“To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.” ~Eckhart Tolle
From time to time, we may all feel a bit out of balance with life, stressed or just plain weak, that is part of the human condition. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or out of balance, it’s easy to fall into complaining, blaming others, or just ending up in a state of despair. All of these states are examples of victim consciousness.
It is victim consciousness that can often be blamed for many of our social ills including war, dysfunction, and by many accounts, even disease.
In Life Visioning: A Four-Stage Evolutionary Journey to Live as Divine Love
“The victim has a tendency to think that life is doing something to them. It’s an external diety, a God, it’s a circumstance, a situation, one’s parents, in more superstitious cultures it might be described as The Devil. The victim stage is characterized by “What is Life Doing to Me?”, “What are Those People Doing to Me?”. Every victim has a powerful “they did it to me” story. They have a powerful BLAME story.
If you ask a victim, why aren’t they happy?, why aren’t they evolving?, why aren’t they successful? why aren’t things going right for them? – they will immediately have a story. About 90% will have a story about how somebody else did it to them.”
The limiting beliefs of the victim conscious state prevent individuals from moving forward, growing and developing and establishing that sense of inner peace. Beckwith goes on to say:
“Pain pushes you, until your Vision pulls you.”
But the victim has not yet been pulled by vision of a higher vibration of energy, a higher frequency, or that which is seeking to evolve through them, so they are being pushed by pain, and feel that life is drudgery, boring or something to be protected from. For those in victim consciousness, energy gets used up coping with life and defending themselves against bad things that might occur.
“Almost every ego contains at least an element of what we might call “victim identity”. Some people have such a strong victim of themselves that it becomes the central core of their ego. Resentment and grievances form an essential part of their sense of self. Even if your grievances are completely “justified,” you have constructed an identify for yourself that is much like a prison whose bars are made of thought forms.” – Eckhart Tolle, The Pain-Body And The Egoic Self
Once there is an understanding of victim consciousness, it becomes easier to change current thinking patterns and finding self empowerment. True peace can only be achieved through personal responsibility and accepting things are they as, not as we wish they were. In order to move out of the victim consciousness and into a higher order of being, one must begin to take responsibility for one’s life. The victim must begin to release blame from their daily practice. You must begin to let go of blaming – any one, any circumstance, any situation – for your dilemma.
Along with releasing the blame is practicing forgiveness. Beckwith says,
“Forgiveness is not ‘I’m forgiving this person, and now I get to hang out with them, and we get to be friends again’. That may be true in some cases but in some cases, you may never like that other person, that person may not ever be a part of who you would want to associate with or call friend. That’s not what we are talking about here.
Forgiveness is eliminating toxicity from your being. You are coming out of being a victim and stepping into a greater sense of empowerment, having dominion over your attention, taking responsibility for your life. You don’t want to give your power away to any one or any circumstance, saying incorrectly that they determine your success, your health, your happiness, your wholeness.
Do you find yourself falling into victim consciousness? What are your strategies for regaining your center? Share your thoughts below.
I’ve fallen into this trap quite recently with my work situation; that I’m being used, I’m not getting enough pay and I’m not appreciated for all that I do.
On one level this may be true and that, for a while, was the view that I was taking. It had a lot of energy in it and it would stick to me. I could see how this came from my past. When I was younger I was always getting beaten up or teased and I never stood up for myself; I always complained that it wasn’t fair.
As I got older I found that I always championed the person who was hard done by. I was usually against the government because they weren’t giving a fair go to certain groups of people.
In my work situation, I realise now that if it doesn’t change for the better I will have to leave. I’ve learnt to accept the situation to a large extent, however, I believe the management could make a small caveat (changing the days of work) to give me (and others in my position) some benefit and I would be happy with that for two reasons; one, it would make my job easier and two, I would see that the management definitely were willing to make it more fair.
I think that is the best I can do. I don’t want these negative thoughts to dominate. It really affects the quality of my life and I don’t want to experience these thoughts and emotions any longer.
On a day to day level when these thoughts suck me in, I treat it like a meditation. I get caught by them, after a while I realise I am caught. I become aware of my breath and focus on whatever it is I am doing while being aware of my breath. If the thoughts and feelings arise again I am quicker at recognising and returning to my breath and what I am doing at the moment.
The repetition of this has brought me to a point where the technique is quite strong and has more power than the thoughts, which no longer persist.