ERP 157: How To Shift Out Of The Victim Position

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Dr. Jessica Higgins: Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 157, “How to shift out of the victim position.” In the previous podcast episode (156) I talked about what happens when we feel like a victim, and I also talked about the very destructive nature of the drama triangle. If you missed that episode, I encourage you to check it out, as I’m not gonna go into full overview here… But what I will say is that the drama triangle is essentially a tool that describes typical human interaction during conflict, and there’s three positions (hence the triangle).

Really quickly – the victim position tends to have the voice of “Poor me”, feeling helpless, feeling stuck, and feeling really disenchanted… And often feels as though there’s some loss – a longing, or a hope, or  a wish, or a dream that has not happened, or that’s being squelched.

The rescuer tends to have the voice of “Poor you… Let me help you.” However, underneath that there is a desire to be needed, almost as if “I want you to need me, so that I feel more valuable.” Or perhaps even “I don’t even wanna look at my own stuff. I’d rather help you with your things.”

The third position is the persecutor, which tends to be domineering, power over, sometimes forceful, and often times what’s going on underneath this position is the fear of loss of control. As David Emerald talks about in the book “The Power of TED”, he describes often times, most always, the persecutor was once a former victim. If you missed that episode, I encourage you to listen to it first before listening to this episode.

Today I’m going to be addressing how to get out of the victim position, helping you identify places that you may be feeling stuck, in the heaviness and the helplessness of the victim position, and really how to get untied, untethered, untangled from that orientation.

Before we get started in today’s episode, I wanna take a moment with you to center our heart, our mind and our place of being in the goal of growing and learning about relationship… And I am with you. I know I’m speaking and you’re listening, but I just want you to feel that I am in this practice with you, and that we’re sharing in a sense of brotherhood/sisterhood as we are developing ourselves, and as we are practicing some of these skills, knowing that it may possibly challenge us at times, asking us to face things that are uncomfortable to look at, and that also help us expand. We talk a lot, if you’ve listened to my episodes in the past, about how we are expanding our capacity for more intimacy, more passion, more joy, more love, and really all along trying to be consistent, trying to be solid, offering that safe container to practice with our partner and for ourselves.

Quick little note about The Empowered Relationship Podcast – I am so pleased that so many of you have been reaching out, it’s wonderful to hear from you. I am getting to your questions. As I mentioned in my responses, I have a few topics lined up and I’m actually getting some guest experts to address some of those questions, so please stay tuned.

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Let’s take a closer look at the victim orientation. Again, the victim position is one of feeling helpless, hopeless, downtrodden, and often feels a sense of “Poor me”, and feels this sense of either guilt or shame about their situation. What happens over time is that someone who experiences the victim position will tend to have an outlook, the way in which they view others, the way in which they view the world, from a victim lens.

David Emerald says “The victim orientation is an approach that most human beings take towards their experience, by default. This is where we spend  a lot of time searching for solutions to problems.” Emerald writes, “You’re always looking outside yourself, to the people, the circumstances of life, for a sense of safety, security and sanity.”

In general, an orientation is a mental standpoint that determines your direction – direction of thought, direction of inclination. When we have a victim orientation, we’re anticipating victimhood, and this impacts our perspective and our beliefs. Again, if we’re anticipating being victimized, that’s gonna influence the way we perceive our interactions and also impact what we believe and what we experience.

In working with couples, I get to see them interact live while they’re with me, and I can see this play out. The way in which they perceive and what they believe about their partner is heavily influenced by their viewpoint, their standpoint and their orientation.

Some of the beliefs that I see in couples are “He doesn’t care about me” or “She never cares about what I want.” “He never listens.” “She does not understand where I’m coming from” or “She’s constantly attacking me.” “He doesn’t engage.” “He’s not there when I need him.”

There is so much pain in all of these beliefs, and still, their perspective and belief continues to perpetuate the experience of that pain. They’re anticipating it, therefore they’re looking for it and they interpret certain non-verbals/verbals from that lens.

