Blog #2 – Victim Mentality

The reason we fall into a victim mindset and engage in finger-pointing situations is because we don’t understand ourselves well enough. We don’t know what hurts us the most, what we need, what actions we can take in a given situation, what strengths we possess to navigate out of it, and most importantly, we don’t understand our own emotions. In the surge of negative emotions, everything happens so quickly that our mental system gets hijacked, triggering the natural defensive mode of fight, flight, or freeze to protect ourselves.

Instead of resisting this mindset, it is always beneficial to maintain a nonjudgmental attitude and curiosity to understand the source of our feelings of victimization. Often, we find it difficult to understand the situation because we resist accepting things as they are. We hold onto disappointments or perceptions that interpret the incident differently, leading to internal conflicts that distract us from objectively assessing the situation. Otherwise, we hinder ourselves from feeling and intervening logically, slowly losing sight of the most important meaning for ourselves in life.

Once the sense of self is strengthened, the victim mentality diminishes. Eventually, life’s challenges are perceived as tests that strengthen inner character rather than disruptions to our lives.