As you are navigating your life, do you ever feel like you are entirely out of options? Do you ever feel like you are suffering at the hands of everyone and everything else?
This is quite a common frustration among my patients and coaching clients. I often hear that they feel helpless, hopeless, and powerless – surrounded on all sides by circumstances conspiring against them…
They truly feel like they are victims.
As a psychiatrist and coach, it is my job to explore, understand, and work through these feelings with them. And one of the works that informs my approach to this mindset is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
In this book, Frankl talks about what he learned about the human spirit from his experiences in World War II. Even after witnessing horror firsthand in the Nazi concentration camps, he reached the conclusion that we are always in control of ourselves.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” he says.
I have navigated my share of grappling with the victimhood mindset. But when I read these words and think about the circumstances in which they were written, I cannot help but shift my focus to something more hopeful!
Frankl’s message is an uplifting and encouraging one: we are powerful! Whether the circumstances in our lives are ideal or not, we have the ability to do something about it. And when we accept his message and reject the victimhood mindset, we begin our journey back to wellness.
If you are feeling hopeless, here are three things you can do to break free from the victimhood mindset
1. Practice self-compassion.
When we remove ourselves from the role we play in our lives – in other words, when we adopt the victim mindset – we tell ourselves that we have no ability to change anything about our lives. We exist in a constant state of relying on outside circumstances to determine if we should feel good or not so good.
In that mental place, we are unable to help ourselves… we are blinded to the things that we could do to heal. We are limited in our ability to recover.
Be kind to yourself. When victimhood thoughts come to you, like, “Why is this happening to me?” try shifting your focus to comforting and empowering thoughts.
2. Stop playing the blame game.
Do other things affect our mood and our actions? Of course. If you ask anyone why they made a decision – any decision, really – where to live, where to work, who to marry – their decision was probably influenced by something or someone outside of themselves.
But no one else is responsible for our decisions.
They may color our feelings, influence our mood, and even affect the way we think, but our actions are our own. And we can begin to escape the victim mindset when we recognize our responsibility for our own selves.
3. Acknowledge your ability to affect the future.
The bad news – and the part that the victim mindset gets right – is that there are some things we do not have control over. We cannot control our circumstances and we cannot make others’ decisions for them. But the good news – and the part that the victim mindset often fails to focus on – is that we have complete control over our own thoughts, actions, and reactions.
Once we recognize that our choices are our own, we begin to see possibilities instead of limitations.
Oh – and bonus tip: you can also read Man’s Search for Meaning. It is a powerful book. 🙂
Make today your masterpiece!
Florina
P.S. If you know someone who could use a hopeful message today, feel free to send them this article!
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