex that we are not getting. And we buy into this very easily because it sounds right to our own sense of shame and our ignorance of it, where negative media has been our one source of education outside of TV, personal experiences of shame, & of course local gossip. And then there is plenty of supporting information in our lives to prove it too: The dark side of sex can destroy, relationships, jobs, and lives, through infidelity or porn addiction, or anything judged ‘not normal’, it can come back years later to haunt us through sexting and gossip mongering, or just that night you really wish you hadn’t done that thing. It can bring us incurable diseases, or hellish experiences. Emotional crisis, swollen parts, confused communication and broken hearts. Sex can destroy our lives just with a loosely mentioned label that doesnt even have to be true, like ‘slut’ or ‘rapist’. The dark side of sex is not to be taken lightly and we know this all, too painfully well. Sex will always be beyond our control, but that is its gift. Everyone has their moment of Sexual Shame. Often we have many. There is always the one that stopped us trying to ‘just get some’ ever again, and we pray to god no one will ever find out about how it really went. Then there is the weird thing, the one that makes you feel, you know, strangely excited but didn’t ever know how to ask to try it with your partners, and that’s also the one you secretly now fear your kids might become interested in. ‘Like, isn’t it written into our DNA or something?’ Sex starts off fun when we are young, but pretty soon it changes on us, when we realise we don’t control it at all. We get hurt. Then sex get’s scary, sex get’s dangerous. It is powerful. Too powerful for us to handle, because it lays our souls bare despite what we try to hide about ourselves. Of course it is powerful, I mean, in just a few minutes you can accidently create an entire new human being with the stuff ! Dark sex challenges our sense of self, dark sex is the animal we keep locked in the basement and can’t seem to kill, but daren’t let it out except secretly maybe, or when we are really drunk because that seems to be the only way to explain our connection to the beast. It’s a kind of agreed code of ok’ness to say ‘I was sooo drunk’. It is rubbish of course, most of the time we knew full well what we were doing. But worst of all, worst of all, and the real bummer that makes us want to kill it, is that the dark side of sex threatens our children. Avoidance Doesnt Work Either. Given the above, for most ‘normal’ adult people in a healthy relationship (one that probably doesnt have all that much sex going on in it anymore) it is easier to try to stamp sex out altogether, than to try to deal with it. A ‘Give it up for the kids sake’ kind of approach. And if you have found a good partner, why ruin the security by trying to have a sex life now? Especially getting into the darker side of your self through it. I mean why bother? Unfortunately, as we all know, avoidance rarely works. Quite the opposite, which might explain just how nuts it is getting out there, if it is actually any different to how it has always been. In relationships we replace Sex with Security, enough so that it becomes almost worth it. And besides, once in a while you can go out and get drunk with the girls and see a strip show and blame it on the booze, or the guys fall into a strip club and blame it on the other guys who blame it on the booze. More avoidance and denial. Though this works to let off some of the steam at a personal level. It seems like enough, but it is it? What kind of life is this we are living in avoidance of our dark side? What are we giving up? And what are we collectively causing in our society by all of us avoiding it? Is the beast expressing itself out there because we have given up on it in our own homes, given up on it in all ways except for our negative obsession with it in movies, newspapers, gossip and trash magazines? This is the 21st Century civilized world. Welcome to the era of the Crusaders of Sexual Shame. One day I hope we can look back on this time in our history, and laugh at it. Shame Resilience. Owning our dark side, talking about it, and why we must. We are civilized creatures, but at the price of becoming terrified by our own dark sexuality and desperately trying to kill it off, stamp it out, lock it up, or burn it at the stake, most especially when we see it going dark-side in others, and then we love to demonise it and sacrifice a few witches (nowadays we call them ‘sluts’). I believe most of the problems we see regarding sex will actually dissolve the day the human race is finally able to talk and understand their deeper, darker sexuality without shame, and it can be done, as individuals owning our own sexuality without concern about what our partner, or any other person might think. That is Shame Resilience. Become able to talk about it in front of the kids, not as a lesson to them directly, but as proof that we are at ease with it, and there is nothing to fear, or be ashamed of, in their talking about it too. That will teach them all they need to know in order to own their own sense of sexuality when the time comes and not feel shame at their