The earth laughs in flowers….
Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson Photo: Eilis Garvey unsplash.com
Hello, my friends.
The daffodils are out, they are such sunny flowers, their happy faces sharing joy. I love this time of year. Walking around the block, in the sun, when suddenly my nostrils are accosted with the sweet scent of flowers. I always have to find where the scent is coming from. In the ‘Sound Of Music‘ Julie Andrews sings about “a few of her favourite things.” One of my favourite things is smelling flowers before seeing them.
This week I’ve been thinking about being a victim. Lately we’ve had a few things on the news about people being victims, and sharing their stories of how a crime has impacted their lives. I do not want to minimize the impact that a crime or harm has done to any person. I do, however want to create awareness around the harm of staying stuck as a victim.
The definition of a victim according to the dictionary is a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. A person who is tricked or duped. A person who has come to feel helpless and passive in the face of misfortune or ill-treatment.
The victim mentality is very sneaky, it’s agenda is to keep us stuck.
A victim feels like the entire world is conspiring against them? It doesn’t matter what they do, they can never get ahead? They feel like they have no control over anything that happens to them, or around them.
A victim tends to believe that others deliberately do things to harm them or inconvenience them. Like parking in their parking spot, or that the traffic lights deliberately changed to red because they pulled up to the intersection, or that the door swung shut on them because they were about to go through it. That the cat deliberately sheds his hair on the couch, to make more work for them to clean up.
A victim enjoys sharing their tragic story with others, they enjoy the attention their story gives them. They continually live in the past, reliving the harmful scenario over and over. They believe they are powerless to change the situation or the outcome.
A victim continually puts them-selves down, believing they don’t deserve a good life, or that they are unworthy of love. A victim will speak harshly to and about themselves. They use words like, “I am just no good, no-one could love me, I’m too fat, I’m too unlovable. I always get hurt.”
A victim will blame others for everything that happens in their lives. A victim is never responsible for anything that crops up in their lives. Life is something that creates results that they can’t do anything about. They blame their spouse, partner for their unhappiness. They complain endlessly, nothing is as they want it to be. They blame the weather, the dog, the neighbour, the other driver, their parents, their brother or sister, any situation is caused by some-one or something outside of themselves. A victim will also blame themselves as well, but never take action to create change. They attack and accuse those around them verbally, in an attempt to diffuse the feeling of being out of control, powerless and hopeless.
The victim mentality is subtle.
To begin to break free from the hold of playing the victim, we have to notice it. The first step is to become aware of the language we use. Ask yourself is my language predominately negative, blaming, complaining and accusing? Do I often feel angry, hurt, helpless, hopeless, powerless, judgmental and not good enough?
If a bottle of milk slipped out of your hands and smashed on the floor, would you blame the bottle for being slippery, or would you blame your child for not putting it away after them? Do you begin the silent rant of “You are such a cluts, you can’t even hold onto a bottle of milk.” “I always drop everything” ‘ Now you have a mess to clean up, typical!”
Awareness of the stream of words you are using to describe the situation will give you a clue if victimness is sheltering in your life.
When we live in the victim mentality, we are hurt and offended easily. Everything becomes about us, everyone is out to get us. We can’t trust anyone. We think we are protecting ourselves from more harm. However the reality is that every-time we react to someone or some event from a helpless and defensive position, we give our power and control away to those people we perceive are hurting us and offending us.
How would life look if you let go of being the victim and took responsibility for one area of your life? Finances, Love and Romance, Work and Career, Sports, Health and Well-being.
Let’s say you want to lose weight. In the victim mode of operating it is not your fault you have gained weight. It’s your family’s fault, It’s the take away’s, It’s the sugar drinks, It’s the health system, it’s the food prices, it’s whatever is handy to deflect attention from your behaviour. You blame the diet that you’re currently on. You blame the weather, Your metabolism, any thing and everything. Your inner voice jumps in and tells you how you are useless and fat you are, and so on.
You have made your family, your food, your body, the weather, any thing you blame for your current condition the villain.
Every victim needs a villain.
What if you made a decision to take control of your life in this area of weight loss? You acknowledge that you need to lose weight, you figure out where you are and where you want to be. Then you make a choice, one little step towards being a slimmer you. You recognize that you have a choice, you can make a decision to walk for 10 mins, You recognize you get to choose what food you want to eat, you get to choose when you eat and when you stop eating. You get to choose to stay a victim, or you get to choose to follow your new plan and create the life you want.
Each time you make a deliberate choice you are shutting down the insidious, subtle victimness, that seeks to keep you a prisoner in your own life. Every time you make a decision to be responsible for the way you think and act you are taking the control of your life back.
The victim mentality is a loop of thoughts that spin round and round in your mind, they are usually triggered by an event in our past, and can be derailed by thinking new positive thoughts. Reading positive affirmations, gives your mind new thoughts to dwell on. Write on a card. ‘ I CAN DO HARD THINGS.” Carry this with you and when life feels hard or against you read it, and push forward.
This week I challenge you to spring clean your thinking, weed out the victim thinking that holds you back from laughing aloud, trusting that life does want you to have the best, to feel the joy of being alive. Make a step towards changing one area of your life that is creating pain and heart ache.
If you want to know more on how to break the cycle of being a victim in your life email me at authenticlivingwithlinda@gmail.com
Until next time, be true to yourself and live you most authentic life.
Linda Codlin.