I could care less that Lance Armstrong took drugs to enhance his performance. What I do find odious about him, as well as interesting from the broader perspective, is the extraordinary lengths he went to win all his races, destroying loads of people in the process.
The broader perspective is that the whole affair reflects the prevailing attitude in this country that winning is everything. That whatever it takes to win is OK, even if it means destroying everyone who gets in the way. We see the same thing demonstrated in the disgraceful way in which the ideologues in Washington and all the special interests, banks, the NRA, you name it demonstrate this principle. Their only motivation is to win by any means possible and to hell with what’s good for the country and the American people. They lie and cheat and distort the facts and deny their responsibility. They seem accountable to no one. But somehow we seem to support it. It’s how the game is played, we think, and make the assumption that we can do likewise when it suits us.
The other thing it demonstrates, which shows just how sick this society has become, is that he got away with it all those years because he was too big to fail. People knew the truth but dared not say anything for fear of bringing down the whole edifice of the sports industry along with all the arcane mythology that feeds it. He felt so supported by his own celebrity status power that he was able to do as he pleased, no matter what the cost. He literally destroyed people and intimidated every sports writer in the country, daring them to out him. They didn’t because they knew that it would be career suicide to do so.
It was exactly the same thing as with Jimmy Savile the pedophile I wrote about some time ago, who abused young children right under the nose of the BBC for decades. Everyone knew all along that he was abusing children but everyone chose to go into denial about it because of who he was. He was too big to fail. Or to put it another way, he was too big to bring to justice. So everyone looked the other way.
We see the same thing with HSBC, the bank that engaged in breaking umpteen laws, both national and international. Not one executive was prosecuted for the criminal behavior because it was said that do so would destabilize the entire banking system. “Too big to fail” seems to cover all sorts of crimes, no matter how egregious they are, when the crime takes place at the highest levels. See how well that defense works for you if you get caught with a few ounces of weed in your possession!
I heard people last night on TV, prior to the airing of the Oprah show on which he is to confess, indicate a willingness to forgive him (the letting bygones be bygones variety only, of course), for the mess he has caused and saying what a good guy he was really because he supported cancer work. Well, Bernie Madoff was a nice guy too and he got 250 years in prison. Notwithstanding the broader perspective that Armstrong is mirroring what is rotten in our culture, and to that extent is a ‘healing angel,’ for us if only we could see it, at the human level I think Armstrong is a sociopathic scumbag and a scoundrel. He should be treated in much the same way as Madoff. They would make good cellmates.
Colin, I also feel righteous indignation is the appropriate response to Lance Armstrong’s betrayal as well as his attempts to assassinate the characters of his accusers and naysayers who questioned his performance.
However, you and I part ways when you express frustration with those demonstrating a “willingness to forgive” him. That strikes me as contrary to what Radical Forgiveness work is all about. Perhaps some are too quick to forgive, but I don’t necessarily view a willingness to forgive a bad thing.
First of all, Lance Armstrong ultimately betrayed himself. And I have to wonder if the cancer scare itself was some sort of karmic response to the deceit. That being said, despite his character flaws and integrity issues, Lance did use his position and celebrity for some good with his Livestrong brand and philanthropy.
Is it enough to compensate for his cancerous behavior? I don’t know.
But what I do know is, with or without performance enhancing drugs, he still needed to devote every ounce of his being to train for the Tour de France. He still put the work in.
Your cultural observations are well noted and I concur with the injustices of our society. Frankly, I feel we reward athletes far too much than they deserve and we don’t pay teachers, firefighters, nurses and airline pilots enough.
But ultimately, I suspect the ones who will have a harder time forgiving Lance Armstrong are those he competed against who trained just as hard, if not harder, than he did but were robbed of their titles. I would be surprised if they showed a willingness to forgive.
I agree with most of what you say, but I did make the distinction between conventional forgiveness and Radical Forgiveness. The kind of forgiveness I was seeing out there was a condoning of his behavior as a human being, not as a spiritual being which is how we see it in Radical Forgiveness. I saw people condoning his behavior because they would rather do that than look at their own ‘win-at-all-costs-and-to-hell-with-everyone-else mentality. Lance Armstrong made me look at mine, and I am grateful to him for giving me a chance to love that part of myself. I love him (his soul) for giving me that gift.
