Empowering Choices: Overcoming the Victimhood Mindset

It's real important to distinguish between victimhood and the victim mindset. There is such a thing as victimhood. In fact, everybody's the victim of something. We have all been treated unfairly, could be by nature in our health, in our genes, particularly by other people. It's also true that victimhood is distributed unequally, and there are some people who because of race or gender or appearance or ethnicity or for whatever reason have experienced much more unfairness, much more victimhood. [00:01:41]

There is also such a thing as a victimhood mindset, where I have a loss of a sense of agency, and instead of recognizing what it is that I might do, where I might be accountable, where I could take responsibility for my life, I outsource that, and then I think of myself in terms of self-pity. [00:02:29]

To live is to choose. The great dividing line here is do I view my life primarily as the product of decisions other people have made or the forces of circumstances impinging on me, all of which is real, all of which is there, or do I focus, do I fix my eyes on what is unseen? Do I recognize that I am a spiritual being? [00:04:54]

Prolonged indecision is a poison as far as the person is concerned. It always arises from some inner conflict which one has not had the courage to resolve or become aware of. It is common among those who have been kept in a state of dependence. It can persist in life long after the death, for example, of domineering parents. [00:06:24]

A surrendered will is a resolute and very strong will. Surrender simply means that I submit what I happen to desire to what I deeply value and believe to be good. But that requires not an apathetic will, not an abdicating will, not a posture of victimhood, but of personhood, and then I do that together with God. [00:08:28]

Jump over the hedge. You don't have to keep going around in the merry-go-round. You don't have to live in perpetual indecision. Jump over the hedge. What's the risk you need to take? What's the call that you need to pursue? It reminded me of David in Psalm 18, verse 29, where he says with the help of my God I run into a troop. [00:09:01]

You have circumstances, you have problems, you have difficult people, but I can choose how will I spend my time today from one moment to the next. How will I relate to this person? What will I eat? Something as simple as that. See, we exercise the ability to choose by becoming aware of it, and we don't have to make it perfect. [00:09:38]

It is much easier, I read the letter from one of my patients, to be in the position of a victim than in that of a person conscious of his responsibilities and the gifts he is endowed with. But it is the only way to enter maturity. I can feel like a victim right now of that stupid jet that's going overhead someplace. [00:08:07]

Part of what this teaches is folks often confuse surrender with passivity or resignation. No, no, no, no. A surrendered will is a resolute and very strong will. Surrender simply means that I submit what I happen to desire to what I deeply value and believe to be good. [00:08:28]

To live is to choose, to live is to choose. Where can you choose today? Where can I choose today? What possibilities lie before me? It is through the making of successive and resolute choices that a person traces out, carves out their life. [00:05:35]

Even the happiest life is a constant struggle to face the problem it raises, the external and internal conflicts it arouses, which are the very stuff of life itself. A struggle to be true to oneself, to assume responsibility from one's own convictions and talents. [00:07:29]

I love you, choose wisely. See you next time. Thanks for joining us here at become new dot me. You can join the conversation on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. If you'd like to receive the daily emails that go along with each video, let us know at becomenew.me@gmail.com or if you want prayer you can text us. [00:11:56]