Today’s episode features Dr. Alex as she talked about being a victim and the victim mentality. Dr. Alex explained the definition of victim mentality, and other words you can use to describe it. She also talked about what putting trauma under the rug looks like in practice.
Dr. Alex also shared tips on how to accept, acknowledge trauma and how it is an important concept. She also talked about acknowledging, validating trauma, and how to heal from it.
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Dr. Alex Golden: Hello, hello, it’s Dr. Alex here with you, I hope that you’re having a nice day or night, wherever you are in the world. Thank you so much for joining me today we’re gonna be talking about victim mentality and being a victim today. And as usual, it’s going to be a little bit different and deviating from the usual narrative around victim mentality. Because here’s the deal, I titled this the dreaded victim mentality, because A, the wording itself implies that you absolutely do not want to be this, right, that’s usually people’s reactions. And the way that we talk about it, then, is that it’s a problematic area that we need to move on from as quickly as possible, because it’s keeping us stuck. Now, there are truths and areas that I agree with in this whole discussion, that are very important. And at the same time, I feel that we have gotten too far, in some ways when it comes to this topic. And also, I think that we’ve taken it to the point where it’s become either or instead of an an situation. And it seems like, as we go through the seasons of this podcast, there’s more and more of this conversation that I feel very strongly needs to be had. And so, you know, this is just another installment of how do we bring in the end to our discussions, and believes as a society that we are sort of teaching on sharing with, and leading a conversation around that has real consequences, and impacts real people, how they feel about themselves, and how they navigate their life, how they feel about that, what experience they have very meaningful, impactful things, right, this is not a oh, let’s just talk about something. Because this actually impacts people’s lives significantly. And that’s why I feel called to talk about it so much. So we’re gonna dig into all that. I wanted to share a little bit about what’s happening and zesty ginger world in general, because we have some exciting things coming up. Yesterday, we had a really, really fun coaches connect. So if you haven’t heard about this before, if you’re a coach of any kind, if you work with people, if you teach, if you are out there sharing with humans, anything in the world, that you count as a coach in our mind. So we do these monthly coaches connect calls. And we essentially find topics that you all serving others and us are interested in, and to come together and to share this as networking. This is building connections. Yesterday’s call was all about podcasting. And so it was everyone on the call, and even people who weren’t there sent in ahead of time sharing up any podcasts that they have, and even things like Instagram Live shows that people do, it doesn’t necessarily have to be just podcast. But it was everyone sharing and coming together about what their podcast is what they’re looking for, who’s podcasts they want to be on, guests that they’re looking for. And it was just so much fun to sit and hear everyone’s passions, what they’re doing in the world, what they’re looking for. I mean, it was just so it was exhilarating. And I don’t use that word lightly. But to put a bunch of people together in one room who are really jazzed about serving humans, is a vibe. I mean, let me tell you what, so that was really fun. And then of course, we also touched on kind of the the latter. Third, Megan, I shared how we have grown our podcast, how we’ve made connections, what has made the biggest difference how we got to a million downloads, all of that good stuff. So we have those monthly, I’m gonna be sharing about them as we go through the podcast episodes. But I just want that to be on your radar. If you are doing anything where you’re serving others. There’s, you know, each month we’re gonna be doing a different topic. And we’re open to suggestions. So if there’s a topic that you want to connect with people about, you want to hear our opinion on, we’re going to be meeting monthly. So check that out as those come up. The things that we have coming up in the future is we still have two spots left for our in person practitioner training. So if you are wanting to bring aspects that Megan and I teach on to your practice and how you work with people, we’re going to spend seven days in person teaching tools and there’s actually four certifications that are included when you participate. So reach out to us if that’s something that you’re interested in, and then I have been And opening more spots for one on one work with me, I’m doing three months and doing six month packages. Okay, there are two different tiers in terms of time commitment and intensity, it’s not just length, the six month is not to three months, that there’s a different tier one on one people, if you know who will be a good fit for me, to work with me maybe to work with you, if you are interested and looking at the physical body things like, potentially you want lab work, or you have lab work, and you’re looking at fine tuning things, that is a big component of what I do. And at the same time, though, I absolutely always do emotional processing work, mindset, belief, remodeling, rewiring all of that stuff, and then bring in the energetic components. So if you’re into all of those categories, we’d be a great fit working together, just reach out to me, shoot us an email at support at SD ginger calm or shoot us a DM, you know, however you reach out as fine. So that is what we have coming up. And I’m going to be doing just a little thing like this in podcast episodes just to keep everyone up to date. Alright, so back to victim mentality. victim mentality. Like I said, the wording itself is a little triggering a lot of times, and I know it was for me, because when you are stepping into healing, now, whether that’s instigated by your health, whether it’s instigated by something that happens to relationships, life changes, whatever life lives to then, you know, start looking at how you’re thinking, what your beliefs have been your participation in your perceived issues in life, you will start to unpackage, all of that. And then someone inevitably hit you with Well, since