Are you a victim? Do you ever place yourself as a victim? Maybe you do and don’t even realize it. In my last post, I spoke about anxiety and its roots. Once again, I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic. I’m only sharing my humble experience and some lessons learned through events and readings. In this post, I’d like to share some of the insights I’ve gained on victimizing myself. Hope this will help others as well. 

Let’s just say that there are many ways in which someone can play as a victim. Some are obvious and some very, very subtle. Obviously, there are real victims out there … some who suffered way more than I can even think or imagine. But so many play an unconscious game of victimization. Been there … done that. Here are some insights I’ve gained.

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Playing the Victim When Blaming Others for Your Failures

In my life experiences, I’ve had many occasions to justify myself. Weirdly enough, through my passage in religious life, there was one lesson that stuck to me like glue… I mean, I’d even often hear the superior’s voice persecuting my soul in reminding me how justifying myself was the greatest mistake since I wouldn’t learn from my failures. I say weirdly enough, because I guess I sort of understood… I mean, I tried not to justify myself in front of others, but still did it while on my own. 

I can give you so many examples, but I’ll use one of my latest experiences to explain a little better what I mean. I’ll try to avoid describing the context, since my goal is not to talk about a specific reality. Anyhow, in this position, I was hired as a ghost writer. There were so many things that did not make sense. I felt the establishment was totally disorganized. After a few months, I ended up losing my job. Truth is, I hated it… I hated every little bit of it. I truly believe that because I hated it, I did not give the best of myself… I unconsciously sabotaged my position. 

You know why? Because in the last few years, all I wanted was to pursue my dream of writing for a living and I accepted the jobs strictly for money and not for true interest. Consequence? I had the determining role in my successes and failures. 

Playing the Victim When Blaming Lack of Time

Here again, I am the king of it! I mean, I need to remind myself constantly of the importance of refocusing on my main purpose and not letting others, social media, television or other distractions dictate my life. 

How many times did I struggle to find the time daily to do what I truly wanted because of my immense propensity to waste my time. Going to the gym, writing, reading, meditating, etc. were always the last things on my agenda after spending hours on social media and scrolling my life away. In this sense, I strongly suggest you read the Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard … it will surely help bring things back into perspective. 

In his book he talks about how we monitor everything we do steps, calories, water, etc. But aren’t we losing track of our daily lives? We spend more time in a virtual reality than in building our present and future selves. 

How can you tell me you have no time for yourself when you spend hours on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook? But not only do you feed your brain with strangers’ lives, but you also escape your reality and only will exasperate your dissatisfactions. First thing in the morning, instead of focusing on your goals and ideals, you scroll … last thing at night, instead of revisiting the day and evaluating your successes and failures, you scroll! When unexpectedly confronted with free time, you scroll … aren’t we all just scrolling our lives away? Aren’t we all becoming voyeurs? We prefer to look at other people’s lives instead of our own. 

In this sense, I needed to come to terms with the fact that I was the only one to blame for not finding the time for the right things in my life … no one else is to be blamed but myself. 

Playing the Victim When Judging Other People’s Success or Expecting from Others!

By looking at other people’s lives, we often feel an urge to judge or envy them. How many times have I heard people telling me things that were truly judgments of rich or successful people. Why? Because we focus on the end result and forget to look at the whole picture. How many efforts, sacrifices, sleepless nights, etc. did these people need to do to get where they’re at?

We prefer judgment and victimizing rather than acknowledging what needs to be done to get there. It is a comfortable place to be and stay… But, when we surround our mind with easy excuses, we let failure dictate our lives and forget the efforts that need to be done for the end results. 

I was lucky enough to be surrounded by rich people. However, coming from a humble household, I often found myself expecting from other family members who succeeded. It’s almost as if they owed me something. Only later in life did I understand that expecting is also a subtle way of victimizing.

Playing the Victim When Forgetting to Look Beyond the Cross  

It’s funny because a lot of people reading my blog believe that I don’t have faith anymore or that I don’t love the Church beyond its woundedness. So let me share a bit of my personal convictions. 

Faith is an important element of our journey and that we all need to believe in something greater than ourselves. Avoiding spirituality in any form is like despising a part of who we are. However, and unfortunately, faith can easily become a crutch or a tool of hatred. So many will desperately spend time in excessive prayers, praying for solutions to things that simply need tangible actions. It’s like praying to win the million without buying a lottery ticket or praying to succeed when not doing anything concrete to get there. Some will spend more time running around the globe for the latest miracles than investing time in their dreams.

In all major spiritualities, there is always a reminder of how life is a mysterious dance between light and darkness, between the cross and the resurrection. Don’t forget when you contemplate the cross that it leads to life, love and resurrection. Don’t fall into complacency of finding there your comfort there. When life strikes you with unexpected challenges, don’t only cry at the foot of the cross, but also walk towards the light of the resurrection.

Conclusion: Being a Victim Is a Mindset!

Focusing on negative events and past wounds or surrounding yourself with people who have negative mindsets can be very harmful if you don’t learn to navigate through it all. 

Didn’t Jesus say, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Mt 17, 20)? Do you believe it to be possible? Do you believe that you have the power to become who you want to become? 

I strongly believe that acknowledging our mistakes, our fragilities, our negative patterns and taking action to learn from them is the only way to greater happiness and success will always be what you define it to be. I’ve met successful people who are far from being rich but lead a happy and fulfilled life. Don’t let others dictate your dreams. Set your own definitions!

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