Here is how to get freedom from the victim mindset. In my experience, the victim mindset is always associated with suffering, because the truth of it is that it really is miserable to be a victim. There is very little joy and happiness that comes from being a victim. Which then begs the question: why would anyone want to be a victim? Why would anyone choose it? I will try to explain the best of what I understand about it from my own experience playing the victim, and I hope what I share with you will be helpful.
I have spent a lot of time in my life playing the victim. In fact, that is one of the indicators today where I know I am in suffering, I know I am miserable, and I know I need help: any situation where I am trying to play the victim. In my experience, this most often happens in relationships with other people. That could be a partner, it could be at work. Relationships are so tempting because there are so many benefits to being a victim. A victim is free from responsibility: "Hey, I didn't do this, you did this to me." A victim gets to be a righteous sufferer: "Well, I have to do this because you brought this suffering on me, therefore it's not my fault, I didn't do this." No responsibility. A righteous sufferer who says life gave me this suffering and I'm stuck with it. Someone who is condemned, too, because a victim is condemned. Whatever happened before becomes so much more important than what is going on now, along with the belief that nothing fundamentally can cleanse that original sin.
Someone always has to be the bad guy
So a victim mindset is almost always one of pain and suffering, and I most often find myself trying to play the victim in my relationships. Especially when things would happen with my wife, I would try to play the victim and try to make her the bad guy. That is the problem with the victim mindset too: someone always has to be the bad guy. You can't have a victim situation where someone is not the perpetrator, where someone is not to blame, where someone is not the person who is wrong. That is another thing that is really attractive about the victim mindset: someone else is wrong, therefore by simple logic, if someone else is wrong, that makes me right. And as you can imagine, Jerry likes to be right. Jerry doesn't like to be wrong. So the victim mindset is very attractive for that reason.
And that is also why it is so toxic, because almost all the worst suffering in my life happened where I was desperate to prove I was right, because deep down I felt like I was wrong. Anytime I am the victim in a situation, and I have had lots of situations where I have tried to be the victim, you might think I was justified. People do various things, and you might say, "Well, yes, you were a victim. That happened when you were a kid, obviously you couldn't be the perpetrator." But the problem is that I learned to take on the role of the victim. What happens when you take on that role is it strips you of your own ability to take responsibility for what you are doing. Because if someone else did whatever horrible thing to you, then you go under that victimization. With my wife, it is never something terrible she did. It is some trifling thing that I have made up as an excuse to try to be miserable, and then to create separation.
The separation the victim mindset creates
The victim mindset creates this separation, this idea that there is us and there is them. That is why it is so attractive. When there is an attack or something, a shooting, it is so attractive because that victim mindset is in there full blown: there is us, there is them, there is this group of people who are right and this group of people who are wrong. That is what is absolutely devastating about it: the separation, the elimination of other people as human beings, seeing them simply as mindless, guilty perpetrators. For me, that is a miserable way to live today. That is an awful, frustrating way to live.
When you take responsibility for things, you can learn from your mistakes. Like right there in the game, I slid underneath that thing, and even the guy said it: yeah, that kind of was my own fault. When you can say, "Yeah, that kind of was my own fault," there are a lot of things you simply don't experience otherwise. If you are not willing to say that, you are often unable to go any further. You just say, "Well, this person did this to me, period. That's it, that's all there is to it, that's all I know. This person did this to me, end of story." When there is an end of story, there is no chance to learn and grow.
Recognizing the victim story
So how do you get freedom from the victim mindset? First, you have to understand and recognize it. If you know what the victim mindset looks like, if you know what it sounds like, then you don't have to buy into it when your mind tries to tell that "poor me, I'm such a victim" story. Being a victim requires telling a story of how you are a victim, because it is not possible to do pretty much anything in life without a story. You have to have some story with everything. If you have got a story with it, that is what makes it real. So if you are in the victim mindset, you are telling the story, and that is how the victim mindset becomes real. If you are not telling a story about things, then there is no victim mindset. In order to be a victim, you have to tell the victim's story. You have to break it down and say, "Well, this is how I'm a victim, this is why I'm a victim, this is who made me a victim." Without that story, there is no victimization.