sexuality, or have to learn about it from other kids, or on the internet, or worse when their beast breaks loose, which it will. By embracing our dark sexuality we will defeat our sense of shame, and I don’t believe everyone will just up and start at it like sex-mad monkeys, nor turn into hard-core porn-driven rapists. Actually the opposite is more likely, we probably wont hunger for it so much anymore, certainly not in the way it is currently being repressed and expressed. I believe instead we will come to realise sexuality is directly linked to spirituality, that it is a good thing, even the dark side of sexuality has it’s place when understood, given room to breathe, and gently directed towards more enlightening purposes, and it may even hold our capacity to choose how we evolve as humans. The New Sexual Revolution Sex really should be the next revolution, but not in the way the 60’s tried it with ‘Free Love’ and disastrous consequences. Rather as a way to rid ourselves once and for all of the Power of Shame. And that starts by creating individual resilience to shame, looking to heal our own shame not focusing on what we percieve as other peoples issues with sex, or how our judgement of their perceived problems might adversely affect our kids. There is only one way out of this, and that way is to get to know yourself. You need to find out what is on the dark side of your sexuality. Learn it, own it, know it. Don’t keep it locked down in the basement thinking no one knows about it, or that ignoring it will make it go away, or that you don’t have one. It always pops up like a steam-blown frogger somewhere else in our lives, what do you think drives the Crusader other than their own sense of what is unexpressed? And don’t think that protecting the kids from sex will work at all, in fact it needs to go the other way, you need to lead by example, befriend the dark side of your self, befriend your inner beast, and they will know it is ok to share theirs with you when it arises. But if you judge it, fight it, declare war on it and start crusades & campaigns against it, then you can be sure your kids will seek sex out as the forbidden fruit, or simply tell you nothing of their sexual journey. They will feel too ashamed. And by the way, before you think it, I am not an advocate for liberal sex at all. I think sex is the last thing that should be happening in this New Sexual Revolution. Go figure. But rather it is about education, real education not what is currently being demonised by sexless obsessives in a drive not unlike the Spanish Inquisition using ‘Save the kids’ as the banner with which to demonise and blame sexual expression, the dark or the light. Being a supporter of the Crusade against the dark side of sex will take us all back hundreds of years to medieval ignorance and retarded reactions. The dark side of sex is something that has a place in all our lives, if it can only be understood better, so that it can find it’s rightful place, because like it or not you will never get rid of it. So better the devil you know. Dont be a part of the problem. Don’t create more shame in those who have the beast raging within them because you might find shame is what brought it up in the first place, and you may find the monster you think you are fighting, is actually just a reflection of the one living in your basement or god forbid, your kids. Become enlightened to the darkness. That is the only way. And that will be the new revolution, if it ever comes. If you have to declare war on something, declare war on your own sense of Shame & on your judgement of others. Because I can assure you if you are a supporter of the Crusade against any form of sexuality, you are ignorant as to what will solve the issue you think you see, where it is really, and just what is causing it. Do the evolution of our species a favour, come out of the dark ages, get a proper sex education and one that involves looking at your dark side. Where can you go to learn more? In the new year we will be running online groups talking about all this stuff. working it out the way it should be worked out; by looking at ourselves and offering ways to approach it that make sense, make it ok, even make it beautiful, safe and right. Check one of them out here Sex & Spirituality Online Workshop and there are others under the Courses link in the menu above. * Do you remember your first shaming around sexuality? Are you able to talk about it? What are your fears around sex, and how does that reflect on your need for security in relationship or safety for your kids? Do you still experiment, or are you afraid of what it might unleash? Feel free to share if you dare in the Disqus discussion form below.

