Ep #26: Are You in Victim Mentality?
episode summary
Ever feel like all the bad things that happen to you are completely out of your control? Are you caught between the overwhelming urge to please others and a simmering resentment that they demand so much of you? Is everything always everyone else's fault?
If those questions rang true, you might be stuck in victim mentality, which can be draining and debilitating. But here's the good news - it's a learned behavior, which means it can be unlearned. I can help you embrace a more empowering perspective on life - let's get started!
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Podcast Ep #23: Embracing Radical Responsibility
For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.
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CHAPTERS:
1:09 - What Exactly Is Victim Mentality?
5:10 - Identifying Victim Mentality
8:59 - Radical Responsibility
listen to the episode:
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hello friends, thanks for joining me today. We are having an absolutely beautiful day. Here where I live in St. Louis, it is fall and I think it's about 55 degrees. I just had to get up and close my windows for the sake of trying to have a quiet office for recording this podcast, but as soon as it's over, I'm going to be opening those babies back up. I just love when you can wear shorts and a sweatshirt. To me, that is like the best, best outfit. Fall is my favorite season, so anyway, I am living it up this morning with beautiful fall weather. Today we're talking about victim mentality. This might be something that you have heard the term, but you don't know exactly what it is or how it impacts your life or how you can, if you find yourself being in victim mentality, get out of it. So my goal today is to teach you all of those things and give you some actionable steps that you can take if you do find yourself in victim mentality. So what exactly is victim mentality? Essentially, it's when you or someone you know feels that all the bad things that are happening to them are completely out of their control, that the circumstances are due to other people and other situations and that there's nothing that they can do. And they just continue to believe that someone else has caused the problem and that only someone else can solve the problem. And the reason I want to talk about this today is because if you or someone you love is in victim mentality, it's really hard for them to feel better, for you to feel better, since you believe that when you're in victim mentality, that everything is happening to you and that it's something or someone else's fault, there's really nothing you can do to feel better because it's all out of your control. Metaphorically speaking, it's like this you know, sometimes, when you're like walking along and your shoelace is sort of partially untied and somebody will accidentally step on the end of your shoelace and then your shoelace comes untied, being in a victim mentality would be like, "I can't believe that just happened to me. I can't believe my shoe just came untied. I can't do anything. I can't walk another step until this shoe gets tied. I'm just going to sit here and wait for that person who just did that to come back and tie my shoe. And if they don't come back and tie my shoe, I'm just going to have to sit here, but what I'm going to do while I'm sitting here with my shoe untied is talk about how my shoe is untied and how that happened to me and how I had done nothing to deserve that and how it was so unfair." Right. So what I want to teach you today is how to notice that that happened, notice that you are not tying your own shoe, and teach you how to think about tying your own shoe and actually taking the action to tie your own shoe, because as soon as you can switch out of victim mentality, you can feel better. When you're in victim mentality, you're just not going to feel better. As you hear me describing this, you might be thinking, oh, I never do that, that's not me. But I encourage you to keep listening, because I think every single one of us has a little bit of victim mentality built in, and in certain situations it's easier to blame someone else or believe that someone else has caused the problem. So just listen and see if there's something that you have noticed about yourself as I'm describing these, so that you can just gently, without judgment, shift yourself out of victim mentality. The great news about victim mentality is that it's just a learned behavior, so it's not like a disease for which there's no help and you're just stuck in victim mentality forever. So I'm going to teach you how to notice when you're in victim mentality and how to get out of it so you can work on actually solving your problem. Also, as you're listening to this, or if maybe you chose this episode specifically because you know you're in victim mentality, I want you to approach this from a neutral, factual place, not a judgmental, "I'm doing it all wrong" place. You probably learned this behavior at some point because you did have a hard situation where you felt helpless and because of that, you learned to feel like you were helpless and that other people were responsible for causing bad things to happen to you and that they also were supposed to be responsible for solving those things. So if you find yourself really in victim mentality mindset right now, give yourself compassion. I'm going to teach you how to change the way that you're thinking about it and just don't judge yourself. Be kind, and, slowly but surely, work your way out of this. Also, as you're thinking about this, you'll for sure be thinking of someone in your life who you're like, "Oh, I know that person is in victim mentality". Just remember, as always, that what other people think and say and do is out of your control. So even if you're listening to this podcast, thinking, oh, this is perfect for my husband or my sister-in-law or whoever, just remember that the only person that you can change is yourself. So look for these patterns in you and see where you can make those changes and be a great example to whoever else you're thinking of. Okay, so how do you know if you're in victim mentality? Number one is if you talk about, or think a lot about, how someone else is ruining your life all the time, like your boss or your work, like your job, for example. I remember there was a point where my ex-husband said to