“No Longer A Victim”

I’m at my favorite coffee shop, having a muffin and a severely over-caffeinated coffee confection for the first time in about a week. Feels good to be back here blogging. The weather has finally turned and the sun is beating down. A bit of a breeze keeps it from getting too hot. Though, if the people at the table in the shade leave, you know I’m taking it after they’re gone. Ah! And they just did. Maybe I should have wished to win the lottery instead ;-)

It’s been a full week. I had my vacation days up in Tahoe, and that was fantastic. I did some more long driving yesterday. My aunt is moving and offered me her couch, which she can’t take with her. The only catch? I had to go get it. Okay, not a problem. She lives in the next state over, about a two and a half hour drive each way. But hey, it’s a nice couch and she gave it to me. I’m not complaining, not by a long shot.

In between all the traveling, I’ve been working on music, both for my project and the one I’m producing for a local artist, as well as a bunch of Area work. I’m writing up manuals for each of the Officer positions, including the official descriptions of their jobs and some notes specific to our District. I’ve also done some fiction writing with a friend; we’re collaborating on a novel. My sponsees are out of town right now, but staying in touch. That reminds me: it’s been a bit since I talked to my own sponsor. Gotta do that today.

I’m a big believer in not having a busy life. A full life is a good thing, but a busy one? Not so much. Some might say that’s just semantics, but I disagree. A busy life, that sounds to me like a life where you’re at the whim of external forces, a life full of things you ‘have to’ do. It borders on the victim mentality. A full life? That sounds like a life of my choosing, where the things I’m doing are ones I want to do. I don’t see the distinction as a splitting hairs. It’s the difference been being active in my life or being passive in it. One of the big miracles of my life, how the program has changed me, has been in learning to stop thinking of myself as a victim. Everything I do, I do it because it’s something I’ve chosen to do. It’s about taking responsibility for myself, for my actions.

I remember when I was first clued in to my own victim mentality. It was when I worked the fourth step for the first time. There, listed out in black and white in my own handwriting, were all the things that I thought other people had done to me. Then I started writing out my part, seeing the role I had played in creating my own misery. With time and patience, I came to understand that it was seeing myself as a victim, as someone helpless at the mercy of a cruel world, that was what allowed me to be victimized. When I stopped thinking of myself as a victim and started being responsible for my self, that’s when he victimization stopped. It took practice, and it’s something I keep working on, but the change in my life is like night and day.

It’s true, we can’t control other people. We can only control ourselves, our actions, how we react to others--if we choose to react at all. Other people pick up on how we feel about ourselves. If we think we deserve to be taken advantage of, then other people will walk all over us. If we believe--truly believe deep in our hearts--that we deserve all the best in life, from our friends, from our romantic relationships, that that is what we will receive.

Thinking of myself as a victim, as someone doomed to a life of misery, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Taking responsibility for myself, for my actions, coming to believe that life really can be good, well, that too is a self-fulfilling prophecy.