Break Free From Drama And Achieve Your True Potential

In this empowering session, you'll discover how to reclaim your personal power by mastering an internal locus of control. We’ll explore the dynamics of the Drama Triangle—how roles like victim, rescuer, and persecutor can trap us in cycles of disempowerment—and uncover practical strategies to break free. Through engaging insights, metaphors, and actionable guidance, you’ll learn to rise above drama, overcome victim consciousness, and embrace a life of intentionality and purpose. If you're ready to navigate life's challenges with resilience, align your actions with your dreams, and become the creator of your reality, this talk is for you.

Transcript

Welcome and thank you for joining me today.

This session is fundamentally about maximizing and reclaiming your personal power.

It's about becoming a conscious creator and a participant in the dance of life and the key concept we're going to look at to reclaim our personal sovereignty is this idea of maintaining what is known as an internal locus of control,

Specifically as an antidote to victim consciousness.

And victim consciousness refers to this state of being whereby people in some sense choose to give away their own sense of agency in the world.

Someone caught in what I would refer to as victim consciousness strangely enough tries to gain some measure of power by exactly the method of giving their personal power away.

This of course does not make much sense.

It's important to understand that in some way,

Around well-meaning people,

Someone who positions themselves as a victim can feel empowered because there's some sense that they might have been wronged and that there's a kind of assumed collective responsibility almost for things to be made right on their behalf.

The issue is that if everyone defers responsibility to external structures or to society as a collective then you end up with this resultant dance of everyone trying to avoid individual responsibility as much as possible and actually the incentive becomes to position oneself as much of a victim as possible to further justify how you cannot be held responsible because you have been treated unfairly.

Now one thing I'd like to get out of the way here is that it can be absolutely true that you or anyone else may very well have been treated unfairly and it may very well also be true,

In fact it likely is,

That you have had the experience of being victimized.

And if that is the case I'm sorry that you had to endure that negative experience.

But the thing is that to continue to see yourself as a victim actually only causes you to hurt yourself further.

I'd put forward the view that no matter how someone else may do you wrong it's actually a more desirable way of being is to just absolutely refuse to see yourself as a victim even and actually especially under the circumstances where you would be most justified in doing so.

Don't cede your individual perspective of reality so easily,

Rather see the truth that you are a sovereign being with free will and agency and no small measure of personal power to impact the world in the way you would like to.

So it's rather about making the choice to live your life on your own terms in the fullest expression of who you truly are.

And by embracing this mindset you can move onward and upward breaking free from all kinds of patterns that can hold you back from stepping into a life of empowerment and growth.

So let's get into this idea.

An internal locus of control is essentially the belief that you are responsible for your life's direction through your thoughts,

Choices and actions.

It's about embracing personal agency and realising that while you cannot always control external events,

You can always control how you respond,

Adjust and navigate through them.

And the value is that this mindset transforms you from being a passive observer of life to an active participant and you begin to steer your life's course with intention and purpose.

Because really a lot of the value of this is that sense of intentionality and purpose.

You kind of happen to life or at least you're in communion with life rather than being someone that life just happens to.

It becomes more of a communion with life or.

.

.

Actually we'll get to this in a second,

I like this metaphor of you're steering the ship but there's still the wind,

Right?

But you're not just being blown about aimlessly.

And actually what I wanted to mention regarding this was this metaphor of a sailboat.

There's a very good quote for this.

So rather than being blown around aimlessly by the winds of change and circumstance,

You want to become like a skilled sailor.

No matter how turbulent the weather or unpredictable the wind,

You adjust your sails to stay on course because you're guided by the knowledge of your destination.

There's a well-known saying for this which goes And this saying,

This metaphor perfectly encapsulates the essence of an internal locus of control.

Life's circumstances,

The wind,

Etc.

Are often beyond your control but your power lies in how you set your sails.

The actions you take,

The mindset you choose to embody and the direction you choose to move forward.

So let's talk more about this internal locus of control.

What are its key aspects?

How does it look like in practice to maintain this internal locus of control?

I think the most fundamental or key part of it is this idea of responsibility which I'll get into here.