Last night I was working with a couple, and we were addressing the area where they feel most challenged. They would call it “most divided” and “most disconnected”, where they feel divisive. The wife in this marriage has the pain that her husband can’t handle her emotion; that’s it’s too much, he doesn’t wanna hear it, he’s not interested, and he doesn’t really care. Through our work together, I have offered her coaching around the way in which she solicits or reaches to her husband, and that at the times in which she reaches, she’s often in this very amplified, emotional state, if you will. On a scale of 1 to 10, she’s probably about a 9, and she’s beyond her threshold; she reached a level that she can no longer manage, and she’s basically like “I’ve had it!” and she’s reaching to him. The way in which she reaches to him is through frustration, through angst, and sometimes through judgment, attack and criticism.

On the other hand, her husband has pain around feeling hurt, and unsafe in those moments. He hasn’t known how to calm the situation down. He wants to help, but he also gets disregulated himself, because he feels hurt and he feels scared and he doesn’t know how to handle it.

As a backdrop, both of their pains relate to pain from their upbringing, so I’m not gonna go into that detail, but I’m just saying there’s a particular charge for both of them in this territory together.

Last night I was inviting her into the wondering of what it would be like for her to turn towards her husband when she’s at a 4, a 5, or even a 6. She liked what I was saying intellectually, but a lot of fear came up for her, and it was really great for her to be able to voice, because this is what she’s holding, this is part of the lens and the perspective of which she’s operating in. She was saying “I’m afraid that he won’t really wanna hear me. I’m afraid of burdening him, and I’m afraid of being too much.” Now, she didn’t use these words initially, however in my reflecting back and helping distill her fear, that was the crux of it.

I turned  to him and talked about “What’s that like for you to hear?” and he said “I do wanna hear her, and I don’t need things to be perfect, and calm, and the birds are singing and everything just being lovely. I wanna help. I feel great when I’m able to help, and I don’t know how to handle the volume when it’s at the 9 or 10 level.”

Now, again, he didn’t use those words. He had a really great awareness in recognizing “Oh, so many times when she turns to me when she’s at that elevated place, I try to calm her down. I say “This isn’t rational. You shouldn’t feel this way. It’s not that big of a deal, this current situation doesn’t warrant that level of emotionality”, and we were all kind of giggling, because it was very obvious around how hard that would be to receive, if she’s at her wits end. She’s hanging on by a thread, she turns to her husband for help and he’s basically saying “You shouldn’t feel that way.” But what he’s really trying to say is “I don’t know how to hear you when you’re at the 8 or the 9.”

When I turn to her, she said she was able to hear that, but what would really be a difference-maker would be that if he could say “I do wanna hear you.” So in turning back to him, he said, “Yeah, that makes perfect sense”, and we talked about what it would look like for him to communicate his desire to be with her and listen to her feelings and to want to help, but that it’s at like 6, 5 or below.

When I turned back to her, she said, “Okay, fair enough”, and possibly she could go for a walk, and calm down… And really the thing I was helping her recognize is the emotion doesn’t change. While the volume might change, and the intensity level might change, the essence of the emotion still is there. So if she’s able to calm, she’s gonna be in a much better place to be able to share with her husband, and he’s gonna be in a much better place to be able to hear her… And that’s where the real communication, the real connection and intimacy can occur.

Where the prior dynamic would be she would hold, hold, hold, thinking “I don’t wanna burden you. I want things to be really nice for you when you come home from work, and I don’t think you really care and wanna hear it and can handle my emotion anyway, so I’m gonna hold it, hold it, hold it… And that’s not really that sustainable, and I’m gonna need help at some point, especially because I’m heading up all the children, all the domestic stuff… I’m handling a lot, and I’m gonna need to communicate with you at times, and there might be challenges that I would love support around”, yet she feels like she can’t turn to him, so it has to get to this threshold where it’s beyond-beyond, and then at that point he’s too scared to hear her, and then she has the reinforced experience that he doesn’t really care, because he’s trying to calm her down, but he’s saying it in ways that she feels really shut down, and then she gets infuriated, and then they’re in a total cycle downward of belittling, berating… They’re just so, again, divisive, angry, divided and disconnected…

So usually, the pattern will be a few days will pass, and they have children together, and they have a lot to manage together, and somewhere along the line he typically will come back to her and they’ll talk about it, and he’ll apologize, but it really doesn’t get repaired in the sense that “What is it that we’re doing and how come this gets us so unraveled, and how can we do it differently?” That’s obviously my job to help them navigate that.

