Day 12: How to End the Victim Mentality

How many of you out there are struggling to grow while living with a victim mentality? How many of you are trying to learn how to end the victim mentality because it is putting you through misery?

How many of you out there are struggling to grow while living with a victim mentality? How many of you are trying to learn how to end the victim mentality because it is putting you through misery?

The victim mentality creates negativity and hurts you and others. This is the mindset of someone who doesn’t notice where they are blaming the world for the issues they refuse to see in themselves. Learning how to be free of the victim mentality involves truly assessing your feelings, below the anger you are using to defend yourself.

The second way to break free of being a victim is to remember that you are only in control of yourself. It isn’t anyone’s fault what you feel, so look within for where you lost yourself. Look for where you allowed others to tell you that your needs weren’t as important as their own. I found myself honoring someone else’s needs by doing something I knew I didn’t want to do, and I felt anger and resentment toward them for making me do something that was against everything I believed in. Then I realized, I don’t have to do this. I can bow out and honor myself and my needs while still allowing them to honor themselves and their own needs.

The third way to stop the victim mentality is to forgive. Forgive yourself for not being able to accommodate your needs, or someone else’s. Then forgive the universe or the person(s) with whom you have blamed for being who they are. The most freeing experience, but often the most horribly painful one as well, is truly realizing you are trying to be someone you simply aren’t and blaming it on everything and everyone else except yourself when you knew what you needed and ignored it.

Remember that you have the power inside of you to be who you were meant to be, even if you have to suffer to find it again. My friends and family reminded me of this today, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

The Plan: How to End the Victim Mentality

The first step in learning how to end the victim mentality is to stop believing that bad things will happen, that everyone is to blame except you, and believing you cannot change. The victim mentality lives and breaths in a negative self-concept, therefore, it cannot survive without being fed negative narratives.

How to end the victim mentality journal
  • Write the date
  • Write the quote I am sharing below
  • Write a negative situation where you felt someone else was to blame for the outcome of the situation
  • Write down what you could have done differently to make the situation less negative
  • Write a power mantra like the one above, “Today, I will not be a victim of life’s circumstances. I will not let the way I feel determined that I am not powerful enough to overcome my pain. I am not a Victim!
  • Write down these three victim beliefs and identify whether you believe you have done this (Note: Be honest because no one will see this except you and it is important to recognize a problem so you can begin solving it.)
  • Write the first belief of a victim: “Bad things are already happening, and they will keep happening.
  • Write if you have felt this way, and why. Then write down a new belief such as, “Yes, bad things have happened, but I know good things will come and I am grateful for the lessons I learned from my hard times.
  • Write the second belief of a victim: “It feels like the universe is blocking me from success & happiness, and when it isn’t, others are blocking me.
  • Write if you have felt this way and why. Then write down a new belief such as, “My happiness & success is my own business and is my own choice. No situation or person can affect my happiness.
  • Write the third belief of a victim: “When I try to change, I always fail, so I don’t think I should waste my time trying to change.
  • Write if you have felt this way and why. Then write down a new belief such as, “I can change my experience any time. I will open my eyes to what isn’t working and allow myself to find harmony in what is. If a situation makes me feel I cannot change, I will appreciate the experience, but walk away with peace.

Quote of the Day

Today’s quote comes from a psychic medium and author of the book, “Divine Living: The Essential Guide to Your True Destiny This is an affiliate link,” by the name of Anthon St. Maarten.

After writing the quote and all the pieces of the journal entry for today, write how you can use this quote in your quest in learning how to end the victim mentality.

An Extra Resource for Ending the Victim Mentality

There is a very humbling story I watched on Ted about a man named Shaka Senghor, who shot and killed a man in 1991. What he shares in this video is the true transformation of a man who didn’t let his darkest moment in his life define who he was. He used the experience of making a mistake to change his victim mentality to something of a brilliant miracle.

His story puts a spotlight on how your worst decisions can become your biggest victories in championing for others. Shaka Senghor also wrote a book that I have on my reading list, and it has pretty high reviews, called, “Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prisons This is an affiliate link.”

Shaka Senghor – “Why your worst deeds don’t define you.”

