How victim mentality strips you of your potential.

“When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it, all else is madness.” — Eckhart Tolle

We’ve all been in that position — the feeling you get where you can’t help but feel like you’re trapped. Yet, you don’t do anything about it. And it happens again and again. We are the doer of our emotional victimhood.

Sometimes it becomes hard to place a finger on it. It’s a tug-of-war — who do you blame for ending up in that position. Others? — people who constantly blame other people or situations for the events in their lives have a victim mentality. Yourself? — playing the blame game helps no one, especially you. It only leads to a deeper entrapment.

I’ve felt trapped before: Not being able to study and pursue a career of my choosing, presented with no alternative but to rely on others, and putting myself in situations I knew would backfire on me. Every nerve, every cell, every pore of my body screamed in protest. However, it’s not always that clear-cut. There are many factors in play that prevent you from escaping the trap.

The thing is, sometimes you are not aware that you are in a victim mentality. Ignorance is bliss, they say. But awareness is freeing.

You Have the Potential to Overcome Victimhood

Life is full of challenges, failures, roadblocks, dead ends. They are part and parcel of growing. So why do we see these as dire circumstances, making us feel like victims of unnecessary, unfair wrongdoings?

Do we feel entitled to a better life, one without suffering and pain? Can we not live without creating drama, setting the stage for theatrics every opportunity we get? Are we not able to use fear as a pathway to positive change?

We are all capable and have the potential to overcome the victim mentality. By letting responsibility slide, we remove that ability. We stunt its growth sending us further into despair.

You Hold the Key to Your Liberation

A much as we own playing the victim, we also possess the power to be free from it.

Power to control

Yes, we can leave our fate to the universe. That everything happens for a reason. It comes with a caveat though — the law of attraction. What you put out is what you get back. What happens in your life is also in your hands.

Power to forgive

Knowingly or unknowingly, we put ourselves in a victim mentality. We all need a reason, an explanation as to why something is happening to us. So we make up whatever feels reasonable to avoid the truth. When you forgive yourself, you wash away the anger, resentment, and hurt so you can move on.

Power to be responsible

There is no escaping a victim mentality; there is only accepting it. Poor circumstances happen to everyone, believe it. We don’t want to see it, just as we don’t want to see how others deal with it. I’ve done a decent amount of looking at my misfortunes and others’ fortunes. It’s only what we want to see and what they want us to see. Instead, stop seeing. Look away. Take the reins and do what you have to for yourself.

Power to accept and to change

Accept your actions. Actions of the past and present, so they don’t influence your future. Change your beliefs and your thoughts from a victim mentality to a survivor mentality.

Last Thoughts

Victim mentality is like a monster. The more you feed it, the more it grows. Stop feeding it, and it loses its power. Slowly it diminishes and disappears.

You can make yourself feel like a victim, and yes, others can make you feel like a victim too, without them even knowing it. Some of us are more susceptible to this than others.

So how do we make ourselves mentally strong? We dress up for the occasion. We put on our capes and hold up our shields to protect ourselves from outside and from inside forces.

Fight it, survive it and be your hero.