Collin thank you for your comments and allowing the feelings of the many to be said. As a teacher I often put into the first person what the many are feeling, for the many are the big part of the one. I do this even though I may have already come to forgiveness in this. It creates a safe place for those who seek a better way, to do the steps of forgiveness with out glossing over their feelings and judgements or tryng to intellectualize the issue to a place of enlightened awareness. It can be more effective to do the process with a “willing heart” both mine and theirs in authenticity to arrive at the forgiven perspective. I see you and appreciate you!
I don’( get how someone who advocates forgiveness for Hitler can find Lance Armstrogn to be beyond redemption, especially after he confessed. I don’t get it. It’s K mayne to think that way in private, but to publish this seems to undermne the entire philosophy.
Hitler was a world class scumbag too, but his soul was so loving that he was willing to commit his crimes for spiritual reasons we don’t know. That’s why I forgive him. And the same goes for Lance Armstrong. Both are healing angels. But, I am still entitled to my feelings as a human being and to express them. See my later post.
Dear Colin,
I was patiently waiting for your second email on the Lance Armstrong confession. I saw your first email as steps 1 & 2 of RF and knew that 3-4-5 were coming! Indeed, we are all invited to own our own “win at all costs” shadows. In loving that part of ourselves, we shift into a higher vibration. I am so grateful for what you are sharing with all of us!
Many thanks
Ronna Prince
I like this Ronna. Thanks for pointing this out. All five steps of Radical Forgiveness in the two letters: 1: Tell the story. 2: Feel the Feelings. 3. Collapse the Story. 4: Reframe the Story 5: Integrate the new story.
Dear Colin, Radical Forgiveness has worked for me for years and I thank you for that. I must tell you that when I read your article about Lance Armstrong I found it very negative, even though I agreed with what you were saying. But, I didn’t even finish it because I knew you were angry when you wrote it. I too get angry about things and spout off until I can get to Radical Forgiveness. I don’t judge you, because it would be making the same judgments and expressing the same anger as you expressed. You are right, we all are human and we express anger when we see injustice in our world.
However, you are in a position to affect many people and your article may have caused more anger and judgment in the world than we already have. I believe nothing is a mistake and everything happens for a reason. So, it is all perfect and you and I are also perfect. You are doing a LOT of good in this world. Keep up the good work!
Lorraine, in Rancho Cordova, California
Point well taken, Lorraine. thanks.
After reading Too Big To Fail and Healing Angels, I thank you for both views – the human and the Spiritual – both are valuable. And both give us cause to reflect where we are as humans, where our country is, and the role Lance and others in the ‘big and public’ arena play in our Spiritual path to wholeness and home. You comments are most welcome in my heart.
And yours are welcome in mine.
In response to Healing Angels Jan 20th
Yes we can all learn from this narcissistic behavior. We actually do fall in love with the thought/dream of being perfect because we are so disappointed in ourselves as a whole. Or sometimes we just don’t accomplish what we set out to do with our lives, so we live thru others. Or it could just be because we want to believe in the “magic”. The magic that takes our breath away when we witness a routine at the olympics that’s scores a perfect 10, and we are in awe. The magic of that perfect touchdown or home run. The magic of seeing a perfect model in the runway. Do we really know what goes on behind the seen? Is there a perfect? Or can we make or invent someone to be the “ideal perfect of the moment”? And then cast them aside when they are no longer perfect in our eyes. Is there really perfection? Not.
Is there a payoff for pretending to be perfect? Yes.
Was there a time when sports were won or lost because of payoffs? You bet. Will it happen again. Always. There is always a payoff no matter which way it turns out. No matter whether it’s the right or wrong thing to do. A payoff happens no matter what.
If I had to vote I would say our own country condones real lies, payoffs and false hopes daily. We know there are people with enough money to run this county into the ground. Do we sweep this thought under the table? We think our voice counts when we chant hope and change. It’s just false change and false hope that walks with us to the bread banks and homeless streets.
