Does being a victim help you?
Does Playing the Victim Ruin Your Life?
"If only... If only..."
As a coach I often get to work with people in a space of deep honesty. Together we take a good look at a client's life situation and their relationship to that situation. We gain insights into their truest feelings (not the roles that veneer the feelings). We then go on to reveal the behaviours and choices that they are making to hold themselves in their broken life situation.
I have grown to realise that many people have an active and strong victim personality. This personality doesn't do any favours and deserves special attention. You may know that you play a victim role in your own life or very likely you know somebody who is plays the victim. I hope this article sheds some light on the way that playing the victim can lead to a crappy life situation. If you can see these behaviours at play then you may be able to choose a different way of being. As a life coach I can help you do that.
Being a victim is an illusion. It makes you feel crappy. The victim has a need for unhappiness and will find daily or hourly reasons to maintain its state of unhappiness.
Can the victim within you say what a beautiful day this is?
Personal Power
We could describe our current state of affairs as our "life situation". When you play the victim you say you are not to blame for your life situation. You say you are not responsible. Well who is then? Other people? Where is your personal power?
When you say you are not responsible aren't you really saying that someone else has more power over your life than you do? You have effectively given your power away to others. This is the illusion – every choice you have ever made has got you where you are right now. You have always been in power. The victim character will have you believe otherwise.
Allow me to shed some light on this victim dynamic...
When you give away your sense of power it makes you feel narrow, closed, contracted – downright yucky. Is that how you want to feel day in day out? The victim character creates the illusion of powerlessness. The victim deploys a vicious cycle in your day. It drains your energy, leading to a greater sense of powerlessness. You develop a limp flaccid relationship with life. Your movie is dull. When you lose your power then what of your dreams, your deepest aspirations? Taking it to its natural conclusion -- dreams are only things that other people have.
When you kid yourself that you do not have choices you are weak and incapable. You are smaller. If you keep playing the victim you get smaller and smaller. You then allow others to come out on top which you then use to prove to yourself how small you really are.
Perhaps you can see how the victim character has got you into your own life situation? How the victim has caused your life-movie to shape up in a certain way? Can you see how the victim character has given your power away.
Perhaps you know someone who plays the victim. What can you observe about the way their life is evolving?
Getting Attention
Sometimes a victim character has developed as a way to get love, sympathy or attention from others. This often happens in a relationship where other people are of a "Can't stand to see others suffer" flavour. Your victim character will detect their pity trait and seize the opportunity to get attention where it might normally have been absent. The victim character simply turns on the woe-is-me and love and sympathy come flowing in. It likes to be loved. Sometimes friendships form where most of the relating is of the form "My life sucks and I am going to tell you all about it" and "Oh I pity you and I will listen to you". Maybe you are a pitier and you have friends that do that to you? Maybe they never ask you how you are and you are sick of hearing their story? People get bored of victims eventually.
Of course not everybody will have pity on a victim. The victim has a good strategy to deal with that one as well, it simply labels them as insensitive or uncaring people... further bolstering its victimhood. The victim augments its life sapping needs, while ruining your day. Quite a cunning character this victim hey!
There is another twist in the ways of the attention-getting victim. It has found a way to bolster your self-worth! By getting attention, it demonstrates that others care for you... So you must be worth something after all -- Perhaps compensating for the crappy feeling that results from giving your power away. What a terrorist the victim character is.
If you have a victim character can you see how it uses its unhappiness to get attention? If you know a victim don't pity them, just know that you cannot create their happiness for them! That is their job – when they choose.
Manipulating Friends and Loved Ones
The victim character can use its quest for attention in more devious ways. It can manipulate, control and abuse others to get what it/you needs. Some people think that they are responsible for the health, happiness or success of others. Truth is as an individual it is only you who is ultimately responsible for your happiness, health and success. A person can feign being a victim to prey on the pity of others. Maybe the victim isn't actually victimised, maybe it is just a ruse to get attention. The manipulations here can become complex and covert.
Victims are often angry and frustrated. If you have a victim character can you see how it has manipulated other people, including those that you love? If you look at the facts of a victim's life-situation you may see that the victim role is not credible. Perhaps you know a victim?
What kind of person wants to relate to someone who is angry resentful or frustrated much of the time? Another victim? Eventually a victim will keep other people away. It will remove you from the warm love of life. But maybe you liked that. Maybe it is time to change?
The Opposite of the Victim
Choice versus victimhood is a subject that is often explored in a life coaching relationship. Whenever a client expresses a powerlessness over their current life situation then we can suspect the presence of a victim character. Your victim character can be neutralised by taking 100% responsibility for your choices and actions. I can help you through this transformation. This responsibility will put you back in power. When you have choice, your life horizon is expansive.
What is the opposite of playing the victim? Vitality and control.
Take up the challenge of choosing to not play the victim today! Perhaps a few sessions with Great Life Coach can pave the way to enjoying a brilliant year.
Go well
Lee
Working with Great Life Coach
Life coaching and the unique pastoral role that coaches play has really evolved over the past decade. A few years back people were looking for hand holding and structure, but now my sessions are much more dynamic... and fun! Let's work together to transform your life situation.
I now have many clients who use our monthly coaching session to take stock of their lives, to gain perspectives and to feel supported in the choices and transformations that they are committed to making. After all, life is too short to flounder around trying to be somebody else.
Many of my clients are hard working, productive, intelligent capable people living full-lives. They are in-tune with their growth and are always interested in strategies to be more purposeful, passionate and peaceful. They use our life coaching relationship as an effective, challenging, positive way to deal with life's dips, lulls, uncertainties and energy drains.
If you think you are a victim or not, whether your focus is Career, relationship or spiritual, I can help you. Together we evolve juicy strategies to continue feeling worthy and alive. I partner with intelligent people who want to excel at their passions, gifts and talents in a way that brings them success, life balance and happiness.
Make an enquiry right now by clicking the link at the top of this page or call 0330 058 8385.
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