you’ve been participating, and you know, you’re responsible for some of what has been created, which is true for all of us, and it is true, and then someone hits you with the overlay, and you’re being a victim on top of it. So a lot of times I find that, well, this spirit of victim mentality is an important concept. I think just the wording and the way that that gets introduced, when someone’s already looking at a deep dive, dive of their internal world, and what they have created and not created and all of that, to then slap them with that label. I think sometimes we actually get in the way of people being willing to continue to look at it. So from that sense, while I agree with the idea in one package that here in a second, I do not so much appreciate the wording around this, right. And because I want to head into things like trauma, there are situations where someone can be a victim approach, like an even internally, so we’ll get to that. But essentially, this is where I think that let’s, let’s define victim mentality. That way we can use other words to describe it as we talk here. So victim mentality is essentially any form of thinking about ourselves, where we feel not in control of what happens to us, and we feel disempowered. Right. And generally, it implies that you’re staying there. Because victim mentality implies that you have an awareness of it at some points. And you are continuing to think and place the pressure, the leverage point and the capability to change some on something outside of yourself. And then if you put your ability to change on something else that you can’t control, of course, that’s where people feel hopeless, disempowered, and feels like they can’t do anything about what’s going on. And of course, that is a huge issue. That is a huge issue. Right? Because if we blame other people for why life turned out like that, right, we we see this time and time again, with family dynamics, because people go through whatever they go through in their family life. A lot of it is traumatic. There’s a lot of negativity that can happen. But what it can sometimes show up as as people feel so disempowered, that it’s continually well because my family was like this, therefore, I will never be XYZ, or it’ll be extra hard for me to be XYZ. Right? So that is the general thoughts. And of course, that if we continue to say it’s because of my mom, that’s why I can’t do that, then what solutions and answers are going to be available to you. That’s the issue here, right? And that’s why, instead of victim mentality, and sometimes it’s just where’s the locus of control? That’s the wording that I like to use. Because to put the locus of control on your mother, who you can’t change, and you can’t go back in time, gets you to the realization that, hey, how do I flip the script, knowing that I’m here, now, whatever has happened, did happen, and it’s absolutely valid. And at the same time, if I keep focusing on that, I’m going to get more of what I got. So changing the locus of control to internal gets people out of victim mentality. But that wording, then I think, speaks to a little bit more, more truthfully, because this idea of blaming others, making it, you know, someone else did something to us, and that’s why we’re here. All of that will absolutely keep someone stuck. The focus on that. Now, that does then launch us into the next point, is that despite the problematic wording, even if we change the wording, I do believe that this would still be a problematic subject. Because I think what a lot of people want to do with victim mentality is the same thing they want to do with emotions. And we, it’s so tempting to want to sweep things under the rug that are really uncomfortable to sit with, right. Now, what does this end up looking like in practice? A lot of times people who have been victimized are put in the same bucket as all other victim mentality conversations. And it doesn’t acknowledge the validity of their victimization, right? Essentially a saying, Okay, we’ll acknowledge that you’re a victim. But then the next question is usually right. But don’t you know that the universe is working for you, right? Or what was the wonderful lesson that you got from being traumatized? Right, that being abused like that, right? What what do you want instead, all of these positive reframes, which are so important to go to at some point. But when you take someone who has a central nervous system that is threatened, it’s valid, that those things happen to them. It is true, they lived it and their body and their physiology knows it, to hustle them through this perceived, oh, well, don’t be a victim, then get into your own power and heal. Yes, that’s true. Yes, we need to help people get their butt hustling on them out the door without first allowing them to truly get to the point of a wow, I get to acknowledge what happened, sit with it, and package it process emotions around it. And when I am ready keywords here, when I am ready, I will begin to shift this focus from an external and then continually work towards bringing it back to me, which is why I really really love the the quote that people use. This is where you know, the realization that your trauma is not your fault, but healing from it is your responsibility. That’s where it comes in. But if we try to speed through the realization that it’s not your fault that it happened, right, victims tend to be so good at sweeping things under the rug already because they had to do that that’s how they survived that’s how they coped. i Maybe it’s you that I’m trying to. That is all true that has worked for you in the past. Therefore, I actually think that a lot of people who have lived through trauma of any kind they’re so much like more likely to blow through it themselves. That anyone Whew, if it’s your loved one or a best friend, or you know anybody in your life, a client, someone you work with, continue, you know, helping them speed through something that they actually need to acknowledge and sit with and allow themselves to see as truth for them. That’s not necessarily helping because they’re already so drawn to doing that a lot of times we trivialize the trauma. And therefore, when the whole narrative is like that, then everybody’s trying to speed through it, as opposed to really acknowledging that, hey, if you are trying to make everything your fault, or make it all back on you, and you’ve never once actually acknowledged and said, what that person did was wrong, it was hurtful. It impacted me here. Here’s how it impacted me.
