Victim-thinking has its place

Most healing efforts suggest that we move away from victim mode. In victim thinking, we perceive that someone has done something to us or life has done something unjust to us. We are a victim to our circumstances. .

Most people would argue that so long as we're in the victim mindset, it inhibits healing. But I’d like you to consider one circumstance where victim thinking is actually serving a very useful purpose for our overall being. It’s this: the pain of our actual circumstances may be greater than our capacity to bear it. .

We may not have the resources in this moment to hold space for the pain of what's happened to us in our life. Then, adopting a victim attitude is a very useful survival mechanism. When we can project our suffering onto something external, it provides a wall so that the density of our own emotions doesn’t overwhelm us.

Sometimes existing in that survival space is necessary until we're able to build up our resources and hold ourselves through our pain in ways that we weren't able to at the time that the pain happened. If you find yourself in victim thinking, meet yourself with compassion. Know that the victim thinking comes from the part of you that has worked so hard to protect you. It's coming from your survival itself. .

In order to heal, the first step is shoring up our resources and the availability of our energy in the moment, – increasing our capacity to be present – so that as we bear witness to what we've been hiding from through our victim thinking, we will have the capacity to move through it with grace, without retraumatizing ourselves. As that happens, the victim thinking will slowly fade further into the background.