In the book The Power of TED by David Emerald, he points out very clearly – this is not a new concept, but in the drama triangle I think it’s really worth spelling out – that what we focus on cultivates a particular experience. If we focus on the problem – in this example that I’m using, “My husband doesn’t listen to me”, that’s the problem – and have real genuine emotion that’s absolutely valid, but I have nowhere to go with it, and if I think, and I try to solve that problem, and I’m trying to really address the problem, but I’m focusing on the hardship of it, I’m likely to feel some level of anxiety, depression, upset… It has a certain feeling when I focus on that; my husband doesn’t listen to me. I don’t feel valued, I feel stuck, I don’t feel hopeful about how to have a thriving, genuinely authentic relationship where we both really matter and we’re co-creating together – I don’t feel that. I feel heaviness, I feel sadness.

Typically, when we focus on the problem, we usually have an inner state that is somewhere along the neighborhood of anxiety, and depression, and sadness, and upset… And typically, we can only sustain holding that for so long before we reach a point – I’m talking about my client, she reaches a level that it escalates, and then she’s beyond her threshold… So we will, for different reasons, be compelled to react. And when we react from the anxiety, and the depressive, or the upset, we’re looking for some level of relief.

In this example, the wife will react by getting loud with her husband, and really coming on strong, and perhaps taking issue with him, and it escalates, and then he feels really crappy, and he’s trying to figure out his role, and then at some point he’ll come back and apologize, and it feels like some relief. Now, they might feel more connected, but the problem has not changed. The problem still exists.

David Emerald says focusing on the problem actually creates that inner state of anxiety, whether or not it’s mild discomfort or whether or not it’s full-on terror… And that the anxiety at some point – whether mild or intense – gives us the energy, the fuel for action that sparks the behavior. However, again, it’s usually to seek some level of relief, and then again, the pattern isn’t necessarily resolved.

Now, in other examples in life we might see this where it comes to our eating patterns. Perhaps we’ll notice that our clothes are not fitting like they used to, or hopping on the scale and we’re like, “Whoa! It’s still going up…!” and having a number higher than you’re used to… And the problem might be identified as “I’m a little overweight.” Then the inner sensation of that  – it might be anxiety, it might be “I don’t feel like I look that good” and it might even go to deeper and darker places around “I’m not lovable, I’m fat, I’m ugly, I’m not attractive”, those types of things… Which for some might be a slippery slope. At some point we might feel icky enough to say “Okay, that’s it. I’m going to change my eating habits, I’m going to eat more clean, I’m gonna eliminate treats and desserts and snacks, I’m gonna really dial this in.” And perhaps you make some strides, and you’re feeling good, and then the clothes start to feel better, and then the scale is starting to look more in line with what you’re used to… And then you get comfortable, and perhaps you start reverting back to your old habits, having a second helping when you’re already full, or eating when you’re bored, or eating lots of desserts after every meal. Perhaps this cycle doesn’t allow for you to know what’s going on on a deeper level; how come you’re reaching for food to soothe.

Another example  that we might be able to relate to is our financial world. Perhaps you look at your credit card statement online, or you look at your balances in your checking accounts, and you’re having a moment of like “I thought I had more money!” or “I didn’t realize I spent that much!” and there’s a moment of panic, anxiety; you’re focusing on the problem of not having enough money, and feeling the anxiety of that. Then there’s the impulse and the reaction to “I need to get this under control” and you start tracking your finances, and you keep your spending in check, and you start feeling a little bit better, and you get on top of things… Then you feel like you’re saving money, and then, again, you get comfortable, and perhaps you perpetuate the same cycle over and over and over again, without really addressing what it is that’s going on and what you’re trying to accomplish.