An Audio/Video reading of this blog is now available on Youtube This is a suggestion for an evolutionary approach as a method to solve or rather dissolve the Karpman Drama Power Triangle of – Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle The potential for a possible solution is seen by giving the triangle itself two more levels. Levels that exist in a second and third dimension, making in total 3 levels. These levels are ‘Conditional States’ that would need to be reached by a natural evolution and not a forced one, they are: Shame, Empathy & Self-Esteem. The proposed evolution also requires recognising the influence of a fourth, external, position, that of the area outside the triangle. The triangle, as we know, in the first dimension has the positions of Victim, Persecutor and/or Rescuer. The fourth, external position, might be labelled Community and would exert a negative influence or positive influence depending on its understanding & support of the evolutionary process outlined here. Shame – The first conditional state It is based on the premise that Shame is the hidden, but driving motivation of each and every triangle position in the outset.  (Examples can be found in Viktor Frankl’s – Man’s Search for Meaning, and James Gilligan’s essays on Violence. These provide, through documented extremes, insight into the proposal that Shame is the initial conditional state of this power dynamic, albeit a hidden one, for all positions on the triangle and likely the same at any level of intensity.) Hidden Shame drives a Persecutor, as well as the possibly empathic Shame, though often agenda-ridden one, that drives the Rescuer, and therefore it is not just the obvious end result that we know as the toxic Shame or indignation state of the Victim, but actually is the ‘Conditional State’ of all three positions. And so Shame could be considered the defining initial ‘Conditional State’ of any position on this triangle when in the first dimension. Thus the healing journey for each position is inexorably linked in Shame. So then surely it is possible to find grounds for Empathy between the positions? Note that if the Rescuer is genuinely empathic, then this capacity for empathy may be the gateway to the next level, supported, or hindered, by the exertion of influence from an educated, or uneducated, Community (the fourth position). Empathy – The second conditional state If we can create conditions that allow this triangle to evolve naturally it will come to the next conditional state, that is one of Empathy. We could call this the second dimension in the 3D version of the karpman triangle. Empathy is where the persecutor is validly seeking to understand the other positions points of view. The victim also validly seeks to understand the persecutors point of view, and the rescuer is recognising their own agendas running, as well as deepening their sense of empathy from the point of view of the other two positions. There are conditions attached, such as every position must have achieved genuine empathy for each opposing position on the triangle for this stage to be fully realized. Not easy, obviously, but it is possible. Positional names for the triangle points at this second level have been taken from the Empowerment Dynamic Triangle, that of Coach, Challenger & Creator. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empowerment_Dynamic (Though this second level could just as easily use the Acey Choy proposed concept of The Winners Triangle which offers Assertive, Caring and Vulnerable to replace Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim respectively – http://www.scribd.com/doc/52446575/TAJ-1990-Acey-Choy-The-winners-triangle-r#scribd ) The role of influence of the fourth position, the Community, again will be either to hinder or help support the evolution depending on its own level of education in understanding this evolutionary process. Restored Self-Esteem – The third conditional state The third and final stage of the evolutionary process through this 3D triangle set is Self-Esteem. This might be reached using Restorative Justice methodology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice Such things as the persecutor making genuine, empathic offerings to amend the harm done to the victim, the victim’s acceptance and even forgiveness of the persecutor, the persecutor forgiving themselves, the community forgiving the persecutor, and the rescuer letting go of their need to be further involved in trying to influence the dynamic or be affected by it. When the stage of Restored Self-Esteem is reached for each position on the triangle, the puzzle becomes solved, the triangle would literally dissipate, dissolve and disappear because the power tension between the three positions would no longer have potential, or relevance, to be able to influence the other positions. Diagram below showing the Evolved Karpman Drama Triangle with 3 levels, dimensions or ‘Conditional States’, and a fourth position recognised as ‘Community at Large’. It proposes a natural evolution through stages 1-3 leading towards a potential resolution.   