Dangers of the Victim Mindset and Ways to Change It
There is nothing more destructive than a victim mindset. It ruins relationships, it kills marriages, it leads to self-destruction and collectively it also causes wars.
It is hard to know when we fall for the idea of being a victim as it seems so real that we don’t even get a chance to doubt it. Yes, everyone in this world feels like a victim on some level during various phases of their lives, but there are people for whom it has become their ultimate truth.
You cannot make your life beautiful if you harbor the beliefs that tell you that your life is an effect of what the world and society does.
See, when things go wrong, it is natural to feel like a victim, but how your life will get shaped from there depends on whether you choose to be a victim forever or you want to raise above such thoughts.
Victim mindset generates the feelings of anger, fear and hatred which are equally harmful for the individual who see themselves as a victim and those who relate to them.
This post will discuss the causes, symptoms and solutions for this problem; I am not a therapist or psychologist to give you any professional advice on this, but from what I have learned I think I can share a lot of useful information on this subject with you here.
Victim Mindset
It indeed matters how good you are at taking the control of your life despite of the voices inside your head that keeps blaming others for your miseries, but there are factors that decide how strong these negative thoughts are going to be. This implies that some people are more vulnerable to such thoughts than others.
What decides your vulnerability against such thoughts are the beliefs present in your subconscious mind which creates your self-image. These beliefs are formed as a result of the type of experiences you had in your childhood and due to the type of ideas you were exposed to as a kid.
Self-image is simply the image of “you” that you hold in your heart, it is what you think you are. People who have a weak self-image are very much likely to accept that they are helpless.
See, there are many reasons why a person chooses to be a victim. That’s right, in most cases people choose to be a victim. Why? – Here are some reasons: –
-It gives you an opportunity to gain people’s sympathy and attention. That’s a type of addiction; I have known some people who can go to any extreme to ensure that are being noticed.
-Proving that you are a victim gives you a plethora of excuses to stay in your comfort zone without taking any action.
-Being right, that’s all some people want in life. Trust me, some people can choose “being right” at any cost, even if the price to be paid is a happy life. And obviously, a victim is always right.
-Relief from the burden of taking responsibility. One has to accept his mistakes and make changes that are risky by facing their fears. Why bother? Blame it on someone else and relax.
Those were a few reasons that make some people to live as a victim. Based on the behavior there are basically two types of victims: –
Active Victim – These are people who keep on criticizing the world and others all the time; they don’t like solitude since they want to keep talking about how they are suffering because of others. Such people are too concerned about other people’s opinions about them.
Passive Victim – Such people need some serious help, maybe a therapist or psychologist who could help them to get out of their current mind state. A strong shift in perception is needed otherwise they can cause some real harm to themselves. In such cases, people usually suppress their feelings and prefer to stay isolated and this can result into some serious troubles.
Characteristics
There are a few common things about people who have victim mindsets; you can use this to keep a check on your behavior to shield yourself from such beliefs.
Seeking Evidences
People with such mindsets are always looking for reasons to blame others. Their mind always validates such thoughts using various evidences so that they could feel like an unlucky person whose problems are bigger than everyone else.
Repeating patterns
People with victim mentality always have a certain type of life pattern which keeps on repeating itself, and it brings them the miseries that they can blame on others. They don’t work on their past mistakes, so the same thing happens to them every time.
With a little observation you can actually see how they unconsciously create such circumstances to fortify their beliefs.
Criticism and Anger
As I discussed earlier, active victims love talking negatively about others. They find various subjects, topics and news to prove how evil the world is. One way to detect them quickly is to talk positively because they will either start arguing or they will leave your company if you will do that.
Passive victims on the other hand will only share their views with you if you are very close to them, the anger they have been holding in their heart will become evident when they express their thoughts which is all about the grudge they hold against someone specific, society, or even god for causing them the sufferings.
Goodness Is Limited
Have you ever seen that some people are not very comfortable to get a lot of good stuff? That is because they think that if good things happen then a bad thing will follow to neutralize it.
A person with a victim mentality usually believes that the truth is always bitter. So they don’t like positivity since they have formed a false notion that positive things and people are fake.
Unconscious Actions
A person with a victim mindset usually live life unconsciously, without paying much attention to their thoughts and behaviors, they act based on what the voices in their head tells them.
So they usually just react to people and situations based on their immediate feelings, people who play power games can easily take advantage of such individuals and then control them.
What Others Think
As we have discussed earlier, people who consider themselves a victim are too concerned about other people’s opinions about them. They want people to look at them and agree that life has been very cruel to them.
Ways to Eliminate the Victim Mindset
Accountability
This is a straight and simple method. Since blaming others for your problems makes you a victim, by taking the responsibility of what happens to you, you can reverse the process.
You can begin it by becoming more aware of your thoughts and words, so that you could actively avoid your old habits of taking the easy path where you can justify your mistakes by blaming it on others.
Forgiveness
I consider it as the most difficult, powerful and imperative thing a person can ever do to rise above the victim thoughts.
What makes forgiving so difficult is that people view it as something they are doing to others; forgiveness is a personal thing where one frees themselves from being negatively emotionally attached to someone else or some life event.
Forgiving people and situations that have caused you the troubles enables you to begin a new life.
Living in the Present Moment
The most effective technique you can use to overcome such thoughts is meditation, any simple meditation method will work well for making you a more aware person. You can also use mindfulness for focusing on the present moment.
The key here is to increase your present moment awareness since a person feels helpless because they either keep dwelling in their past or they keep worrying about their future most of the time.
Learning to live in the present moment gives one a greater control over their life.
Gratitude
There are studies which have shown that people who learn to be grateful for what they have in their life are emotionally healthier than others.
Gratitude is much more than just a feeling, it is a change in perception.
Expressing one’s gratefulness to the higher power gives a person an opportunity to view life from a better perspective and thus it brings to their awareness the possibilities to which they were oblivious before.
Changing Your Self-Image
We have already discussed about the self-image; it is the root cause of the victim mindset. All the methods I have discussed till now are just the tip of the iceberg compared to this one.
To change one’s self-image a person needs to alter their deep subconscious beliefs, there are many methods available to do this that you can use.
But I recommend energy clearing because it works best for me to remove the limiting beliefs from my inner mind.
Not only for clearing victim beliefs, but any kind of false beliefs that stops you from progressing can be cleared using this method, so you may like to try some of my favorite methods for clearing energy blocks.
I hope you enjoyed this post. What are your views on this? Do you know any other method for eliminating victim mindset? Share your opinions by commenting below, I would love to hear from you.
You can send your emails using the contact page, I will be more than happy to help you with any of your issues.
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