The idea of the internal locus of control is quite closely related to the stoic concept known as the dichotomy of control.

This is all about discerning what is within your control and therefore something you should concern yourself with as well as making the choice to not dwell on or worry about the things which you cannot control.

But what I would add here about this internal locus of control is that whilst it is true there are things which are outside of our control we can nevertheless always make the choice to be responsible for every aspect of our lives.

And to be clear,

To be responsible does not mean that we're at fault culpable or to blame for our circumstances.

What it means is that we choose to take ownership of the circumstances of our lives.

I really enjoy breaking down the word responsibility because it's so often positioned as a kind of burden when really what the word refers to is your response ability in other words your capacity or your ability to respond.

And while it's certainly true that there is an awful lot in life that you cannot control you always have the power over how you choose to respond to things.

This is actually a very liberating concept though to someone trapped in victim consciousness it may appear as a burden.

But if you would wish to be a sovereign being who is the master of your fate then one must choose to willingly accept responsibility for their own life or cede the right to create the life they wish to live on their own terms.

Those are in fact the choices.

You can willingly undertake responsibility and be in a certain sense in communion with life itself or your experience of life or you cede,

You give up responsibility and complain bitterly that you are treated unfairly by life and the universe at large.

To me it seems a pretty simple choice when you put it like that but if we are not paying attention then actually to give in to playing the victim can be strangely very seductive in the moment.

But if we are forearmed with the knowledge that to maintain an internal locus of control is to create our lives on our own terms it becomes obvious to us that actually the personal cost of victimhood is far too great for us to willingly bear.

The biggest key aspect of internal locus of control I would say is responsibility but a couple of other parts of it I'd like to run through is this idea of clarity of purpose.

So you know,

To continue my sailboat analogy that I rather like you know what port you're sailing to.

There's another saying which says if a man does not know to what port he is sailing no wind is favourable.

So you want to know where you want to get to a vision,

A goal,

A value that anchors your decisions and keeps you moving forward.

You know what you want to move towards.

There's something else that you're always free you're always free to determine the direction in which you would like to go.

You might not always be able to make the immediate step you'd like to in that direction in every given moment but much like your thoughts you want to make sure that your purpose is your own.

There's actually a bit of a tangent here there's a very interesting thing about kind of direction and goals and purpose is that actually often times it is more about the kind of journey to get there than the actual destination that's a well known kind of cliché piece of wisdom at this point but one thing you can fall into the trap of is thinking that oh it's about the journey not the destination it's like well yeah but actually the destination informs the journey even if getting the thing maybe won't ultimately make you happy it's moving towards that thing enables the journey to happen and the journey is important so bit of a tangent there but yeah what you want is a certain degree of clarity of purpose because then you have this internal locus of control and you know where you want to go it's hard to have to take responsibility for the circumstances of your life if you don't actually know how you would like them to look ultimately I think it's a key point there next one I want to speak about regarding the benefits of this internal locus of control is adaptability instead of being overwhelmed by all these external forces you end up just adjusting to the challenges that life throws your way because you know you always have a choice in how you respond it's very freeing this thing happened but because I have this centre of control within myself I can choose how I want to respond regarding my values,

My aims there may be this emotional reaction but whatever happens I'm still steering this ship the waves may be choppy there may be no wind which is actually a pain but whatever happens I'm holding the steering wheel and that makes you much more adaptable you don't throw in the towel as easily because you're not as blown around by external events instead you navigate through them and with them you ride the wave as opposed to being buffeted by it so I think in terms of the key aspects and benefits of this concept,

The last thing I want to mention specifically here is this sense of agency and empowerment when you voluntarily take responsibility for the circumstances of your life in this way with this focus on what you can control and respond to within yourself you just become much more empowered you become essentially a co-creator in your life and you can steer through both calm waters and storms with confidence and intentionality I'm aware that I'm really taking this sailboat metaphor to the limit but I hope you guys are enjoying that as much as I am so the shift you want to make to gain or to move towards this internal locus of control you want to stop asking questions like why is this happening to me and you want to move towards what can I do with this how could I use this to my advantage how can I grow adapt or adjust my course and you become an active conscious participant in the dynamic flow of life,