If we can’t get to there, and we turn everything into something else, right? We miss the opportunity to find a neutrality and acceptance, right? Acceptance doesn’t mean that we can don’t, or we agree with what happened. But we say, Hey, I, I bring validity to this. I say Hey, I hear you me, internal to me, saying, I hear myself. And this is my truth. And I have acknowledged that for me. That step, not very sexy, not terribly loud, no fireworks goes off. But that step is so healing. And I think that in talking about victim mentality is such a bad thing. We deny someone the experience of being able to do that sometimes that or at least that’s the risk. And this is you listening and you’re vibing with that, ask yourself, you know, has this been sidestepped a little bit? And is there more time that you feel that you need it right, you get to decide, Do you need more time to sort of sit with and say, she took me years to even acknowledge some of the trauma that happened? A I had repressed a lot of it. So it wasn’t until I started looking at emotions that it came up. And I started remembering more things. But even even outside of remembering, I mean, it’s just it’s so easy to want to suppress that because it hurts, right? It totally makes sense why someone doesn’t want to do that. Doesn’t want to feel those things, doesn’t want to go there. But you don’t go there, you can’t do anything about it. Right, you can’t fix a problem that you’re unwilling to take a look at and actually sit with. So that’s one, then that also builds though into, I think it’s just as valid if you haven’t had trauma in the way that we traditionally think about it right? You can be traumatized from your perception reaction of what happened to you, even if you pulled 1000 people, and some of them were like, and that’s really traumatic. Some of them were like, That’s kind of traumatic, some somewhere we’re like, it’s not at all traumatic, right? Because it’s not about what someone else perceives, as is what you perceive as. So the way that we were treated, or the way that we perceived being treated, and the things that happen to us, can also leave us prone to putting the control in other people’s hands. And we don’t need to be traumatized to do that. And we don’t have to be maliciously trying to stick and stay stuck and vent victim mentality either. It’s not often the conscious choice to do that. But patterns that we’ve picked up from others that have been modeled to us, and ways that we have found coping strategies to deal with what was happening to us, or we perceived was happening to us because we didn’t have other strategies to use. Either way, it comes back to this it’s not your fault what happened. And it is still your responsibility to unpackage it. That last piece, though, really requires that we have first seen ourselves for where we’re at.
You know, truthfully, and not not from a place of denial, not from a place of trying to reject it, push through it, sweep it under the rug, fix it, you know, buzz through, have a breakthrough, manifest the healing. All of these things are wonderful there they are exactly where We’re going and at the same time, we continually continue to feed into the narrative that if you blow past the negativity, if you kind of power through all the bad stuff and just focus on the good stuff, then it’ll happen. But but most of us, you look around, and sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. So it has to, that’s where I say, Well, if is a strategy that works sometimes Great. What else do I need to know? So that I’ve other strategies for the times? It doesn’t work? Right? We, because when without that second part of it, we say, what’s wrong with me? Where did I go wrong? And honestly, that actually loops us more back into the victim mentality without any resolution than truly actually processing our experience of being a victim and victim hood, from any that is a valid experience to have. Period, it doesn’t matter what it is. I want you to sort of, like sit with that, because I feel like a lot of people will be like, Yeah, okay, and then what, but there isn’t there. I mean, there are optional, and then what, but that in and of itself is you can feel that and acknowledged it. And in fact, that’s a necessary step to launch you authentically cohesively as a unified person, not fragmented, not lying to yourself, not trying to get away from anything, not rejecting the thing that you’re afraid of fearful of that launching it, you go into the next step so much more powerfully and actually overcome the victim mentality in the long term, you know, kind of long term success strategy. And it also doesn’t mean that we camp out in the victim mentality. Here’s what I will say, though, I think that people who continually harp on Oh, well, as everyone’s just choosing to stay in victim mentality. I think a lot of those people are not teaching strategies that show people how to face those emotions, right? If we’re so fearful of the emotions that are going to come up when we acknowledge that things happen to us that we feel like a victim, no one’s gonna go there. Why would you I remember that I used to be like, Why would I? Why would I feel my emotions here? They’re terrifying. And I don’t know what to do with them. When it comes up, like what do I do after I was never taught that? That’s why we That’s why I teach it, it’s on our podcast. Therefore, everyone, you know, the practitioner and the people trying to do it, or you’re reading a book reading blog posts, or blog posts, Instagram posts, or whatever it is, or maybe blog posts. Everyone reading, then all of us are then on board saying, Okay, well, we got to blow through, it’s too uncomfortable. I don’t have strategies. But being invited mentality in and of itself is not a problem. If you can move through it and get to the other side and see it for what it was. But rejecting and being scared of victim mentality most often gets you to a place where you are just continuous cycling to I don’t want to be a victim. But I feel like a victim. I don’t want to be a victim. But I feel like a victim, right? It keeps you stuck longer.
