Do You Have To Accept Being A Victim?

What if I'm the one to blame for my own difficult circumstances?

That could be pretty hard to accept if you are one who was hit by the drunken driver, harder still if you look at the circumstances of someone who was abused at the hands of a stronger person, one who clearly lacked the ability to defend themselves at the time.

So, let's shift the question from blaming someone else for my circumstances, to:

Who's to blame for how I experience my circumstances?

Now, this one could be really interesting, especially for those of you who like to keep raising the red herring of "blaming the victim."

Anyone who has ever worked with victims of various tragedies will know that there is a great deal of difference between what happened and how the person responds to what happened. You may not have chosen the circumstances, but sooner or later you are going to have to accept responsibility for your responses and choices that come after the fact.

(An important caveat here: I am definitely not addressing those who may have been truly incapable of choosing or responding differently. For example, I am not addressing those who have become brain injured. However, I am addressing those who continue to bemoan their fate rather than get on with what's left.)

There are thousands of examples around us every day of people who have gone through hell and chosen to rise above what has happened to them. Some will say these are superheroes, and, I suppose they are in a way. What makes them super, however, has precious little to do with gifted abilities; it does have to do with the mindful awareness and courage to accept that if anyone is going to do anything about my problems, it's probably going to start with me.

My favorite example is Mitchell, as he prefers to be called. Mitchell was horribly disfigured in a fiery motorcycle crash many years ago; after many surgeries and a lengthy recovery, he then found himself paralyzed as a result of a small airplane crash. As he is fond of saying,

"Before I was paralyzed there were 10,000 things I could do. Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I've lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left."

Read his book, It's Not What Happens To You, It's What You Do About It, and see for yourself what could happen if you truly do choose to accept responsibility for your next steps.

Can Acceptance Be The Key To Lasting Change?

This opens an important question in terms of creating life in a more fulfilling and uplifting way - the role of acceptance.

Acceptance may be one of those mandatory preconditions not only improving your life experience, but also for discovering your source of Inspiration and Aspiration.

(If you want to follow the larger context, here's a link to my free archive of Huff Post articles. You can either start with the July 20, 2009 post which started this series on inspiration and aspiration, or you may prefer to go all the way back to my first post on July 15, 2008. There's no way I know of to impart a complete answer in a single post, so if some of this seems to be hanging out there a bit, you may find it useful to read some of the earlier posts and connect the dots.)

If someone chooses to live in a state of denial, it's pretty hard to help them make any improvement. Talk to anyone counsels people in difficult circumstances, ranging from addiction and cancer to divorce and bankruptcy, and most will tell you that a critical step on the path to recovery is acceptance.

Acceptance does not mean "liking it." You don't have to like your circumstance, you just have to acknowledge the reality and accept that the circumstance is what it is. Mitchell couldn't do anything to change the disfigurement or paralysis yet neither did he have to dwell on some kind of self-pity or bemoan his fate. While it might be understandable that one would indulge in a few rounds of self-pity, sooner or later acceptance has to show up if you are going to move forward.

Shortly after my father died, the insurance company denied both health and death benefits, and our family was forced into a third bankruptcy, I wound up living in my beater of a car. Sure, not the same level as Mitchell, but tough enough for an 18 year old.

I received some great counsel from an early mentor, Ernie Gourdine. Ernie turned me on to Fritz Perls (considered the "father of Gestalt therapy"). Fritz was big on awareness with a constant suggestion that simple awareness can often be curative. Awareness is a precursor to acceptance - hard to accept what you don't notice.

I found myself blaming my family, blaming the hospital, blaming the insurance company, and just about anything or anyone around. Then I noticed that no matter how much I blamed something or someone, I still had my circumstances to deal with. Once I accepted the reality - a beater car, a few clothes, $6.35 in the bank, and not much else - I was then able to start making choices about how to improve my situation.

To be sure, there were numerous challenges, but the only choice I had was to choose or to collapse and decry my fate.

So, take a look at your circumstances. Can you accept that they just are what they are? Even if it seems you have been dealt a raw hand, it's still the hand you are left to play. If you are going to improve upon the current reality, the very first thing you have to do is accept what you have. You don't have to like it, want it or anything close; you just have to accept that what's present, is what's so. From there, you can begin to make choices about how to make things a bit better.

You can blame the banks, the politicians, the greedy powers that be, and just about anyone else. I know from my own experience, that after you get done blaming, you are still going to be left with your life, your circumstances, and your next choices.

So, consider carefully how you choose. Each choice leads you somewhere. Are you choosing a direction your truly prefer?