I used to get angry. Now what happens with me is I recognize when I am telling that victim story. I look at it and say, "Oh, there we go, there it is, I'm telling that victim story right now." That helps tremendously in situations like with my wife, where I can see when I am telling that victim story. I can see, "Oh, okay, I'm making my wife the bad guy, I'm trying to explain to myself why she did this thing wrong." This happens in business situations, it happens with friends. If you can recognize, "Oh, there we go, I'm telling the victim story," then that is where freedom comes from.
How far back the victim story goes
The crazy thing about the victim story is how far back it goes. You might wonder where the victim story started. With me, I was quite apt at playing the victim. I played the victim so much I hardly knew how to be anything besides the victim. So the more I looked at it, the more I kept trying to find out where this victim story starts and ends. I kept looking, and I realized this thing goes back really far, farther than I ever would have imagined. I found victim stories I had been telling since I was a kid, victim stories I didn't even remember telling. I believed them absolutely, as if they were completely, unrejectably true, and I wasn't even consciously aware of them. So I found victim stories as far back as three or four years old.
Once I found those victim stories, the question had to become: how do I stop being a victim? First, you have to forgive anyone in that situation. Whatever it is you believe the original sin was, the original place you got to be a victim, whoever the first person was that caused you to be a victim, when you go back and find that situation, you say, "Okay, that was a victim story." But then the question becomes: how was I able to be a victim in the first place? Being a victim actually goes back farther than any of us can remember. The victim mindset is there from the start. It is based on choice, and it starts with the original sin, the original choice: did you choose to be born, or were you a victim? Your mom and dad did this to you. You didn't choose to be brought into this life.
The victim story goes all the way back to conception
So for me, the farther back I went, the more I realized it goes all the way back to conception. I either chose to be here, I either chose to be on this earth, or I was a victim, believing my parents just had me without any consideration for what I wanted. That original victim story goes back to birth. I heard my aunt say a beautiful thing. She was remembering when she was five years old, and she told her brother and sister, when they asked her something about how babies get here, "I was looking down from heaven. I saw this family, and I decided I wanted to be here." Of course, her brother rejected that outright at the time. But for me, that hit home so true. That is where the victim thing starts. Birth, life: you either decided to be here on purpose, you knew what you were getting into, or maybe you didn't know but you figured you'd find out, or you're a victim who was brought into this world against your will. From the day you were born, the day you were conceived, you didn't choose any of this.
The choice, the victim mindset, goes back to conception, and all of this is belief. You don't remember being conceived, more than likely. You don't remember being born, more than likely. And yet it has to go back to there. Therefore, you can even see proof of eternal life right there, because at some point there either was a choice or there wasn't. If you were alive before, there was a choice to join us here. And if you came out of nowhere, and you're a victim, where did you get pulled from against your will? Where were you that you got dragged into this life as a victim? In other words, if there really is just this life and there is nothing else, no before life or after life, then it is impossible to be a victim.
Seeing the impossibility of the victim mindset
So the victim mindset is impossible. It cannot be real. It is always this imaginary evil. You either chose to come down here and were already alive, or you simply came into this world from nothing, and therefore you can't be a victim. If you are saying your parents brought you into this world against your will, then where were you before that you came from, and where were you before that? If you are just here, you can't be here unwillingly, because that implies you have somewhere better to be. That is the thing about getting freedom from the victim mindset: it is seeing the impossibility of it all, that it simply cannot exist. There is no way it can exist except through telling a story about it right now. This person did this, that person did this, my parents had me and I didn't like that. If you go back to the origin of all those victim stories, it will always come back to that.
So I am grateful I have learned this. And you can see, I am no victim. The zombies slapped me around, and I am no victim. I chose to spawn in that game, and therefore the zombies slapping me around is a reflection of my original choice. Today, I pray to remember that I am no victim. Every game I play is because I chose to. I chose to start it. I pray today, through understanding and seeing the victim mindset, that I can immediately be aware whenever I try to tell a story of how much of a victim I am, that I am going into victim mindset, and that I have a choice then to step back out of it and leave it alone. If reflections like this one speak to you, they are the heart of my Life playlist, where I share what I am learning about living free.
I pray that you have the same choice today: a chance to live a life free of being a victim, that you never have to live another day in your life as a victim. Thank you very much for spending this time with me. This was my second try on the Shi No Numa, and I am grateful you were here. I hope you have a wonderful day today.