me, "you either need to stop talking about this or Get a new job, because I was talking about this miserable work situation at dinner Every night for months without doing anything to change it. I was just essentially complaining about all these bad things happening to me, so I was definitely in victim mentality there. See, if you can think about a situation Maybe it's not your work, but a different situation where you feel like another person is ruining your life for some reason. If you tend to have negative thought patterns like this always happens to me. Or it's not fair that this happened for something. I mean something simple, like traffic. Or Like if there's a flu bug going around and you get it, that you're thinking, of course I'm the one who gets it. This is so not fair. Or you spill coffee on your shirt - "Of course I spilled coffee on my shirt. That kind of thinking can indicate that you're in a victim mentality mindset. Another one is if you're a person who runs around to try to please everybody else to the detriment of yourself, so people pleasing, and then when you just completely run out of steam, a lot of times what I see is that people who are doing that and just run so hard to do everything for everyone else, eventually they have to stop, so they'll get sick, they'll be too exhausted, they'll lose their patience, whatever it is that stops. But then when it stops, you feel like it's everyone else's fault, like my family just expects me to take care of them and everyone on my team expects that I'm the one who's gonna remember everyone's birthdays and bring the birthday cake. So then you get resentful towards the people that you are taking care of. I feel like the example of this in my own life is when I get in that supermom mindset, right, like I'm making breakfast for my kids before school and getting everyone out the door and I'm in charge of everything, and then I'm like, oh, that was too much, I did too many things there. But if I was like my kids just demand that I make them breakfast, that's seeing it in a victim mentality. I think it's important to note too, as we're talking about this, that sometimes we actually all are victims in terms of, bad things happen. Bad stuff happens to everyone sometimes. So sometimes we're all just the victim of life's circumstances. But after a grieving period where you feel your feelings, we have to get out of victim mentality in order to solve the problem and feel better. So even something as simple as you know, you're getting ready to go on a trip. This has just happened to me twice in the past year. So this is why this one comes to mind for me. We were at the airport, getting ready to go on a trip and two different times our flight was completely canceled and in one case there were no new flights we could take for like three days. So that stinks. I didn't really expect that. Obviously I didn't make - I didn't book the flight for the wrong day, I just showed up for what I was supposed to show up for and I was the "victim air quotes to the flight being canceled. So that was really annoying. I was really mad and disappointed. One of my kids was crying. It was a bummer, but we can't solve the problem from there, right? So after you've felt the feelings and felt the disappointment, then you have to shift out of that victim mentality in order to solve the problem, to decide, okay, so what are we going to do? Are we going to cancel the trip? Are we going to rebook? Are we going to drive? What are we going to do next? The good news about victim mentality is it's a learned behavior, so it can be changed. When we're in victim mentality, we give our power to other people or circumstances in order to try to get them to solve it for us. So the real cure for victim mentality is simply taking back your power, which is a statement I actually kind of hate because it sounds so self-healthy and coach-y. But what it really means is when you believe that your happiness, your satisfaction, your peace comes from you, and not something that anyone else or any other situation is giving you, then you will be able to solve your own problems. So by taking back your power, I mean taking back what's in your control and taking action from there. So when you want to shift out of victim mentality, you ask yourself first the radical responsibility question and just a reminder, there's a whole podcast about radical responsibility if you're not familiar with that concept but you ask yourself what have I done to create or perpetuate this situation? Then think about a way that you can think differently about it and an action that you can take that has nothing to do with the other person or the other situation. If I go back to my earlier metaphor about the shoe coming untied, the first step is to notice okay, my shoe is untied. How did I create or perpetuate this situation? Now, the normal thought about that is like well, I didn't do anything, I was just walking and someone stepped on my shoelace, and that is true. But I bought shoes with ties, I wore them today and I went to a place where someone could possibly step on my shoe. So it doesn't mean it's my fault. It just reminds me that I made choices to get here and actually, instead of feeling blamey, that feels good to me, like I made choices, instead of feeling something happened to me. And then the second question to ask yourself is where am I waiting for someone else or something else to change? Well, I'm waiting for that person who stepped on my shoelace to come back and tie my shoe. And what action could I take on my side that could cure the problem? So once you realize because, as I read, I'm waiting for someone else to come back and tie my shoe, it's like obviously that's never going to happen. So the action I could take on my side to cure the problem is I could tie my shoe. Now, I know this is kind of a silly example, because unless you're three years old, you're probably not actually waiting for someone to tie your shoe. But the way we can apply this to adulthood is thinking about when someone hurts your feelings and you wait for them to apologize until you feel better. Let's say, your sister sees your new haircut and color and says, "I liked it better before, actually", and that hurts your feelings. So that puts you in the victim mentality of she's so mean. She always says mean things to me. Now I feel bad about my hair, I'm not going to talk to her until she apologizes. That was so