More on this notion to come, including some thoughts about progress vs. perfection, and what to do if the next choice you make doesn't work out quite the way you hoped.

As always, please do share your thoughts, comments and suggestions, either via the comments section below, or by emailing me directly.

***

Russell Bishop is an Educational Psychologist, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California. You can find out more about Russell at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell by email at: Russell (at) lessonsinthekeyoflife.com

 

Follow Russell Bishop on Twitter: www.twitter.com/inspiredguy

Comments

[itolduso]

I believe it would be much easier for those who were 'victims' to take responsibility ....if more who were perpetrators were also held responsible

[militantlibrarian]

As someone whose family tree is loaded with major depression and bipolar disorder, I believe the "think positive and you'll get over it" philosophy can be pernicious. Some folks brain chemicals just don't cooperate.

[wendy82551]

I'm not opposed to "taking responsibility for your experience" as a strategy for feeling better about life. Certainly, I will feel more powerful if I think I have some say in the matter. But what concerns me about articles like this is that it's all too easy to use this stuff as a justification for ignoring real social injustices, for failing in compassion for the true victims in the world.

It's all very well to learn some techniques for feeling better about yourself and your world, but as someone who has participated in just about every New Age-y thing known to mankind, I am struck by the very, very high level of navel-gazing that goes on in that universe. Supporting narcissism isn't particularly useful for the future of our planet or, in the long term, for our sense of ourselves as giving and loving human beings.

Rather than coaching executives on how to make more money, I'd be a hell of a lot more impressed if your description said something about "committed to coaching activists in the areas of health care, the environment, world peace" -- something like that. Or that you were an advocate for rape victims. Or something other than feeling good about yourself.

[mjegan59]

Russel,

Thank you for an important posting, especially in these trying times. Making lemonade out of lemons can be a lost art when it seems like there's so much to be worried about. I suggest being thankful for small things - even saying thank you out loud, especially as we head to the thanksgiving season. I practice saying thank you with my 13 month old daughter every morning. We walk out into our backyard and actually say thank you to each of the fruit trees for giving us fruit to eat (and we even thank the barren loquat tree for standing up tall). This simple act works to set both my daughter and I straight each morning. She calms down when she touches the acorns on the ancient oaks and smells the lemon flowers. I calm down too when I remember that nature doesn't care about making monthly bill payments or coping with family challenges. Even though it's a small step, starting the mornings with thank yous is a small but powerful step in setting the tone for the day. Your blog has given another thing for me to be thankful for this morning.

Be well.

[Paul David Walker - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for your post, many people feel victimized today. But regardless of our circumstances, and there are many horrible circumstances people live through, life itself is beautiful beyond description. The problem for most of us is that our consciousness is focused on our thoughts about life instead of being alive. While we might use positive thoughts to let go of negative thoughts , for any true happiness we have to let go of all thoughts to truly experience life. Once we start doing this our "pity parties" seem so useless and small. No matter how bad our circumstances, I find that placing my consciousness on any sliver of life I can find fills me with joy. Our thoughts can become a prison, look out the window at the stars instead.

[jennylynn]

According to the Dems they are always victims. They need to read this.

[Lisa Earle McLeod - Huffpost Blogger]

Gee, I can see where this is more helpful than my response to whiners:

"Suck it up and quit bellyaching Eeyore."

Seriously, the choose your response idea is such a basic, yet crucial concept, that makes all the difference in the world.

Great piece.

[jennylynn]

Please send this article to every dem you know. They are always pointing the finger in the blame game and crying about their circumstance. Title of the article is "mandatory for the dems to read".

[LeonardNolt]

Thanks for this worthwhile article. In my own experience which occured at a medical center run by Trinity Health in Idaho, I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of having been the target of a bully.

During the course of my recovery I learned a lot. I learned that even if you work for a medical center and are diagnosed by your employer with an on-the-job injury, you may still be denied a safe work environment and treatment for the injury. I learned that unfortunately, co-workers who witness the abuse will not necessarily report it.

The author rightfully points out that there are "thousands of examples around us every day of people who have gone through hell and chosen to rise above what has happened to them." There are also thousands of people around us who have gone through hell and have been permanently injured by the experience, as the example he gave of Mitchell.

In my own experience concerning workplace bullying I've noted that many people including medical professionals and senior management still take a "let's bury our heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist" attitude. That makes the problem worst and creates a road block for injured people who are trying to move on. Unfortunately a lot of people just don't want to talk about it.

To read more check my blog "The Cambium Level" under the heading "Workplace Psychological Abuse" at www.leonardnolt.blogspot.com

Sincerely

Leonard Nolt

[balancedsolution]

When you are a victim of medical professionals...you truly are a victim.