Riding out the weather adjusting your sails staying aligned with your purpose so without an internal locus of control you face setbacks and you end up feeling helpless you blame external circumstances or bad luck or whatever happens you end up essentially drifting you drift wherever the wind takes you oh I couldn't do this because that thing happened and you know I guess I just can't do it now as opposed to someone with this internal locus of control the challenges arise,

You pause reflect and make adjustments you might think I can't control the storm but I can navigate through it and stay on course toward my goal and it's the most important thing about this is the mindset right because instead of oh I can't as soon as adversity arises it's hmm this thing happened how do I adjust my plan to incorporate and include this and still move toward my goal and it's actually more than anything else it's just that mindset which just accepts what happened and then contemplates what to do about it without falling into that trap of being victimized and then ceding your personal power that's the most important part of all of this really and the mindset you know it fosters resilience and growth but it also just empowers you the biggest thing is that it empowers you to live a life of purpose where you are no longer at the mercy of external events but in that dynamic and intentional relationship with your life with life itself the universe however you want to say it you're kind of participating rather than just being something or someone that stuff happens to so as we visit this idea of victim consciousness which is a thing you know we'd like to avoid but it's quite hard to get out of if you're trapped in it especially as the idea of victim consciousness will be quite triggering to someone who is in it right if you really have a visceral reaction to this idea then this actually might be very extra important for you to at least hear even if you don't agree for now so it refers to a state of mind where we get trapped in feeling powerless and develop this habit of always blaming external circumstances or others for our challenges and the first thing I want to say is it's quite natural to feel this way sometimes right sometimes things happen and it's unfair it disadvantages us and it's annoying and it's easy to be like well everything was going great until this thing came in and I couldn't control it and just messed everything up it is natural to feel this way sometimes the difficulty is when you dwell too long in this mindset and you get trapped in this kind of cycle of helplessness and disempowerment it's when that state of being becomes habitual that's the real danger here and actually there's one helpful framework I found really useful to understand victim consciousness and the dynamic of how this plays out in interactions between people is to understand something known as the drama triangle and this is a concept I've borrowed from a psychoanalytic theory known as transactional analysis so in transactional analysis the drama triangle consists of unsurprisingly three roles,

One for each point of the triangle and these three roles they're all basically a framework to examine what are basically dysfunctional relationships in a certain sense so obviously the first one I'm going to speak about is the victim victim feels powerless,

Sees themself at the mercy of others or life the second point of the triangle is the persecutor which is someone who blames or criticizes others perpetuating a sense of conflict and thirdly the rescuer which is someone who tries to fix or save others often actually enabling victimhood rather than fostering independence but each of these are filling an unfulfilled need in some way which we'll get into more,

Let's start with the victim,

This is a more closely related subject of our talk the victim mindset is basically poor me the characteristics of this victim mindset for someone who's trapped in that victim mode of being is that you feel powerless,

Helpless and oppressed,

You're often you feel at the mercy of external circumstances and you often blame others you blame those circumstances for the plight experienced by the victim and the thing about being a victim is that you basically draw in these rescuers to solve their problems but you actually resist actually solving the problem because the problem is feeding the victimhood,

It becomes its own entity in a strange way,

You kind of need to have the problem to reinforce the sense of being a victim which is feeding you in some way and it's not a healthy way but it's actually very interesting to think in these terms the victim actually needs a rescuer and it needs a persecutor this is why you get this weird phenomenon of people being in the world looking for ways in which they're oppressed or looking for ways to be offended or things to be indignant about and what happens is people,

You'll this is one of those things,

When you become familiar with the drama triangle you start to see it everywhere playing out around you which can be quite weird but it explains certain behaviours,

When you get stuck in that victim mode,

You start to look at circumstances however you can to perpetuate your sense of identity as victim because it imparts a sort of fake feeling of power in a weird way so the impact of the victimhood thing is that victims will fundamentally avoid taking responsibility for their own circumstances which perpetuates their own feelings of powerlessness which generates this cycle of victimhood which they're getting something out of,

There's a reason this happened it's kind of a maladaptive survival strategy of please help me,

