My Life Changed When I Stopped Playing Victim

My life changed the moment I decided to stop playing victim and to start seeing how life is actually happening FOR me, even through the hard times.

Do you know what I am talking about?

Let me explain my story and then walk you through the possibility of how your story can change too, if you are ready.

MY STORY.

When I was a child I was very sensitive to the energies around me. I would feel my dad's mood shift and immediately he would take me down his rabbit hole of trauma which then contributed to my own. My childhood was wild, chaotic, full of violence and rage but there was also love and tenderness which made it confusing. I often felt like my environment and circumstances were out of my control.

As an adult, that was my blueprint for finding and building other relationships, especially romantic ones with men.

There were many times I would get into arguments with my spouse where I was reliving my childhood trauma as it was all happening TO me again. These were flashbacks. I relived a moment in time as if it were happening in real time, which spiraled me into a place of my past trauma as a helpless child and not an empowered partner.

Fast forward to 2013, a tragic year but also a powerful invitation by the universe to break this cycle permanently. Both my dad and my husband were no longer in my life and I had an opportunity to wipe the slate clean.

It wasn't that easy though. The blueprint was still there and as much as I wanted to and had the discipline to change it through awareness and new actions, there were still threads of my past that whispered in the wind that the other shoe would drop on my head.

I waited with hyper-vigilance and assumed every man that entered my life would trigger me and make me feel unsafe at some point. And they did. Because I was looking for it every time.

It wasn't until last year that this awareness began to seriously change me on a cellular level from two experiences. 

First, I was texting with a male friend about a dispute over something he said to me. His response was that I was acting like a victim and knew that I was better than that. Ouch. That was harsh. In the moment out of survival, I immediately called him out on gaslighting me.

Then, I had a situation with my mom a few weeks later that deeply triggered a moment we shared together when I was a teenager and made a very hard decision to leave my drug-addicted dad. I went into a flashback but this time, I had the resources to walk her through my experience and tell her what I needed to get out of it. I will spare the details but it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but I was able to walk myself out of the panic of that experience and made it to the other side.

A few days later after I recovered, my mom and I sat down and I walked her through it again and realized she just wasn't able to understand what living with my trauma was like so I had to take radical responsibility for myself and recognize what she was and wasn't capable of- not because she didn't love me or wished to harm me, it just wasn't a place she was able to go for herself.

As I took a moment to really pause, I saw how these two situations were "me playing victim" as the common denominator and I no longer wanted to play that role or feel those feelings.

Over the last year, I carefully observed myself in the interactions with others, my feelings, the stories I was telling myself, and the language I was using to share my stories of being hurt. I noticed there were still subtle threads of expecting others to have it out for me.

From there, I cleaned it all up; the blueprint of old stories that shaded my experiences, feelings and thoughts, my nervous system to properly regulate what was a true threat and what was an old reactionary response for survival, and my language around how I spoke of my past, present, and future from a place of power.

And you know what?

My world completely changed.

There were still challenges for me to discern if people were villains and scam artists (and they were there but I spent much less time with them than I did in the past that kept the old story going!)

With the discipline and dedication to no longer play victim, my compass is now fixed on "Empowered" and less opportunities to choose victim are showing up for me.  Instead, I healed yet another layer with my mom, aligned with co-creators that are truly dedicated to their work of empowering others, and I attracted a love relationship that feels like the healthiest experience I have ever had with a man...because I have accepted that to be a possibility.

So now, what about you?

Do you feel the threads of your victim stories being tugged on as I shared mine?

Where are you in relationship to your childhood victim stories that keep playing out in your life? (be honest.)

What practices have you introduced to become more empowered?

What are you willing to pay for your own sense of freedom and release the victim story for good?

What's at stake if you keep letting the old stories play out?

What was at stake for me was literally having any kind relationship with my mom and being open to any possibility of having a loving and trusting relationship with a man.

What is possible for you if you let go of those old victim stories...

Is it love? Dream job opportunities? Financial freedom? Confidence in expressing who you are authentically?

Here is one quick practice to break free of playing victim.

If you write in a journal...

Go open it up to any page from any year or period in your life and see how you saw the world then.

If you don't write in a journal...

Take a moment to reflect on a time that you felt the odds were stacked against you. Write about it for 5-10 minutes.

Now, where ever you are in that process, look back at what you wrote and ask yourself, with deep honesty, do you see from a lens of...

life happening TO me?

or

life happening FOR me?

There are some other stages in between but we will keep it simple now for now.

Take a close look at how you see your life. It may shock you, and that is good! You are awakening and this awareness begins your transformation...

Enjoy the invitation to empowering your life with great possibility as long as you can see it through the lens of life happening FOR you.

With grace,

WANT A LITTLE GUIDANCE?

Learn the tools, practices, and rituals that helped me and my students/clients become more empowered and drop the victim stories for good!

Book a free 15 minute inquiry session with me and let's see how we can help you live an empowered life.

OR dive into my RADIANT LIVING program that is full of practices, rituals, and resources to transform your life by loving it and feeling successful from the inside out