How To Stop Feeling Like A Victim Once And For All!
I have a client who has had a lot of childhood trauma, has done forgiveness work, and has been in therapy to move forward with their life. They continue to hold on to their story and feel stuck because they are having trouble letting go.
Our brains create stories that build our belief system based on what we learned from others like our parents, teachers, role models, culture, and society. Undesired circumstances occurred as we interacted with others, and we held on to the memories of not being treated well or made to suffer.
Wanting to Suffer
The Buddha said the root of suffering is attachment. Despite the desire to let go, there is still an attachment to the lived circumstances. What do I gain from holding on to my history?
If your history defines you and keeps you from experiencing life in a fuller, more expansive way, then your story still serves you in some way. A part of you is keeping the memory present even though you are telling yourself you want to let it go.
The subconscious mind must have clear evidence that you’ve moved on. For example, if you are finding enjoyment from the sympathy or love you are receiving from others because ‘poor you went through so much; then that is the part of the fulfillment your story offers. There is attachment to the feeling you get from others’ reaction of care for you when you share your story.
So, what would you love? Would you love to hold on to that paradigm or let go? The paradigm feels comfortable and will fight to keep it alive. Letting go can feel scary because you are navigating new territory.
How to let go of your story?
Anytime you give up something, a habit, a thought, a story, to be effective, it must be replaced with something else. The void that is left must be filled with something new. You can’t just tell yourself, “I will stop telling or believing that story.” The old narrative must be replaced with a new, more empowering script to help you move forward. It doesn’t mean that you are negating anything that transpired or ignoring the facts; it just means you will start thinking a different truth.
Until now, you have agreed that these are truths about what happened to you. There can be more than one truth about any situation; recognizing and uncovering this is essential. You can create a new truth about what occurred, and when you think, believe, or tell the old version, you can redirect your attention to your new belief. The more you self-direct to the new narrative, the more your subconscious mind will use this version as your truth.
How to stop feeling like a victim once and for all
You are then repatterning your beliefs around the situation to be able to move onward with your life. For instance, If I tell people that while I had breast cancer, I had 16 rounds of chemotherapy, thirty sessions of radiation, a mastectomy, and reconstructive surgery. My audience can feel sorry for the circumstances and the grueling effects I lived through, and this version paints me as a victim.
Those are the facts about my cancer story, and I have chosen to tell a different truth; I went through a health journey with rigorous treatments. It allowed me to learn various aspects of the disease, the treatments, the health professionals, and most importantly myself. It was a remarkable opportunity to test the principles I teach, and I gained a tremendous amount of wisdom on how to use my mindset to counter the effects of the illness. I am grateful for the experience for the golden nuggets it came to give me because, without that experience, I would not be able to help others.
In my version of what happened, I’ve moved on from victimhood and concentrated on what I learned and how it developed me. Cancer was a rigorous curriculum along my journey, and I choose to see its offering of growth.
Decide and Choose
INVITATION TO LIFEWORK
Are you holding onto a grudge, a situation, or an event where you feel like the victim?
Do you see that letting go of the narrative you tell yourself and others will help you move on?
Celebrate yourself for wanting to do the rigorous work of entertaining a situation you may want to forget. To be resolved, it does have to come up to the surface to be repatterned.
How to stop feeling like a victim once and for all
› Intentionally take time to reflect and be alone, journal about the experience without editing anything.
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- Write the memory of what occurred and how you were victimized. It’s important to acknowledge what happened, feel your feelings, and determine whether forgiveness work is necessary.
- Have you reconciled with the event and the offender(s) in your heart? Rewriting the narrative about what occurred is part of forgiveness, a process on its own. Keep in mind this is about you, not anyone else.
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› How many versions of the story can there be? Stay curious about other ways of looking at the situation.
› Make a list of how the situation helped you – what did you learn, who did you meet, what qualities did you gain, and what pleasant surprises did you uncover about yourself?
› Record how the situation seemingly was not good, yet it revealed goodness in the end. The point here is to uncover the gift you developed. For example, cancer forced me to pay attention to my health.
› See it as a third-party observer. Can the story have a different interpretation from that point of view?
› Highlight all the ideas of goodness, growth, resilience, and love you’ve gathered on the page.
› Rewrite your story or different versions.
› Let go of the victim self and celebrate the person who you are now. Had you not lived through those circumstances, you would not be able to (fill in the blank).
Shedding and Moving Forward
Let go; every time you hear the old version or want to tell it, shift your thinking to your empowering history. Be kind to yourself; it will take time and repetition. You’ve carried that history for a while; remember, you are not your history. You are not a victim. You are a brilliant, uniquely gifted person growing from your experiences. You choose to create an empowering reality daily.