I need help,

I'm powerless right so the next one is the rescuer I don't want to stray too far from the subject of the talk regarding the internal locus of control but this is actually a very useful thing to be aware of as well so we will indulge in this tangent slightly more with the other two points of the triangle so the rescuer mindset is let me help you but again there's a kind of subtle validation the rescuer kind of needs someone often called a saviour as well,

They kind of need someone to save right,

So as to feel good about themselves right,

There's in each case there's an unmet need being met in an unhealthy way in each part of this triangle so the characteristics of the rescuer is you feel compelled to save or fix others and often neglect your own needs in doing so,

So you'll derive a sense of purpose and worth from rescuing others and you may,

The rescuer will commonly or actually also overstep boundaries and create inadvertently or otherwise dependency and resentment usually the dependency is the other person becomes dependent on them but also them subtly on the victim for giving them this validation of oh I'm worthwhile as a person because I'm helping this person but resentment is also very common as well because what happens is the rescuer ends up being very giving and even though they're very giving it's usually not balanced in relationships so it ends up planting some deep resentment usually in the rescuer that they then often fail to acknowledge so yeah it's,

I don't know,

I find this very interesting the impact rescuers have the rescuers typically will be enabling victims by solving their problems for them and this can perpetuate the victim's lack of agency and create exhaustion or frustration for the rescuer right the rescuer gets exhausted and the victim kind of perpetuates this sort of learned helplessness and lack of agency so yeah you can see how these dysfunctional relationships play out and I'm sure that you can probably quite easily bring to mind this dynamic right honestly when I learnt about this drama triangle it was one of those things where I started to see it,

Not everywhere but a lot so the last point of the triangle is this the persecutor right the mindset is it's your fault so the characteristics it's the more authoritative kind of controlling,

Critical,

It's more kind of bully-esque than the other two so you're blaming or punishing others for perceived failings and the characteristics also are lacking empathy and being domineering and aggressive and the persecutor maintains this power by keeping others in a diminished state which further fuels conflict and resentment so it's oppositional to the rescuer in some sense and the victim but I'm going to feel good but by putting you guys down to reinforce my own sense of superiority right so those three points of the triangle are all how these kind of dysfunctional ratios can interact but it's interesting to consider that each person you need people playing the other roles for you to get to play that role right,

The victim actually needs a persecutor and a rescuer to be a victim and the persecutor obviously needs a victim otherwise he can't he can't be better than someone else unless you have someone else to be worse than you,

It's not a great mindset but anyway I think that was very interesting,

It's a worthwhile tangent,

It was a little bit of a tangent I hope you can forgive me but we want to see how this plays out and people can often shift roles within that drama triangle right,

The victim can very quickly lash out and become a persecutor,

Blaming others for their suffering,

The rescuer can feel unappreciated and very quickly turn into a victim or a persecutor and the persecutor might feel guilty for you know their own unkind actions and shift into a rescuer role,

But the point is these role shifts keep people stuck in unhealthy relational patterns perpetuating drama and conflict without resolution and the roles are deeply interconnected and many of us can and do shift between them without realising it,

For example you might feel like a victim in one situation only to later act as a rescuer in another or even a persecutor when frustration boils over,

But there is a way out of this cycle and you'll be unsurprised to know that I think it is by embracing an internal locus of control we step off the drama triangle entirely and into a new way of being,

And yeah I'm going to say it one more time,

The drama triangle really is for me one of those ideas where,

One of those concepts where once you begin to see it play out in social circumstances it becomes very difficult to unsee it,

I'd like to mention as well that one more time to be a victim,

The victim needs to have a persecutor as well as a rescuer and that's why as I said previously you get this strange phenomenon of people seeking out things just to be offended or upset about them to perpetuate this ongoing drama cycle someone stuck in victim mode,

Yeah they need something to be wronged by and you look at social media you can see this on steroids right,

So it's very interesting to think in those terms but I will say that understanding that drama triangle can be huge for understanding dysfunctional relationships and improving them so let's move on to breaking free of the drama triangle and when we assume an internal locus of control we step out of the drama triangle,