Using a 3D template with ‘Conditional States’ representing the levels or dimensions, it is possible to suggest there is a natural evolution to escape the Karpman drama dynamic. First through Shame, via Empathy, onto Self-Esteem. This is an attempt to bring evolution and freedom, to an otherwise inescapable cycle. Recognising how each point on the triangle can evolve through this process, and has to, in order to allow the other two positions to also evolve and therefore, interestingly, together they actually may need each other’s support in order to achieve individual freedom from the influencing dynamic. In short, each position starts at Shame, passes through Empathy, and ends at Self-Esteem which by nature of its self-driven empowerment, actually frees us from the inescapable cycle by removing the meaning, and therefore influence, that the other positions have on us, i.e. they no longer have relevance, or power, to influence us further from that moment on. The triangle then literally dissolves. A fourth position: Community The importance of a fourth position and its power to influence the evolutionary process should be recognised. This position includes everything outside the triangle and we could label it in a number of ways. It could be labelled Community, Society, Family, Friends, or even Restorative Justice Courtroom. The importance of this position needs to be recognized because without the Community (or external influences on the triangle at any given moment) being at a level of understanding that it is capable of supporting the 3D evolutionary process, then it will likely influence the triangle adversely, and force at least one position to remain inert, and therefore inescapable for all. There is then, an inherent reliance of the triangle upon the wisdom of the Community outside, and for it to be able to offer reference, give support, provide nurturing, and even at times be there to prod the triangle to action. By nature of its external position it has the power to aid the evolutionary process towards each positions ultimate potential, or work against it. Without this fourth positions support, it is likely each position will be unwilling or unable to evolve. The importance of this fourth position should not be under-estimated. Further considerations A question is whether there is a way that one position can evolve without the relevant evolution of each other position, and what impact that might have if it could. It is likely that each position needs the other two to evolve in order to truly escape, which poses an interesting new dimension to the power that each position actually has in the evolutionary cycle. e.g. a victim could easily remain belligerent in order to exert punishment on the persecutor, though immediately we see the position would switch places in such an instance, and it might be up to the third position (or the fourth position, the external Community) to highlight that truth, possibly at an emotional risk, or status cost. i.e. further Shame be it individual or collective. Punishment of the persecutor creates Shame in the persecutor, so it is possible that punishment will stop the process of evolution for all on the triangle. James Gilligan proposed ‘quarantine’ rather than imprisonment as a way to look at negating the re-shaming that occurs to inmates and those being ‘punished by the law’. Vengeance masked as Justice will create shame & guilt. It is a consideration then, if punishment of the persecutor actually adversely affects the other positions and stops them evolving, is it worth the apparent sense of ‘he got his just rewards’, or ‘justice has seen to be served’ that we assume it to be for the victim. Punishment is then false solution and a dead end for the Victim too. Recognising and then understanding Shame in two forms, individual & collective, really is key to this power puzzle and the evolution of not just individuals and community but the human race to no small extent. History is built on the Karpman dynamic and it’s inescapable influence on people, groups, communities and countries. There is also a question of how to persuade each position to evolve when large emotional investment or deep damage has been made into the relevant position. A possible leverage might be to show how the only possible freedom from the tension & conflict created by the dynamic is through these evolutionary levels to achieve that freedom. i.e. if you stay here you will hurt forever, if you evolve you may become free. If this education uses the ‘stick and the carrot ‘ technique then there is risk in that approach, as if it becomes punishment then the cycle starts again. I would also propose considering something more along the lines of Aikido methods to invite the education rather than to exert it, and that would benefit from further consideration. A common case would be for the Persecutor to refuse to consider empathy of the Victim, again this is a huge area and an obvious sticking point on  the road to a successful process, but this document seeks only to resolve the puzzle, and not determine how to get there. It should also be noted that any position refusing to evolve, actually immediately becomes the Persecutor in a new dynamic triangle whether they recognise it or not. It would take delicate wisdom to deliver a truth of that nature to say, a murder enquiry, where the victims may be deeply wounded and shamed against ever seeing reason or sense in forgiving the persecutor. The difficulty for any emotional human being (or community) to achieve this evolution is obvious, especially in cases of extreme power dynamics such as abuse, enslavement, or murder, but the point here is to highlight a potential solution pathway. The  ‘The Language of I’ method discussed elsewhere by TheTempleSpace.com lends itself well to developing empathy between willing parties involved in a dynamic of this nature in less intense scenarios.