Old-fashioned melodramas featured hapless heroines who always seemed to find themselves tied to a railroad track or evicted from home into a fierce storm as the villain twirled his oily moustache. Only a white-hatted hero or the cavalry could rescue them as they cried, “Woe is me!”
Times of stress or a need to respond to fearful situations can stir up the victim in all of us.
Here’s a Thriving quiz to help you see if you’ve been carrying around a victim mentality that may be robbing you of your sense of personal power. Answer true or false to the following statements.
T /F My first response to a setback is to blame someone else for what’s happened.
T /F No matter what I do, things are not really going to change for me.
T /F I often find myself beginning thoughts with phrases like “I can’t...,” “I’m no good at…” or “I’ve never been able to....”
T /F When things go wrong, I tend to beat myself up.
T /F Sometimes I’m lucky, but when bad things happen it’s because I messed up.
T /F When angry, I rarely begin sentences with “I.”
T /F Conversations with friends are often about how hard my life is.
T /F When friends offer advice, I usually counter it with “Yes, but…” since they can’t know how difficult my situation really is.
T /F I spend a fair amount of my time thinking about past failures and mistakes.
T /F Other people usually cause me to feel the way I do. I’d be more centered if it weren’t for them.
T /F I’m always so busy with work and the things I need to do to survive that I just don’t have time to do things I want to do for myself.
T /F I’d like to exercise more and eat in a healthier way, but I just can’t right now.
T /F If I weren’t tied down to all these obligations, I could really do some of the things I always think about doing.
T /F Someday I’ll find a new partner who will really change my life. In the meantime, all I can do is hope.
T /F Because I’ve made some mistakes in the past, I believe I am being punished now because nothing seems to work out for me.
T /F If only I had had more support, I could have… (fill in the blank.)
“Victimhood” is usually a way of staying stuck in old patterns and can be an externalizing way of dealing with unacknowledged anger or fear of change. If you answered true to more than a couple of these questions, chances are you’d benefit from an individual phone session from one of our Certified SimplyHealed Practitioners. They have all been trained personally by me and I highly recommend them to you.To learn more about each of them, go here:
http://carolyncooper.com/certified-simplyhealed-practitioners/
Author’s content used under license, © 2008 Claire Communications
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