Day 10: Victim

Victim consciousness is any life perspective that does not place the responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions directly upon themselves.  A victim is a person who believes that the world is responsible for their situations as well as their feelings.  A victim is always busy feeling wronged by their friends, their job, their spouse, strangers, the government, God, and especially their parents.  A victim blames everything in the world for the their problems accept themselves.  And ironically, they usually have more problems than everyone else.

Victim consciousness is disempowering and leads to feelings of separation, sadness, hopelessness, anger, and depression.  A disempowered person does not have the power to change their mind or their circumstances.  The reason for this is that they truely believe their problems are out there in the world, and they can’t change the world.

So the question becomes, how does one discover empowerment? How does one learn to control their thoughts, emotions and inadvertantly their circumstances?

The answer lies in one simple word with profound ramifications, responsibility.  To be responsible merely means to hold one’s self accountable for one’s own thoughts and actions.  It is the combination of our thoughts, feelings and actions which lead us into every circumstance we find ourselves a part of.

Responsibility does not mean that you are perfect or better than anyone else.

Responsibility means that you do not blame others for your own thoughts and actions.

Responsiblity makes one conscious of their thought and action processes which allows one to see the ramifications of these processes much more clearly.

Imagine how easy it would be to make a decision to do something or not if you could clearly see the outcome of your action.  The victim decision process has little or no foresight into outcomes, but is rather a best guess based on what a person desires to experience in that moment.  The outcome is then viewed much like a cold sore, inconvenient and uncomfortable, but there’s not really anything you can do about it.

On the other hand, conscious responsibility gives one a foresight which makes the outcomes of our actions amazingly obvious.  This makes knowing the right thing to do to create the circumstances you desire an extremely intuitive process.

A simple example: A person’s spouse yells at them for something they did not do.  A victim metality would immediately begin screaming back accusations of their own because they are used to feeling attacked and jumping on the defense.  This action directly leads to a big argument and more misunderstanding, not the desired outcome.  An empowered mentality would offer consolation and would empathise with what the other party is feeling, then as they became more composed that person would then impartially explain that they did not do whatever was percieved and might then discuss what gave their spouse the impression they got.

In this situation there hasn’t even been an argument, only a misunderstanding.  The two people are still emotionally connected and socially functional, the desired outcome for anyone in a healthy relationship.

Moving out of victim consicousness is as simple as deciding to be responsible for one’s own thoughts and actions.  With this simple decision every way you interact with the world will become more intentional and will yield better results.

Exercise:

Close your eyes and see your life in your mind’s eye. Search for times when you felt like a victim.  Not in the sense of the helpless weakling, but in the sense of being trapped or hurt or abused or ignored.  See yourself in these situations and pick the one that you can see as clearly as possible and remember who your emotions were directed at. A friend, a spouse, a parent, a coworker…who did you blame for what you were feeling?  Now consciously remove the blame from this person no matter what it is that they did to you, see this person clearly related to this experience but do not allow any judgment of them and notice what you feel in your body, where do you feel it? Now send this person love, and send the situation love and notice what happens to your sensation. Do not judge your sensations but simply be aware of them and allow them to grow and move. Feel the edges become fuzzy and follow the sensation as it moves through your body flowing smoothly like mist. Now, thank the person and the situation for the lesson they have offered you, send the person and the situation gratitude.  Notice the sensations and search for where they want to exit the body. Visualize this energy pouring out of your system and let all anger, resentment, fear, and shame go with it. Now return to the original image and see if you can find that emotional sensation still connected to it. If so repeat the process until you can find no internal reaction.

Once you are finished, with your eyes open think about this situation and person again, how do you feel now? Is your experience of this memory any different? If so, how?

The moral of the story is that the external world does not create our internal reactions, we do.  We create our emotional states through our own reactions to whatever we perceive.  If we can learn to change our perception, then we can effectively change our emotional states.

Assignment:

In the comment field below, tell me the most honest description you can muster about your experience of this exercise. What situation did you see, who did you blame, and what did you feel when you released your blame?

Stay in your center, and free yourself!

SaTek