Artemis EvangelidiThis month I am sharing step 3 which requires that we resist the allure of Victim Consciousness.
What is the allure of Victim Consciousness I hear you ask? Well, why not take a moment to think about a recent challenging or upsetting situation you may have had to face. How did you react when it transpired? Did you suddenly feel frustrated, angry, sad and find yourself thinking – I have no choice here, this is being ‘done’ to me, this is out of my control? And then did this feeling of helplessness fuel the frustration/anger/sadness you initially felt, or did it help you feel better about the situation? My guess would be the former.
Victim Consciousness should not be confused with the word ‘victim’ in a legal or criminal sense where a physical, psychological or economic act has created a situation that is outside of one’s control. Victim Consciousness instead refers to the mindset that we have about our world and our circumstances and is something we have been taught to step into from a very young age. Our earliest conditioning has us programmed to walk away from responsibility and step into the arms of blame. When we can blame someone else for what we feel, how we act and what we create around us, we can receive sympathy, support, and a shoulder to cry on.
But all these things provide short lived support because they massage our egos and keep us stuck in the elusive drama – victim – villain triangle. There is always another ‘villain’ out there, we always end up being the ‘victim’ and our lives continue to revolve around the latest ‘drama’.
Playing the blame game is what we were taught would keep us safe. It would also help us make sense of our own choices. It was easier to say our teacher was incompetent than it was to say we hadn’t spent enough time studying when trying to justify a low exam score. It was easier to say our partner was responsible for the failed relationship than it was to consider our own contributions to the outcome.
And whilst we may have spent our lives being buoyed up by the sympathy and support of those around us, we have missed one critical point. For it is a law of the world we live in that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So, each time we moved to ‘blame’ we also gave away a small piece of our own power.
The more the years progress, the more we delve deeper into our Victim mindset and the less empowered we become. But there will come a point when the overbearing grief of being in this level of consciousness becomes unbearable and we realise that we have denied ourselves one critical element of our core – our authentic, empowered self.
Instead of asking: “What has been done to me? Why does this keep happening to me? Why was I wronged?” change the narrative so that it reads: “What have I contributed to this situation? What is this situation trying to teach me? What could I have done differently?”
Conscious leaders know that the world is not random – far from it. There is an organised and very aware consciousness that lies within all actions and reactions. When we choose to be one with this consciousness, we are standing firm in all our glory, living and leading from our heart space with love at the forefront. When we choose to detach from it and see ourselves as separate from the whole, we also leave behind that empowerment that would otherwise be at the core of our free will.
Life can be harsh, it can be challenging, it can be confronting and sometimes it can be downright sad, but we will always have a choice to think and behave in a different way. The more we allow ourselves to fall into this mindset, the more we give away elements of our true core and the more we lose ourselves in this illusion of duality – us and them.
Making a commitment to live and lead consciously requires a resistance to this allure of always having someone else to blame. In fact, we will only ever have ourselves to hold accountable for all that we think, say and do and understanding this is what can allow us to live a free and empowered life.
Abbey Rose
Trish Rock
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