The one's supposed to aid you are sometimes the ones that hurt you.

It's a world where there are sharks, and sometimes sharks bite you when you didn't ask for it.

Being a victim of a situation you never asked for is horrible. Ultimately though you need to learn to accept things, and go on with what you do have. Life is a lesson we bring into the next realm.

[dragonfly24]

Sometimes you are a victim.
And sometimes it is not your fault.
Sometimes it's appropriate to blame some people so it doesn't happen again.
Some Buddhist-like philosophies were created to help people live in unjust societies without making a fuss.

I agree that with PTSD you are not in control of the flashbacks and triggers, it just happens. Real victims often hear about how they should be over it now. No one wants to hear about the tedious hellish process of recovery and healing, until it's done and there is a nice ending.

It's really hard to turn a crap situation into something great and I admire those who do. And those who aren't yet able to I know how hard it can be.

[mynewconnection]

I think part of accepting the circumstances you are given is about how you handle them. Events happen to us but our reactions matter the most. I believe this has to do with maturity. As a young adult, I have noticed this from my own personal experience.

[ClarkKentsContacts]

I've noticed the mindfulnes­s/acceptan­ce cloud floating nearer of late, as Isaiah Berlin noted happens when the world seems very unjust. As a younger man I lived by these notions, as I thought both physics and philosophy converged there, and the rational person knew all things were as they must be, and desire was suppressible. Plus it let me hide my fears of failure and rejection, and pretend it was strength that allowed me to accept things.

But I've lived through he/ls since then - and, ironically, they were much compounded by my sense of failure/weakness to not accept where I was. To see "blaming the victim" called a red herring in this article, is one of the most stunning things I've seen of late. I don't know what to even say, other than to tell any people who are reading this and may need to hear it, it was not your fault.

Accurate causal relationships represent understanding. Yes, some times, for some things, the banks or the politicians are to blame. Furthermore, why is the only choice you see either blaming others OR moving forward. For a very large number of us, moving forward can only begin when we realize that there is someone to blame, and it's not us. If you think ACCEPTANCE is good, you should really try to work up the courage to get a taste of I'M NOT GOING TO ACCEPT THAT - it's like seeing in colour after a life of black and white.

[T Pol]

Good for you! Too many people just "take it." Insisting on accountability from others is a good thing to do. And your comment about not blaming the victim is gratefully acknowledged!

For me, what works is any version of the Serenity Prayer (even if you don't pray) because it is a balance of concepts.

G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

We were given the power to use judgment and make decisions for a reason.

[whateverlolawants]

Thank you!!!! While I agreed with some parts of the article, I think the distinction was not made clearly enough (whether on purpose or not) that acceptance doesn't have to mean not fighting back against injustice, or pointing fingers where they belong to be pointed, or working to make sure it never happens again, etc. And also, you have to mourn your losses. I'm all for moving ahead and making the best of where you are, I truly am, and I think the author and I agree on that. But you can't deny your psychology, your emotions- you have to work with them.

And yeah... I don't understand what he meant by calling "blaming the victim" a red herring either.

[FoonTheElder]

When you are victimized at work, most non-wealthy people have little choice but to put up with it. The alternative is to get fired and go broke. Even if you find another job, there's a good chance that the new employer will be doing the same thing.

[Venicedread]

"Even if you find another job, there's a good chance that the new employer will be doing the same thing."

What kind of crap is that!
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Did you even read the article?
This article is designed for people like you.
Please read it again, the writer does make a lot of sense.
And stop going through life with, what my friend refers to as, "the why bothers".
You are more powerful than you think.

[FoonTheElder]

It's written by someone who has ignored the effect of the last 30 years on most working people and is not based on the reality of the situation for many people.

I've been through all of the work hard and it will come crap, only to be jerked over for most of the last 35 years by managements of crooks, liars, incompetents and sociopaths. The business world is full of people who will go to church every Sunday and make immoral decisions the rest of their working life.

Self-improvement is one thing you should always strive for, but you can't always make enough to eat and raise a family based on what you prefer to do. Many of the people who wanted a career based on something they love to do often find out that they can't make enough money to survive in this world.

[brooklyncitizen]

I always think taking responsibility is a rite of passage on the way to emotional maturity .

Many of the Christian mystics as well as Buddhists and Hindu speak of cultivating detachment as a way of moving through life and all circumstances. You can only observe and have simple awareness when you detach from what is happenning.

Maybe this society has been set up to equate "pursuit of happiness" with nothing going wrong. I think it is possible to hold both suffering and joy at the same time.