Many people do not realize how much they are limiting themselves by blaming themselves or someone else for where there life is right in this moment. Whether we have faced abuse or some other situation that has felt unfair; hurt someone else intentionally or unintentionally; or come down with a physical or emotional disease or impairment – the number one way to begin to shift out of whatever situation you have been in is to begin to take responsibility for where you are in this moment. “Coulda woulda shoulda’s” or pointing a finger does nothing but disempower you and causes you to feel unmotivated and powerless to change your circumstances.  Here are 5 ways to step out of the victim mentality to create the life you want.

1. Forgiveness of Others – You cannot move forward if you are in the past feeling victimized by something someone did to you or a circumstance that happened.  Being in this state of not forgiving means you are still giving that other person or circumstance energy and are not moving past it.  It helps to use tools like “Ho’oponopono”  to forgive others.  You are coming from a place of compassion. Happy, well-adjusted people don’t go around hurting others.  If someone is abusive – they were most likely abused and never healed from it continuing the cycle.  Using Ho’oponopono is a simple way to transmute that energy so you can move into the present moment.
2. Forgiveness of Self – I am sure when I mentioned taking responsibility in your life it brought up some feelings.  This does NOT mean blaming yourself.  Quite the opposite.  If there is a situation you feel regret about – you have beaten yourself up about it for long enough. Allow yourself be free of it. If you have felt badly about a past situation, you have learned from it and would  act differently now knowing what you know. Take the lesson, give gratitude for what was learned and absolve yourself from the guilt.  If you need to make peace with someone else – do so. Ho’oponopono is also a very powerful way to forgive yourself at a deep soul level.
3. Become Aware of your Self Talk – Victim mentality is caused by circumstances in the past, but it can perpetuate by the language you are using when you talk to yourself.  For example, do you say things like “my abuse”, “my disease”, “when they did that to me”, or “I am an abuse victim”.  These things can keep you rooted in the past and actually be attracting new situations to you where you are a victim once again.  By coming to peace with the situation as you did in the first and second steps, you free yourself to be in the present. Use that time to listen and act the way you talk about the situation to see if it is still charged and you are still giving it energy.  I have seen clients with more horrific abuse than I care to imagine and they have been able to overcome their past and become present and speak to themselves in a much more empowering manner. Calling yourself a victim repeatedly and owning that challenge as if it is a part of you will keep you stuck in a victim mentality. Give yourself permission to let it go and choose more positive words to support yourself.
4. Get Present and Give Yourself Gratitude – Now that you have done some healing around this issue, spend some time looking at it honestly and see how it might have affected your life to this point.  Let yourself off the hook, knowing this was a healing process and now you are ready for the next stage. See if there were any life lessons learned from the situation and give yourself credit for noticing a blessing in what might have felt like a curse for so long. If you left an abusive relationship perhaps that has allowed you to come into claiming your self-worth which is priceless. No matter if you have spent the last days, weeks, months, years or decades running the past victim dialogue – you can be free of it now. You are working on being free of it to move to the next stage of your life with grace. I feel that deserves heaps of gratitude.  It is scary to let go with something we have identified so closely with. In letting go of it however, we allow ourselves to step into the power of our present moment. Give yourself so much gratitude for being in this place of power to move forward.
5. Set Intentions – Victimhood keeps you stuck in the past, you have now given yourself permission to move into the future.  Honor it. Tell yourself you are now ready to move on with life now that you have the extra energy you had invested in being stuck.  Set intentions in every area of your life; mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, and financially and tell yourself one small step you can take in any of these areas to move yourself forward. When you consciously take a step to improve your life in a way you are intending, you might be so surprised how the Universe rises up to meet you giving you new opportunities.

Life is meant to be lived in the present moment, in flow, feeling confident and powerful. Life cannot be lived well from a place of feeling a victim in any area of your life. The inspiration from this post came from an interview I did with Robert Meager of Naked Spirituality when I mentioned I had “become my diseases” and he wanted me to elaborate. Here is the link to that 23 minute interview and I hope watching it inspires you to take action.  Thank you so much for reading this and please give yourself credit – sometimes it is hard to admit we have allowed ourselves to become a victim in our lives. Having the awareness is a part of the lesson and it is always okay – you now have some tools to move on past it and start empowering your life. I wish you all the best on your Short Path to Change.