So if I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self, hey, a lot of these places where you don’t want to stop the victim mentality, the negative emotions, the guilt, the shame, the self loathing, the talking bad about myself, all these things that are really painful to look at. And acknowledge, I would have said, if you spend a little more time here, gathering the strength and courage to look at this, see it for what it is, and actually digest it enough to move it through the system and release it allow myself to get to the point where I’m like, Okay, that is what happened, I can acknowledge it. It’s not like I lose it. It’s still a part of what happened to me. But I can look at it as like it’s it’s somewhere in my space of this happen, but it’s not who I am. Now, that is acceptance of all of us. Right? It’s, we don’t lose the parts of ourselves. We don’t like we simply accept them and fold them into the love. That is the higher part of us. And then we choose not to spend a lot of time acting out those parts of ourselves. Right but there it’s a very different conversation than Oh, I got to release it forever and then off, it goes somewhere else into the world. And I never have to deal with it again, I never have to think about that, maybe, but a lot of times, that’s not what most of us experience. So if I could tell myself spend more time here, figuring it out to, in hopes, or not in hopes, with the goal of resolution, I would have told my past self, you’re going to get there so much faster. And now looking back, I have so much evidence and all the areas of my life where I did this, and where I can see, oh, that constant loop back and forth, you can do that for years. The thing is, when you look at things like victimhood victim mentality in our relationship with it, that’s not even if you get stuck there for a while. Most people will not let themselves be stuck there for years, if they’re truly looking at it. Because honestly, once you start shining a light on it, the that behavior that it begins to crumble away, because we see it for what it is, it’s the denying of it that keeps it looming, it’s like, it’s like the boogeyman in the closet, right? It just continually keeps coming up. And then we really do stay stuck for years, the way to not be stuck for years, is to acknowledge it, rather than try to rush through it. And that is so hard, I can just really say if you can do stuff like this, that’s what will make you unstoppable. Because our own Boogie man’s like this are so much more terrifying than anything that the world or someone else can inflict upon us. So when it comes to topics like self trust, self confidence, high self worth, these types of experiences actually gather those things at a much more rapid rate as well. So it’s not cool, we’re overcoming the whatever happened to us, that is on the topic of victim victim mentality victimhood. And on top of it, in the process of moving through it, we actually get more self worth self confidence and self trust, that that’s how I want to transform, right? That I want to do one really hard thing, not hard, like exercise, but hard like looking at my own internal self and accepting me and the things that happened to me. That right there. I mean, if it leads to all these other amazing things that then make my relationships better my health better my productivity, better my creativity, better my joy, my inner peace, my calm my presence, my empowerment, for everything in life. Heck, yeah, I want to do that. Right? So why skip the victim mentality step and the learnings that we’re gonna get from that. It to me, it’s not worth it. So with all of these arguments that I made here, that is some food for thought for you, I would love to hear what your thoughts are around this.
This is a subject that I can see a lot of people having a lot of different thoughts and they’re all valid. That’s where the end comes in. So I’d love to hear from you. You can take a screenshot of this podcast episode and tag me in your stories with your thoughts. You can DM us shoot us an email all of that works. Thank you so much for helping us get to 1 million downloads. Thank you for leaving reviews. Thank you for sharing it with friends. We are so so grateful for you. We are planning to do a little giveaway coming up for this just to celebrate you all and thank you so much for supporting us and being here and hanging out with us bringing new topics to us sharing your thoughts with us. We appreciate it so so very much. Alright, that’s it for today. I’ll catch you next time.