rude, those kinds of things. So as soon as you notice that you're in victim mentality, ask yourself those same three questions. So the first one is what did I do to create or perpetuate this situation? Well, maybe you asked her opinion. Or even if you didn't, you're in a relationship with her and we're spending time with her and you got your haircut. Where am I waiting for someone else or something else to change? I'm waiting for my sister to say sorry, or for someone else, like another friend, to validate that my hair does look really good and that my sister's crazy and has terrible taste. So, again, looking outside of myself to try to make myself feel better. T he point of this question, question number two, is so that you can see where you're in victim mentality, where you're giving away all of your power. Then the next question is what action can I take on my side to cure the problem? Well, I can decide to forgive my sister. Yes, you can forgive people even if they don't say sorry. It's so freeing. I'm actually going to do a whole podcast on that concept, but you can just decide to forgive your sister. The other thing you could do is you could decide if you like your hair. And if you do like your hair, then you don't need anyone else's validation. If you don't, then you can make the choice to go back and get it styled another way or get it styled differently the next time you go get your hair done. If I go back to my other earlier example, where I was talking about having the mentality of, "it's not fair" if you're sitting in traffic, for example, and you ask yourself those same questions what did I do to create or perpetuate this situation Well, I got in my car and I drove it on the highway. That's how I got into this situation. Where am I waiting for someone else or something else to change? So, in order to solve this problem of being in traffic, I'm waiting for the traffic to clear up or for somebody to like move over and let me in. So I'm outsourcing my power, my peace, to that potential situation happening. What action can I take on this side to cure my problem? I just actually had this problem the other day. I was stuck in traffic. I was meeting my friend for her birthday and we were supposed to have breakfast and I was running late because I was in traffic. So the action that you can take is to think about what's in your control. So I can't control the traffic, I can't control what other people are doing. The only thing I can control is me in this car. So what I decided to do in that moment was to just turn off - I was listening to I don't know a podcast, probably, or something - and I just turned it off and I was like I'm just gonna create a situation in this car that is just peaceful and feels good. And so I just took deep breaths and drove along and appreciated, okay, it's a really nice sunny day, just continued to go on my drive, knew that I wasn't gonna make it on time, but knew that my friend would be okay. I trusted that she could wait for five minutes by herself and not be too upset. So you've always got the power to change your own situation. The last example I gave you, which may resonate with you, if you can sometimes flip into super mom mode, if you ask yourself at the end of a day where you're completely exhausted and you're feeling so annoyed at your family for requesting, just demanding, so much of you- taking them to all of their sports, having to work all day, never getting a break all day, didn't get a chance for lunch. If you're asked yourself, what did I do to create or perpetuate this situation? Well, if you've always taken care of your kids in that way and they are used to that, you have created a situation where that's what they're used to, probably the same with your team, probably the same with your lunch, if you think of lunch as optional and you only take lunch if you happen to find the time that day. So you're really just living out the situation that you've created. And where am I waiting for someone else or something else to change? Maybe you're waiting for your kids to say you know what, mom, why don't you take a break? You look tired. You have worked so hard today. Why don't you just go lay down on your bed and read for a while and we'll do the dishes? Right, or if you're waiting for your husband to notice, waiting for your husband to say, "why don't I pick the kids up from soccer tonight? So if you're waiting on someone else to change and try to make this situation better, then you need to ask yourself, what action can I take on my side to cure this problem? So you can decide to ask your husband to go pick up the kids from soccer. You can ask your kids to do the dishes. You can decide that, okay, this next upcoming weekend, I'm actually gonna make a list of the things that I'm going to do and not do. Next week, I'm gonna cook dinner three nights a week instead of five nights a week, or whatever it is. So take that action back on your side and make yourself feel better, because your family isn't going to change. They're only acting in the way that you have taught them to behave. Okay, friends, that is it for today. I hope that you have learned and noticed places in your life where you're in victim mentality, without judgment. Again, we all flip into this mode from time to time, but just remember that you always have the ability to switch yourself out of that mode by asking those three questions: What did I do to perpetuate the situation? Where am I waiting for someone else or something else to change? And what action can I take on my side to cure this problem? As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments about the podcast. You can email me at michellegauthier. com that's in the show notes too and if you haven't already signed up to receive my emails, do so! I send out a weekly email that always has something uplifting. You'll also get a notification when we have new podcasts and I'm getting ready to launch a group coaching called the Good Life, and if you are on my list, you will be part of the early bird notification, which will be a discounted price. The Good Life group coaching is going to teach you everything you need to know to take your life from chaos to calm. Okay, have a great week. See you next week" Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you wanna learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier. com. See you next week.
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