How do we shift out of this victim orientation? Emerald actually calls the victim orientation as a delusion, thinking that the problem is the cause of the reaction; if the problem didn’t exist, you wouldn’t react. But if we really look at the sequence – problem, inner state, and reaction – it’s the inner state, the anxiety that causes the reaction. He writes, “The anxiety you feel comes from the way you focus on the problem.” But he points out in the victim orientation, when our anxiety goes away, when we start to feel relief, so does the motivation for action.

It reminds me of a client that I worked with a long time ago; he was a young adult, and he experienced a lot of fear and upset, but he was also a chronic marijuana smoker… And I told him one of my biggest issues with using substances is it hijacks our ability to develop our emotional skills. If we had a really difficult day and we smoke a joint, we’re not actually learning how to deal with that difficulty and all the emotions involved, we just change our state. So it’s thought that sometimes we get emotionally stunted when we habitually use substances… So this young man had a great difficulty feeling his own capability and his own power to create change in his life, and he very much was stuck in this pattern of feeling like he wasn’t achieving what he wanted to achieve.

He kept saying, “I wanna feel proud, I wanna feel good about my accomplishments, and I don’t”, and he carried so much shame and so much guilt… And he was also really angry about it; he was angry about his circumstance, he was angry about his position, and at times, he would be motivated to make change, however it wouldn’t be sustained. He would get some level of relief, his anxiety would lessen, and then he would get comfortable and it would be homeostasis… Again, with a lot of inner turmoil, dissatisfaction, unhappiness and real doubt around how to improve his situation and circumstances.

Emerald says “A problem rarely, if ever, is solved from within the victim orientation. The key in shifting out of the victim orientation is focusing on the solution, focusing on the vision and the desire, rather than focusing on the problem.”

Yes, you have heard me talk about in my podcasts – or perhaps in the last episode – that there is an acute phase when something happens, when there’s a crisis, an upset or some type of tragedy, that there’s an acute phase of pain, grief and loss, that I think is very important to feel, deal with and really heal, so that you can move forward. What we’re talking about here is the way in which we relate to pain on a consistent basis and the way in which it influences our perspective and our beliefs about others and the world.

I was talking to a client about this idea of focusing on the solution, and he was really cute – he was like “Yeah, that reminds me when you’re mountain-biking, and you’re going down the mountain-biking path, and if you’re a little nervous and you’re a little worried about the technical terrain, and let’s say you see this big rock, if you focus on the rock, it’s likely you’re gonna run into the rock. You need to focus on where you wanna go, you need to focus on the open path and how to navigate the open path.” So, so true.

They say that in skiing, as well, that if you focus on the tree, sometimes you’re gonna just naturally go into the tree, and that’s obviously very dangerous, so you need to focus on where you wanna go.

Emerald shares, “The antidote to the victim orientation is the creator position.” He writes, “The focus in the creator orientation is on a vision or on an outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions towards creating what you most want to see or experience in life. Sometimes the vision or outcome may be completely clear to you, other times it may be vague.”

Basically, the fundamental difference is where you place your attention, where you focus your mind and your orientation. For most, this shift is something that will require a repetitive and constant reminder. He says “When you focus on the things in your life that hold meaning and purpose, your passion just naturally flows.”

This reminds me when I had graduated from undergraduate school – I really wanted to be of service and I didn’t feel ready to commit to a Peace Corps. The commitment of that is often at least like three years… So I did the domestic version, the AmeriCorps. I did a year of service with the “I Have a Dream” Foundation. Going into the year I had grand notions of what volunteering would entail. I was very passionate about making a difference, about being a positive figure and developing authentic mentorship relationships, and helping kids grow, whether or not it’s through academics and tutoring, or through new experiences and getting a chance to explore and to expand.

For the first several months I was very optimistic and very enthused and engaged in my work duties, and yet there was this struggle that I was having – it was with one of the directors of our class. Now, I don’t know if this is still true for the “I Have a Dream” Foundation, but at the time basically there were two directors that were hired to work with this class this year, and they worked with these students all the way through graduating high school. That’s essentially the goal – to help them graduate and really be in a much better position without having had the support.