As with politics, payoffs happen all the time even in WW2, even as we funded both sides of the war. Was it the right thing to do?
Real lies and hypocrisies starting with the Hoover communism scare, the Kennedy assignation, the 911 murders, the bailouts, the Oj’s the Oliver Norths, the John Kerry’s, the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and more. The lies and hypocrisies of more freedoms with the patriot act put in place. It’s OK not to be truthful in our country, and it’s accepted.
Right now, so many of us are starving for less pain and more hope.. We have a choice of who we want to follow or which magic we believe in. It has to be something out there, something greater then ourselves. Lance didn’t do anything that we didn’t give him permission to do. To that we have to ask ourselves-Why?
The ‘why’ question is redundant and will keep us stuck. We just have to accept that there is a reason for all of this and to trust that Spirit knows what it is doing. Give up the need to know. But that doesn’t mean we don’t stay present to what is happening. We cannot transform it if we simply stay in denial. We have to confront it, forgive those out there and forgive ourselves for what they mirror back to us.
In the awakened life, we encounter paradox. The levels of our understandings are like incarnations in different dimensional realities. Sometimes, we find ourselves attaching to one level of understanding notwithstanding a deeper understanding that would seem to counter-indicate that response. For instance, the Christ Consciousness, with all of his access to a wider perspective and cosmic understanding, still lost it in with the money changers at the temple. He who said to turn the other cheek, to love your enemies, kicked over tables, grabbed a whip and physically assaulted those who were there!
What I would draw to your attention is not your response, nor even the language of your response (though I did find it strong), but two other qualities.
Firstly, “all have sinned (sic) and come short of the glory of God”. Your choosing to focus on Mr. Armstrong, rather than on “all” is a reflection of the celebrity culture you now live in, and is a dangerous redirection of focus away from self to other. You live in the most doped country on the planet. People take pills to cope with their jobs, to try to stay attractive and sexually competitive, and to deal with their spiritual dis-ease. They have a drink to relax, caffeine to wake up, and a toke to remember what it is like to dream. Further, should you find a man that has not hurt his family, or an untrammeled ambition that has not laid waste to those around it, I would like to hear about it. Why then this externalization, this focus on celebrity?
Secondly, I sense what may be an unhelpful tendency to want to explain and order everything into constructs that “make sense”. It is my experience that in an awakened life we enter, not only into paradox, but into mystery; mystery that arises and informs without the necessity to resolve itself into concrete thought forms that order themselves in a way that conforms to known understandings. What arises is not a re-ordering of what is, nor does it make itself known in the language and logic of what is to pass.
Dearest Colin, though I do not know you, though I only hear you through my own understandings, prejudices and experience, I am concerned, on a human level, with the vehemence of your finger pointing. I urge you, if you have not already done so, to use this drama you point to as a mirror to your own feelings about your own personal life and shortcomings. You, yourself, have become a celebrity. You too have become focused on a winning product. What have you been willing to do along the way? Have you forgiven yourself?
In deepest love and respect for you and all,
Avtar
I agree about paradox. I always say if you are unable to handle paradox you will never get Radical Forgiveness. You will just go round in circles trying to figure it all out. A fruitless exercise. Paradox is where its all at.
Hey Colin!
I enjoyed your argument and I appreciate the expanded perspective that Radical Forgiveness has provided to me as it helps me to understand and evaluate situations, and it helps me to stay out of judgment at the same time. Its not so much about Armstrong as what’s going on with our family of humanity at large and his acting out is one of many lessons that we all need to examine. And yes, it takes huge courage to play out those roles especially on a world stage! Whew!
I’m learning more and more to look at the gift the lesson provides and what it means to me specifically instead of demonizing the person and/or the situation. I know that you’re human and you react to the human condition, like we all do, and I appreciate the way you always come back to the center and the teachings, which are an on-going practice for all of us.
You are wonderful and I love your clear and crisp voice which helps shed light on issues and brings us back home to the awareness that we are ALL playing out roles and are all healing angels for one another in some way.
Love and Light to you and Joanne!
Millicent