What is a Victim? Someone who is out of control of their life. The key here is the word CONTROL. I am not talking about crime victims here.

You are a victim when your life stops working for you. When you are miserable, hurt, anxious, afraid to be yourself or not functioning in a manner that is self-enhancing, you are a victim.

As children, we were taught to be victims by our parents. Your strings were being pulled by your caregivers and there was nothing you could do about it. You couldn’t support yourself and if you didn’t like ‘the rules’ there were few alternatives to them. Running away from home proved how helpless you were without the family that had control over your little life.

As adults, sometimes we carry many left-over habits from our childhoods, which may have made sense then, but set you up as a victim now. Sometimes you feel run down by a ‘big person’ and have gotten so used to taking it that you still let it happen out of habit.

To get out of victim habits involves teaching the “old dog, new tricks”. This won’t be easy and like with everything else takes practice.

You won’t always “get your way” in everything that comes along, but living as a non-victim gives you the option of not living your life expecting to be upset, immobilized or anxious about “such and such”. These internal upsets are always self-imposed.

Today, I will show you a good first step toward not being a victim to yourself.

Learn to analyze without being negative or over-thinking situations. You would think, especially for my over analytical friends, that this would be easy for some – but it’s not. You must have your eyes wide open to avoid circumstances which trap you into self-forfeiting actions. What does this mean in plain english? If everytime you go to Aunty’s house, you know she is going to pester you about doing something you don’t want to do. And, in past times of visiting you find yourself keeping your mouth shut, getting angry with her silently and doing whatever she wants just to make her happy, but doing it hastily just to get it over with – and you dread seeing her again…well, you get the idea. Keeping your eyes wide open means not only seeing the big picture but having some alternatives available in your mind, so you can create flexibility in your life.

Whatever your plans, never invest your own self-value in the success or failure, rather shift gears when necessary without being emotionally tied up.

Keeping a good ear to your own thoughts and spoken words is key to accomplishing this first step. Some common mind-sets that are sure-fire traps into self-victimization include:

~I get upset whenever I have to confront people-If you expect this, you will get it.

~I know I am going to lose-Instead decide that you’ll win what you deserve.

~I hope they won’t get upset for me asking-Being worried about their feelings puts “them” in control.

~I’m afraid I’ll hurt their feelings if I do what I want-This is not a license to be an “ass” or a jerk, but don’t let someone run your life with their hurt feelings either.

These are only a few of the thoughts that could float through your head at any given moment. By keeping your eyes and ears open you can work to eliminate self-doubting thoughts, anticipate problems before they occur, be flexible with alternate solutions to reduce everyone’s anxiety, refuse to be upset at the progress you are or aren’t making and most importantly persevere through it. If you adopt this one strategy and work at it; although it will be difficult at first; you will eliminate 70% of your self-victimizations and learn to avoid impossible circumstances in the future.

You never have to be hurt, anxious, depressed, resentful or angry when things go againt what you would prefer, because that is how a victim would react.

Until next time-practice understanding that no matter what the task or goal-whether you fail or succeed, is no indicator of who you are as a person.

It is a fact that we come into the world with nothing and leave it just the same. Yet, we hear popular phrases like ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’ all the time. In today’s society, we are fashioned into the belief that “things” are what give us value and stature- who has the biggest HD TV, the best clothes, the coolest car, etc. But, at the end of the “day”, those things will be distributed among your family and friends or just thrown away.

Have you ever given something away? I don’t mean that pair of jeans with the rips in them either. When you go through your “things” it is often easier to give something that is “still good” or has “some life left” to someone you know who can use it. Then you feel better about the parting. But have you ever given away your favorite thing? What about that pair of jeans that has been worn enough to feel soft? Maybe your car? In the movie, “Pay It Forward” people do just that, give away a car to a complete stranger. It really is an amazing feeling to give away your Best thing to someone knowing the good it will do them. Sure, it will be difficult at first but after a few times you may find yourself trying to find people to give your Best Things to. I just know this … has done great for me, he/she will love it.

In time, when practicing giving you best away, you may find that you are really de-cluttering your life and feeling good about it. Maybe your ‘collections’ will not be about building you up anymore, but rather helping others too. I can’t say that I am an expert on this, but I certainly have tried to act this way and not gotten caught up in what society thinks my value is. Just like with anything else, the value is based on how much someone else wants it. People don’t want me for my collections. Valuable people have charachter and you can’t build character from big-screen TV’s.

My motto is say what you mean and mean what you say. Probably the number one most annoying quality that people have today is self-talk not lining up with what comes out of their mouths actually, or their actions.

For instance, answer this question honestly:

When you have more things going on in your busy calendar than you have room for you-

a. get tense, irritable, and try to do everything, devoting a minimal amount of time to each thing, and give nothing your complete attention.

b.calm yourself down by allocating responsibilities to others and give yourself some relaxation time.

Tell me, how many of you looked at answer a and identified with it but wished you were more like b.?

Here’s another-

You feel a hunger pang, but you are working at losing weight-

a.You eat something fattening and feel lousy

b.You drink some water then reward yourself for resisting and pat yourself on the back

Again, do you realize how many people I come across everyday that are thinking like b but act like a?

There is a great new book out by Dr.Wayne Dyer (favorite author by the way) called Pulling Your Own Strings. Okay, not a new book, it was originally published back in 1977, but you would marvel at how relevant it still is.

I am sure this will end up being a never-ending blog point for me since it bugs me so much all the time and I see it everywhere everyday…. but for now, my 2 cents.

I was taught, not by my parents necessarily, but nonetheless taught that a man is measured not by his means, money, appearance or the like, but rather by his word. Christians understand this best because they hold Jesus to his word. The words in the Bible for instance.

A man can have all the money, the fame, be the most attractive and more. However, if he is a shady liar, that is what he will be known for.

You don’t get to have great friends or family in life without being someone whose word means something, for that is where character is born.

I, for one, would rather have someone honestly tell me they don’t like my potato salad at a party, than to eat it in silent disgust with a sourpuss face and bad attitude. They, while forcing themselves to eat what they don’t like will give off such a negative presence to me and everyone around that I will get the feeling that I don’t want them around anyway. It may take that person months or years to come clean and tell me that all along it was the potato salad that kept us apart! Ugh.

Life can be so easy and importantly stress-free for the most part, if more people would just accept one another and show their true-selves. It is far easier to deal with the truth up-front when it happens, than years later when feelings get in the way.

In the above matter of a and b in those questions I asked, after some time you will find that the people who think like b but act like a, well, they are miserable. They spend too much energy trying to find excuses for why they can’t be honest about what they are thinking or feeling that they drain the life out of themselves and lose the point to being here all together. If half the energy was spent being true to themselves, imagine how much happier we all could be.

Until next time,