Instead of feeling like a victim we take responsibility for our responses and our choices,

Instead of acting as a rescuer we empower others to find their own strength and instead of playing the persecutor we approach conflicts intentionally with compassion and with clarity so we step off that drama triangle and in doing so we free ourselves from cycles of blame and frustration we develop healthier more balanced relationships and we focus our energy on growth and forward movement rather than dwelling on problems embracing an internal locus of control means recognising that while you can't control everything in life you always have power over how you respond and what you choose to focus on it's about shifting from blaming external circumstances to taking responsibility for your actions,

Decisions and mindset this involves reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth,

Focusing on what you can influence and aligning your actions with your goals,

Because in doing so you can cultivate resilience,

Empowerment and a sense of agency allowing you to navigate life's challenges with intention and purpose again as that saying goes,

You cannot change the wind but you can adjust your sails as you embrace this mindset you will notice profound changes in your life and this can impact every aspect of your life because it is such a powerful foundational part of how you approach the world but I like to run quickly through some of the benefits you can expect from developing an internal locus of control and it's empowerment you get this renewed sense of agency because you take on that creator role in terms of your life's direction even in difficult circumstances you begin to trust more and more in your ability to take meaningful action in the direction that you want to go resilience has been a huge part for me of this internal locus of control because challenges become opportunities for growth instead of seeing obstacles as roadblocks you start to see them almost as stepping stones towards your goals this can also bring a lot of clarity and an increased level of focus because you let go of all the things you can't control and in doing so you free up this mental and emotional energy to focus on what truly matters interestingly it has a pretty outsized impact on your relationships as well you end up taking responsibility for your actions and this actually fosters a very high level of trust and mutual respect between people you inspire others as well to take ownership of their own life by the example you set slightly tangential point I'd like to make here is that people often will argue about the best way to be or the right way to be in the world and this is one of those ideas where if you can really embody it,

Ingrain it and live it and it will have this positive effect and it will get to the point where people are like what is it that you're doing it's the example you want to set the best way to be in the world is something you want to showcase in the way that you choose to be rather than saying oh you should do this or you should do that you want to make this idea work so powerfully for you that people actually start asking you what it is that you're doing and this idea is certainly capable of that if you can embrace it fully and the last thing is yeah it's just well there's loads more things the last thing I want to mention is this sense of enhanced well being because when you have this well developed and maintained internal sense of control this reduces stress and anxiety you'll feel more grounded and capable even in the face of uncertainty it's interesting really I want to clarify as well this internal locus of control it's about keeping the responsibility for things inside of yourself there's also all kinds of powerful benefits to surrendering and letting go and what that largely is here is surrendering and letting go of things that you recognize are outside of your control but you keep the responsibility and sense of agency for different facets of your life internal you don't give away your power basically it's not about controlling everything it's about having this space inside of yourself where you don't give away responsibility for parts of your life through the external and I want to run through affirmations basically I still find affirmations are a bit cheesy sometimes but actually let's just think of them as statements that ground in this perspective you can use them like an affirmation and go away and say them lots of times as a kind of self programming I can see the value of affirmations by the way but I also want you to think of these kind of sentences as just grounding in the mindset of someone with a well developed and refined locus of control feel free to repeat them after me or not but we'll run through them and then we'll wrap up this session so repeat after me if you feel like it either out loud or in your mind I am the creator of my reality I take responsibility for my actions,

My growth and my success I choose to focus on what I can control and let go of what I cannot I am empowered to face challenges with clarity and strength I trust in my ability to shape my life so as we wrap things up here I would invite you to carry this practice into your daily life and next time you face a challenge pause and ask yourself what can I control in this moment what small action can I take to move forward and finally to summarize what I think is the key takeaway point of this talk,

Stepping into an internal locus of control isn't about denying the influence of external circumstances it's about focusing on your power to respond adapt and grow and to focus on your own right action rather than passively bemoaning the state of the world so with that said,

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and may you move onward and upward embracing the fullness of your personal power and creating the life you wish to lead

Reviews

I greatly appreciate your perspectives and sessions. Victim and the triangle, so good. Help me understand those that are challenged by it. Thank you. More :)