ExcerptRecognizing VictimhoodThough she wears a sunny disposition outside, inside, the perky 42-year-old mother is resigned to three ideas: 1. It’s too late in her life to go back to college like she always wanted to. She’d look ridiculous, and who has the time, anyway? 2. Her ex-husband is to blame for her financial problems and for her children’s disrespectful behavior. 3. No matter what she does—no matter how many self-help workshops she attends or how much inner work she does with herself—things are not really ever going to change for her. Quite a life sentence she’s given herself: hopelessness and helplessness, twin offspring of the same poisonous parent known as “Victimhood.” When we operate from a victim mentality, we give the power to create our own life to someone else, and then we moan about how controlling the other is. To avoid taking responsibility, we create (and protect at all costs!) the dangerous illusion that we are always right. We blame others for our circumstances and remain stuck in a silent “poor me” that keeps us small. |