How I escaped the victim mentality trance

This blog is inspired by my automatic victimhood response, I no longer wish to keep. Without realising, I have victim mentality for as long as I remember.

A victim mentally is when you allow someone else to dictate your emotions and blame them for it. For example, if someone looks at you in the street, you can choose to feel self-conscious and assume it is because you look ugly. Or you can smile and think nothing of it.

If someone stresses and tells you, “You need to do XYZ asap!” you can choose to let them stress you out too. You crack on with the workload while panicking and feeling overloaded. Or you can choose to remain calm and get on with the work.

Today I decided that I am done with feeling powerless. I am done with allowing other people’s actions to dictate how I feel. It is time to change my behaviour.

I love the quote, “She needed a hero, so she became one”. I like it so much I printed it out, bought a cheap frame from Poundland and pinned it to my bedroom wall.

I like it because whenever I choose to feel personally attacked or frustrated at the world, I look at it and allow my mind to absorb the words. It kicks my mind out of a ‘poor me, give me sympathy’ attitude and boots it into an I’M GOING TO KICK FUNKING ASS! attitude.

Note: My Mum had a chat with me and suggested I make my blogs ‘GCSE student friendly’. This is her unique way of saying “stop swearing”. So, out of respect for my dear Mother, I am replacing all profanity with basically the same word but one letter difference. We’ll see how this goes down next time I visit her…

This blog gives you a glimpse into my automatic response and not-so-great personality traits. I’ve included ideas to get out of a poor me trance, practical examples about how I am changing my victim response to become the empowered, bad-ass hero.

My automatic response to ‘attacks’

When someone pisses me off e.g. a tenant’s psycho boyfriend harassing my WhatsApp, email and phone with crazy demands, I automatically choose to feel personally attacked and will seek sympathy from anyone willing to give it.

After the first rant to a friend I feel better, but then I continue to talk about it to anyone who asks the generic, “how are you?” I wonder how many people regret asking? When ranting becomes complaining, that’s when I need to stop.

Complaining is a selfish energy drain, and it is not fair for my friends. Plus, it causes me to think about the problem more.

The more I think about a problem, the more personally attacked and stressed I feel. This stress creates a hypnotic downward spiral of poor me thoughts in my mind.

It is so easy to get trapped in that damn spiral. It’s like being in a trance! I keep going over and over the same problem in my head, feeling worse and worse about it.

Obviously, this is dumb and a waste of time, but if you are trapped in poor me trance, how do you get out?

How to get out of a poor me trance

Idea 1: Call that friend

I begrudgingly call that honest and direct friend who tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear.

Her words sometimes feel harsh and unsympathetic. As my mind expects sympathy this response shocks my system and metaphorically slaps me in the face. It snaps me out the poor me trance which is the first stage of not feeling like a victim and begins to help me to escape the victim mentality trap.

I don’t like admitting there is a better perspective to have on the situation.

I WANT SYMPATHY.

I want to stay in my downward spiral because that’s my comfort zone. But my comfort zone is not where feeling better lies.

It is disorientating to learn that being in my comfort zone is actually damaging me. It not helping me become a better person, which is what I want. Food for thought.

Idea 2: Go for a run in nature

There is something very calming about nature. I can utilise all that pent up anger to fuel my run. Losing body fat for the win!

Being in nature and expelling all the anger out my body allows my mind to think clearly. Angry thoughts make my brain foggy.

There isn’t a quick fix

Getting out of a poor me trance won’t instantly make you feel better. The circumstances that caused you to enter your victim mentality state will still be there.

But, what it will do is get you out a self-abusive downward spiral.

Let’s not be taboo about this. When we are in that downward spiral we abuse ourselves physically and mentally. When in the downward spiral we justify drinking too much alcohol, damaging our health, smoking more, comfort eating, or putting up with an abusive relationship.

Take a look at your current behaviours.

Being in this downward spiral is not what life is meant to be like.  Our minds and bodies are amazing. We all deserve to be treated with love and respect. Sadly, we never feel the previous sentence is true when in a downward spiral.

YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT DECISION TO MAKE

Two weeks ago I got into an argument with someone close to me. There was some miscommunication over the phone.

I interpreted what they said as Jess, you are inadequate. You are an idiot if you are asking me for help. You should already know.

I replied and thought I was communicating “Repeatedly insinuating I am inadequate is not helpful.”

They interpreted this as me saying “You have ceased to be helpful in my life.”

I then got a bunch of texts saying to never call or text them again… for today. Plus a passive aggressive text saying, “I hope you find someone who is helpful to you.”

I had trusted this person with my vulnerability. I felt they completely trampled upon my trust and threw it back in my face. Man that hurt. I cried for four hours wondering why they were so mean! What had I done to deserve that?

Once I got out my poor me trance by doing the two ideas above, I made a decision to never feel like a victim again. My current progress with that will have to wait for another blog (it’s a bit of a long story). For now, you need to remember two things when you feel personally attacked and get into a poor me trance:

• Talk to someone that won’t give you sympathy, but will make you face your problem and help you look for a solution
• Get active! Channel that anger and resentment into doing something that is ultimately creative. I like to go for a run, but you may enjoy singing, or painting, or going to the gym. The important thing is not allowing yourself to wallow in your feelings.

Thanks so much for reading this blog, if you liked it please share it using the social media buttons. We’ve started a coaching community on Facebook. In this community, we hope you will share your own aha moments, discuss and engage with the community about how to achieve your dreams, having the right mindsets, wealth, freedom and property investment.

Here are some more of my adventures:

• A practical guide to answering the question “WTF should I do with my life?”
• How I was able to raise £250,000 in 7 days
• Here’s what happened when I bought my first property

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