My Story on How I Stopped Being a Victim

All the trauma I went through as an adolescent made me think for a long time that no matter what I tried to do, life wasn’t going to get better. I felt this urge to pull myself into a dark place so often that I forgot to actually live my life.

If things didn’t work, I blamed others. If life was not positive, I blamed situations. If my grades weren’t good, I blamed teachers. If my kids weren’t listening, I blamed the instructions. I lost touch of where I was and what I was doing because being a victim was so much easier than being responsible for the problem.

I made this choice one day in my relationship to my youngest son’s father where I decided after all the emotional and mental abuse, that I would either have to leave or fight back using his fighting tactics of emotional and mental abuse. Of the two options, the first option would have been the healthiest but instead, I decided to try being an abuser.

That went on for a year. Every time I attacked him back, he backed down. Every time I abused him back, I felt smaller and smaller until there seemed to be nothing left but a tense, empty relationship.

I went from being the victim of the abuse, to be the victim of my own utilization of abuse, to which I justified it by reminding myself I was fighting for a family, not love. Learning to end the victim mentality was not a lesson I was ready to learn, because so many other lessons had to be learned first.

After a year of participating in the back and forth, push me, pull me, abusive and toxic nonsense I had become accustomed to, I finally got exhausted from being someone I simply wasn’t. I got this uncomfortable feeling every time I started a conversation; even if the conversation was important or had to do with the kids. I resigned to the idea that change wasn’t possible, so I didn’t want to bother wasting my energy on fixing it anymore.

Eventually, I came to the realization that I was codependent, and addicted to being hurt and hurting someone else. I was a victim stuck in my situation by my own decisions to stay. Learning how to end the victim mentality took a commitment to walking away and started over. It took facing my fears that I was not going to find love again and sacrificing my son losing the chance at a family where mommy and daddy were involved.

In actuality, every moment I stayed, I was learning how to be a victim rather than learning how to end the victim mentality. In fact, I learned so well, that even with therapy and a trip to the magical healing destination in Bali, I repeated my past. The chaos of who I was spilled over into the next relationship with a good guy who was worthy of my love, affection, and respect and little did I know, I was pushing him away with my abuse-prevention techniques from before.

I don’t know that I truly learned how to end the victim mentality until I got really quiet with myself these last two days and found my desire to love was so strong that I lost myself in hapless relationships. I learned that my needs and desires are just as important as anyone else’s and that there is something great waiting for me out there. I stopped blaming the guys for their indiscretions and started focusing on what I did or didn’t do to make it all so much more difficult than it needed to be.

I stopped looking down or around for solutions, and I started looking up again, remembering that I can’t be anything more or less than what I am, and what I am is good enough. If you truly want to learn how to end the victim mentality, have faith that there even when something hurts, there is still joy. Have faith that even when something feels painful, sad, or just makes you feel depressed for a little while, there is this incredible new path that is in front of you inviting you to leap forward and let go of what isn’t meant for you.

I have a big heart, but when it breaks, it breaks so hard I feel exhausted collecting myself back up and starting anew. I used to believe I couldn’t do it, or I didn’t want to, or it was going to hurt too much, but I learned that there is always more to explore and more reasons to love and learn how to let go of the victim mentality.

Quick Exercise for Ending Victim Thinking

This exercise isn’t something you will do right now, but rather something you will try to do tonight when you go to sleep. Every night I listen to meditation music, hypnosis music, or delta waves as I sleep. I light a candle and I listen to something that speaks to my soul while I close my eyes and drift into my peaceful nights rest.

Last night I listened to Celestial Subliminals, “Let go of victim mentality,” video as I fell asleep. I woke up this morning feeling energized and powerful and I must recommend it. If you are looking for a calming exercise that requires very little to almost no effort to do and leaves you feeling empowered, inspired, and renewed, try this sleep subliminal exercise.

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Niki Maria

Niki Maria

I am a student and I am currently studying to become a Neuropsychological Researcher. I have a passion for helping people find the strength to deal with life and love and sharing the stuff I am learning in school. I also absolutely love music, and while I am no Mariah Carrey or Beyonce, I love to write and sing my own songs for fun. It is awesome stress relief.

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