The Journey

I have personally found that victimhood is one of the ego’s greatest deterrents against happiness. The “poor me” complex is so vast and so prevalent in our thought system, that it is most often taken for granted altogether. If you think that you are not acting the victim in your life in any (or most) ways, think again.

I was fortunate to discover early on in my personal development that I had a massive victim complex. It did not feel fortunate at the time, however. At the time, I was so disgusted and embarrassed by it, that I refused to acknowledge it at all. The victim role provided such an efficient hiding place for me that it was hard to give up anyway. But acknowledging what I was doing, much less admitting it, felt like dying inside.

The first time I was directly called out on my victimhood, and managed to step out of it long enough to see it wasn’t really me, was intensely transformative. I remember I was sitting in my teacher’s office during a counseling session, but I cannot recall what we were actually talking about. What I do know is that I didn’t like what he was saying. It felt accusatory to me. He was highlighting a mistake, or misstep that I had taken, and I felt ashamed, guilty, bad and wrong.

Any time I had the sense of having messed up in any way, I would likely shrivel up into my sad, scared victim shell. On this particular day, not unlike during previous sessions, my teacher saw what I was doing and called me out on it. He called me out on the whimpering face of fragility that I presented that had served me so well in manipulating others into being gentle and kind and not hurting me or my dainty feelings. Every time he had ever done this, I sank deeper into a dark hole of guilt and fear and shame. Most would not dare to go where he did on this path because outwardly it appears to bring up even more fear in the supposed victim, not to mention the intense amount of guilt this victim role is designed to trigger in the perceived “attacker.” But just like every previous occurrence of this situation, my teacher, once again, called me out of this victim role and begged me, once again, to step out of it and look at it clearly.

He called it “putting on a white lab coat.” Anytime I was caught up in an emotion or firestorm of fear in any situation, he would invite me to please step out of myself, don the white lab coat of an objective observer, and view both my self and the situation clearly. To do this while mired in a state of deep victimhood, however, felt impossible. That is, until this one day. We had been through this session many times. I always left feeling like a total sack of shit, while all the while knowing in my heart that my teacher did not see me that way, nor did he intend for me to see myself that way. My determination to work through my shit was strong, so I continued to endure these uncomfortable sessions. And on this one blessed day, it finally paid off.

I sat squirming, curled into an almost fetal position on the brown leather love seat, a throw pillow clutched tightly in my lap like a metal shield of armor. But the pillow could not save me from my own internal war of oppression and victimhood. As my teacher tried to help me work through the mistakes in my mind, I found myself familiarly sinking into a pit of shame and self-blame. This time when he called me out of my downward spiral, I finally summoned the guts or willpower or willingness or something to separate myself from the mental and emotional turmoil raging inside. It took every fiber of my being to muster the courage to do this because I was so convinced that once I truly acknowledged and saw my victim identity, there would be no going back–and not in a good way. I already had such a strong judgement about “those type of people.” I believed they were cowardly, weak, sniveling, and gross. I so desperately did not want to be that, that I could not bear to look at it…until I did.

The very moment I stepped aside and watched what was happening, it began to stop. See, the very act of being able to watch the victim role play out, objectively and without attachment, precipitated the awesome discovery that: I am not THAT which is happening right now! If I am the one watching it, I cannot be the one doing it. In other words, this is an act, a trick that I learned along the way, and that Christie, the small, scared, ego-identified girl, is not actually me.

It was only a glimpse, but it was enough. I could finally begin to see the victim in me clearly, and once I could do that, I could choose something else. My new mantra became, “I can choose.” In any given moment, when I felt sad or angry or scared, I reminded myself “I can choose.” Once I had seen–just once but very clearly–that I was not the thoughts or emotions that were happening within this body, but rather something beyond all of that, I discovered the inherent power to choose whether or not I wanted to engage in the thoughts and feelings that would arise. And moreover, I had the responsibility to choose what those thoughts and feelings would be. They were not happening to me, after all. They were always my choice.

I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly EMPOWERING this was and still is.

Having seen the victim and having seen that it was not really me, everything began to change. The shame and guilt and wrongness I felt for “being a victim” evaporated because I was no longer identified with it. I no longer needed to judge it. Yes, Christie was a scared, sad, and anxious girl who tended to hide in a shell of victimhood for her own defense and protection. But, so what? She wasn’t ME. And now I could choose another way to respond to life’s challenges and lessons. I could begin to release my need-to-be-right because I could begin to see that there was no punishment or danger awaiting me if I was “wrong.” I could always choose again. I did not have to be a victim, I did not have to be right, and I did not have to prove anything to anyone, even myself.

Seeing through the facade of victimhood and “poor me” was one of the viscerally hardest things I have ever done. As is so often the case, it also ended up being one of the single most rewarding things I have ever done. It’s not that I stopped being a victim that day, once and forever. It’s just that it no longer owned or controlled me. Victimhood still arises, in a litany of ways, but I am much wiser to it now. Not only that, but I now know that I have the power and right to see it another way, I have the tools to do so, and consequently, I have the option to become a Victor/Conqueror instead.

In any moment when you feel powerless, overwhelmed, attacked, stressed, fearful, or even sad, victimhood is involved. Victimhood–at its most fundamental–is the belief that something else chooses how you feel or what you experience. It is the foregoing of responsibility for your Self. When you know yourself to be responsible, capable, and incessantly connected to Love, none of those other ideas or feelings are possible.

There is no shame in victimhood; it simply does not serve your highest and best interests. It is not a failure to be a “poor me,” rather it is simply a misunderstanding. No matter what you do, you can never undo the Truth of your Self, and that Self is incapable of victimhood.

Cease the madness. Stop feeding the lie. You and I are not victims and never can be. It is no more than an outdated and, pardon the pun, poorly constructed weapon of defense against enemies made of shadows. It won’t protect you. You don’t need protection. Give up the need to be right against all others, be still, and know that you are safe.

Love,
cc