When I teach accountability in the classroom, I encourage participants to consider that victimization experiences occur in life. It is part of being relational and human. I also tell people that no one or any thing can hurt you unless you allow it. When you feel victimized you often become hyper focused on the other person, or perceived perpetrator; sometimes contemplating how you can somehow exact your revenge. Carefully pondering how you can hurt them, or at the very least get them to see how badly they have hurt you and hope they wallow in guilt and remorse.

Most people see the common sense truth that no one has the power to hurt you, and you really are not powerful enough to hurt anyone, but yet somehow they can’t help but run the many victimization events through their heads, and in the recall, remember how hurt and sad they were, or likely, still are. Even though it doesn’t make ‘sense’ it sure feels like others have the power to hurt you. They also can’t help but get a small flash of pleasure when they think they have been able to cause some one else’s suffering.

In Carlos Castaneda’s book, The Fire Within, he speaks of the various types of tyrants. Let’s start by understanding and defining what type of tyrants exists.

The first type of tyrant is the irritator. The irritator is the type of person who does things or has a habit of just getting below the surface of your skin. They are not really that significant in the larger scheme of things, but they can catch you off guard, they can try and command your time, energy, attention and resources.

The second type of tyrant is the manipulator. Manipulators are people who are cunning, clever and devious. They scheme and attempt to trick you into doing something you otherwise might not do, often without your conscious awareness. They will say or do whatever it takes to get you to do what they want. If they are quite adept at manipulation they can bypass your critical thinking because they have identified some inner weakness or Achilles heel that you hold inside.

The third type of tyrant is the tormentor. Tormentors are those people who are caught in their own pain and suffering and will take that pain out on others. They try to bring others to their level of suffering, as misery loves company. They may torment with words and can go as deep as to abuse emotionally and physically. They target whatever they believe will upset or control you the most. Their intent is to reduce the spark of happiness and joy from your life.

The fourth type is the melancholic. They simply oppress with their sadness. They are drainers energetically and are often deeply attached to their ‘story’. They work with pity, not only do they drain you, you may become negative in reaction to them.

The final type of tyrant is the Dictator. They are major tyrants and in fact seek to control and dominate your will and your energy. They are able to use any of the aforementioned methods to get what they want.

There are two other types of tyrants that are not external to us. They are the ways in which we tyrant ourselves either through our self-pity or our self-importance. When you have self-pity you avoid being accountable for your life, self-importance causes you to become attached to how others perceive you.

So understand the ability to tyrant you does not lie in the hands of the person who you perceive is tyranting you. It lies in the reality of you allowing yourself to feel tyranted. To be able to stop the process you must learn how to deal with the tyrants in your life. Because you allow it, the gift is knowing you can disallow it. There are a variety of things you must do to deal with the different types of tyrants, watch for next months article to find out how! In the meantime make a list of who the tyrants in your life and recognize how you allow them to have power over you. You must name it before you can deal with it.

So in an ideal world we stay anchored to the idea others can’t hurt us and we can’t hurt others and work towards simply being accountable for our own choices and keep our focus where we truly have control. Considering an ideal world doesn’t work, I believe it is important we learn to recognize how we allow others to tyrant us, and how we attempt to tyrant others.