It’s been a while now (1993!), but does anyone remember the classic “drowning scene” from Addams Family Values?
I didn’t really get Wednesday’s cutting comment in 1993, but it became clearer and funnier in the years that followed. This scene is memorable because it hits on a universal theme—victim mentality.
Is there someone in your life you think is the cause of your pain?
Do other people cause you a lot of trouble?
Do you find yourself blaming others and spinning into self-pity?
Do you catch yourself complaining a lot?
Have you been told you’re too negative?
If you answered yes to several of these, you may be subconsciously playing out the victim mentality. In this frame of thought, you believe only bad things happen (and will keep happening), other people or circumstances are to blame, and any efforts to change will fail, so why bother. Super disempowering!
Be warned that this mentality is sneaky! All of us have been harmed in some way, so it’s easy to identify with being a victim and not even notice.
When you play the victim in your life, you give up a lot of power. It creates feelings of helplessness, anger, and fear. If somebody says or does something bad to you, and you allow it to devastate you, you’ve given all of your power to the other person.
This doesn’t mean you can’t feel hurt and examine the hurt to see why it caused pain. Maybe you secretly believe the bad stuff about yourself, and so the hurt cut deeper. Perhaps the hurt brought up old wounds from your past.
But you don’t have to crumble and lash out like a wounded child, even if you feel like that at first. It’s about allowing your feelings, the hurt, the disappointment, the shame even. Feeling the negative emotions, allowing for that, and releasing it. Then deciding on purpose how you want to think and feel about yourself and your life no matter what the hurt. You always get to think of yourself the way that you want.
“What the person said or did that hurt you has everything to do with them and their thoughts—not yours.”
In this way, you get to maintain control and decide to refuse the role of the victim. What the person said or did that hurt you has everything to do with them and their thoughts—not yours. People do and say negative things when they are in negative spaces. But you don’t have to be the fall gal.
When you’re able to handle stuff like this, you stay in your integrity. You maintain your equilibrium and joy.
Victim mentality can make people act erratic and controlling, but you don’t have to go there with them. They can scream, hide, and flail. But you can calm yourself by remembering that underneath all the external “drama,” there’s immense fear. Fear of the world, fear of rejection, fear of feeling anything.
And that’s what we’ll cover next week—the willingness to feel. Vulnerability is the opposite of victim mentality. It helps us shift from hiding and blaming to opening to all that life has to offer—good and bad.
Just like anything else, it takes practice to go from victim mentality to a more empowered stance and deciding how you want to think about yourself. You might need to process some negative emotions and/or grieve but I promise you that’s a normal part of life and it can be done! It takes a willingness to be vulnerable, but you can do it. You can take responsibility for yourself, your life and your outcomes, regardless of what hurts you may have experienced.
So maybe you are just going through a break-up, lost a job, were treated unfairly in some big or small way. You can choose victim mentality and give away all your power, or you can claim all of your emotions. You own them, they are yours. What you decide to do with them will either empower you or disempower you. You get to be compassionate with yourself and have your own back like your best friend would no matter what negative emotions you have and need to process so that you don’t get stuck in the self-limiting victim mentality.
It sucks, you have to deal with this I know. Many of us just wish we didn’t have these hurts to deal with but we do. And this is the best way through them to a healthier happier empowered you. Don’t give in to victim mentality. Get to know what’s going with it. Be curious. Why is this up for you and what can you do to process through it and lovingly stay on track for the life YOU want to live?
It takes a willingness to be vulnerable and feel your feelings to move through a hurt that leaves you feeling victimized and come out the other side as a more confident woman. And what better to do with our hurts than to turn them into something good for ourselves to help us be stronger by embracing our bravery and willingness to allow vulnerability by transforming hurts to into self-confidence.
I’m not saying it’s not hard work. It is hard work! But it is the best kind of hard work I have ever done. I see how my clients courageously move through difficult situations by allowing for the pain AND the recovery. In this way, you can land in a place that empowers you, your life, and what’s possible for your life without getting stuck in victim mentality. It’s the best way to empower yourself to move through life’s upsets and still define yourself as a strong and capable woman even with, and regardless of, your hurts.
You can learn this skill.
If you’ve identified that you’re stuck in the victim mentality but you’re not sure how to move through it and get unstuck, I can help. Jump on a mini session with me.
I have a waiting list at the moment but will get in contact with you as soon as my schedule becomes available. Hang in there you can do this.
