Shifting From The Victim Mindset

A reading and reflection on releasing the victim mindset and reclaiming your personal agency, from the book It's Okay. This talk explores the difference between what happened to you and what you choose to do with it, all while helping you honor real pain without letting it define your identity or your future. This is a reflective talk (not guided meditation) blending narrative reading with teaching and gentle self-inquiry prompts, ideal for anyone working through trauma recovery, low self-worth, emotional resilience, or a season of feeling stuck.

Transcript

Hello friends, Scott here. Today I'm going to read an excerpt from my new book, It's Okay, A Book of Permissions, Followed by a breakdown of some of the central themes in what I read so that we can explore them more deeply. Okay, Here we go. It's okay to move through life like a victim. To let the actions of others shape how you see yourself. And to allow unfair circumstances and past traumas to influence how you show up in the world. It's okay to believe that bad things always happen to you and to feel too discouraged to try changing anything because nothing ever seems to work out anyway. Just remember that living from a victim mindset can make it nearly impossible to reclaim your agency and create the changes you long for. You are not responsible for everything that has happened to you, But you are responsible for how you choose to respond to it. You can honor your pain without letting it define you. And it is never too late to grow in self-love, To reclaim your power, To question catastrophic thinking. To explore new ways of meeting your needs, And to decide who you want to be despite the suffering you've endured. You may have been the victim of cruel circumstances, But that doesn't have to be the story of your life. Unless you choose it to be. So take a moment and just breathe that passage in. And I'd like to first start by speaking to the very first line. Which is, It's okay to move through life like a victim. First and foremost, I just want to honor and accept that this is what we do sometimes. There is no shame in it. It is an entirely natural human response to being on the victim end of experiences. So as we come into a deeper more loving relationship with ourselves. I really want to encourage you to look at the places where you are not finding acceptance for who you are, For what you think, For how you're showing up in your life. And to understand that it is always possible to bring to your experience, Whatever the experience is, A deeper level of self acceptance and self love. And that when we do, We create more peace in our lives. So no need to shame. If you're moving through the world, Feeling like a victim about some things, There's no need to feel ashamed. We can accept that. I also want to talk about victimhood as a real response and not a character flaw. It is likely at some point in your life that you have been victimized by someone or something in some way. You know, At times we have been victimized in truly traumatic and horrific ways. Some people listening to this, You will have been through things where you were the victim to behaviors, To abuse, To actions of others that are horrific and traumatic and that is very real. And I don't in any way want to belittle that. I simply want to recognize that though you may not be responsible for those things that have happened to you, You are still responsible for how you choose to respond to it. And that is where our agency lives. That is where our power lives, Understanding that there have been any number of things I can reflect on in my past life, Or in my life in the past, Where I was victim to the actions of others. And here I am today in my agency in my power understanding that. How I choose to respond. Is for me to decide. I am not a victim in terms of my power to respond right now to whatever has happened to me in my past. And I think sometimes when we hear that idea that though you are not responsible for everything that has happened to you are responsible for how you choose to respond to it. A lot of people can mishear that as, Get over it. You know, Just get over it. Come on. It's been years. And that's not at all what I'm saying. It's possible some of the horrific things that you've endured, You may never fully get over, Right? That's not necessarily how life works. That isn't necessarily how trauma works. If we're lucky we figure out healthy ways to integrate what we've experienced into our lives, So that to some extent we may be able to move beyond that experience. And one of the ways we do that is just by recognizing I'm responsible for my response to everything that has happened to me in my life. How do I want to respond in this moment? And there's an uncomfortable tension in that. And that too is part of being human and being alive, Recognizing the unfairness in having no responsibility to certain things that have happened to us, And yet holding all the responsibility for how we move forward and respond to them. And yet here we are. There's a point in the piece where I suggest honoring your pain without letting it define you. And in that there's the recognition that it's not about choosing one or the other, It's recognizing that we are expansive energetic beings and we can hold it all. Right I can honor everything that I've been through in the way that I treat myself in the love I show for myself and the boundaries I set in my life. Without letting that event define who I am. Yes, Because of past traumas I may be making choices today. That honor who I am, But that doesn't mean that those past traumas are defining who I am. Right, That doesn't mean I move through the world as a victim to that experience. I mentioned catastrophic thinking in the piece. And the idea that bad things always happen to me. Perhaps you can relate to feeling that way I know that I have felt that way in my life, Thinking that I'm the unlucky one or I'm cursed or I'm jinxed and nothing is ever working out in my favor. Is wrong with us or that the world is against us, Then we are inclined to notice the moments in life and throughout life that don't support that idea. In this kind of mindset becomes self-reinforcing. Because if I'm moving through life expecting disappointment, I am not only energetically likely to create more disappointment, But I'm certainly likely to notice it. So my belief that nothing is working out for me is going to be proven in my mind's eye again and again and again. So for me, Part of that is understanding that it is incumbent upon us knowing that our mind has a negativity bias to be more intentional about seeing the aspects of life that are actually in support of goodness in our lives. Gifts that we are also receiving in our lives instead of staying myopically focused on the things that don't work out really connecting with the energy of gratitude and awakening ourselves to all the things that actually are working out to not as a means of denying anything only as a means of opening ourselves up to a fuller picture of what is. And then, You know, I end the piece with that doesn't have to be the story of your life unless you choose it to be. And ultimately That is where our power lives. It lives in the choices that we're making. And this doesn't mean that even if you move forward with the intention of choosing something different for yourself, That that's necessarily going to happen overnight, And that the thing you have felt victim to, And a victim of for years and years and years is suddenly going to dissipate. And yet, This is the first step in how we start to create change in our reality. Right? How are we thinking about it? What choices are we making in alignment with more clear thinking about it? If you don't want to be moving through your life feeling like a victim all the time, A good question to ask yourself is, What are some other choices I can be making right now that don't align with this idea that I'm a victim? What is something I can do in this moment? You know, Where in your life are you still narrating things as happening to you instead of through you? You. You know, That's a question you can also sit with from a place of deep acceptance, With so much grace and love for yourself and all that you've been through. And also with the understanding that you are an extraordinarily expansive and powerful human being who can create for yourself different realities all the time. If the reality that you're living in right now is one that is depleting, Defeating, Does not feel good to you, You know, Where are there places in your life where you can shift, You can reframe, Where you can open yourself to more of the beauty here, More of your power here, More possibility for connection with others who see your strength to recognize your wisdom and beauty and vitality and life. So I share this with you. In the hopes that we are all able to connect more deeply. To our wisdom to our strength to our clarity, And that we are all able to understand more clearly that no matter what we've been victim to. We have agency in how we respond to it. And when we move forward with that agency we stand to create for ourselves a a more fulfilling life, Ultimately. So wherever you are within this story, I send you so much love. And I thank you for being here today. And I invite any feedback or comments you want to share about your experience with this journey. So much love to you. Bye for now.