So these two directors had been with these kids since very young – I don’t know if it was first grade, or kindergarten, but at a very young age, and this was high school. This particular director – she would position her desk in the display window of the classroom that we were stationed in… And I would come in, I would check in, I would say good morning, and I just didn’t find her to be that pleasant, or even gracious in her demeanor… So I was like, “Okay… I won’t really reach out and try to engage her that much.” But then what I was experiencing was she would be suspicious, and really try to track, and it felt like this power… And as I’m talking about his, I might be like, “Oh, I felt persecuted by her…!” I absolutely did, and I felt so unjust about it, because I was like “Here I am, volunteering my time… Why would I be here and then try to take advantage of the system by milking the time?” I don’t know why I would do that. So her suspicions about all of us just seemed unwarranted, and it just baffled me.

I remember being very confused, and really kind of upset, and hurt, and I addressed the AmeriCorps director. He was like, “Yeah, we’ve had complaints, and really truly, there’s nothing to do. We can have a conversation with her, but we’ve had these issues in the past and she’s in this position. She’s basically tenured with these kids, and there’s really nothing that we can do to make your experience better”, so I was like “Okay.”

Something in me – I can’t remember exactly how I shifted, but I said “Okay.” So I think what I was realizing was I had expected this organization to provide me the experience of a really profound year of volunteering and being able to make a difference, and that wasn’t the case. So I basically spent the whole rest of the year looking at how can I take ownership for my experience?

I looked for ways that I could really show up and feel as though I was doing something helpful. I planned some really significant keynote presentations and workshops, I planned some field trips and events, I really showed up in a couple of the students’ lives in a very specific way, and I actually got a letter from the other director… He was expressing genuine appreciation, acknowledgment and gratitude for what I was able to do. Now, I wasn’t really looking for any type of appreciation or real acknowledgment, but it was really nice.

The more notable thing here is that the second half of the year I had a great experience, and the first half of the year I struggled. I was focusing on the director that I had issue with, and how her demeanor wasn’t very nice, and I was getting all caught up at it. It was impacting my inner state, and it was impacting my overall experience, and I was able to shift that through focusing on the solution. Because truthfully, I was told there was nothing I could do; there was nothing I could do to change the situation, and my complaints, so I pivoted towards “What can I do to have the best experience I can have?”

One of the things that I loved in this book, The Power of TED, is he uses this description of holding attention band between your arms, where you have your left arm and your right arm, and you are pulling on the tension band, so there is a sense of resistance. On the left hand it represents your current reality, your current circumstances. Your right hand – that represents where you want to go and what you wanna accomplish, your goals and the outcome you wanna achieve. And he says “Often times in life we may get inspired, we might get motivated to set our eyes on a vision, and there’s a natural tension between what is current and what is yet to be fulfilled.” And what he says is often times people don’t know how to manage that tension, because it’s a little uncomfortable, it’s a little painful. And what he’s saying is that often times what we’ll do to relieve the tension is we’ll let go of the right hand, and say “Um, I didn’t want it that much anyway” or “I don’t even think it’s possible”, or “Yeah…”, just make a lot of excuses around why it’s not feasible, why it’s not plausible, and then we let go. So the tension band falls; there’s no tension, but we’re still in our current circumstance.

What he’s recommending here with the focusing on the solution is to continue to take incremental steps, and focusing and putting our attention on the solution and what we’re visioning for, that we’re naturally reducing the tension as we take steps towards our goal and our vision.

Now, he’s saying it’s not without difficulty, it’s not without pain, but that if we look at the bigger picture, I think we’d all agree accomplishing our vision and our solution far outweighs the perpetual cycle of victimhood.

In the last episode I referenced a quote out of The Big Leap by Hendricks, and I’m gonna do the same today; I just feel like there’s some parallels and he’s describing things well. He’s saying:

“Projection is the source of power struggles that eat up energy and intimacy in relationship. Power struggles are a war between two people to see whose version of reality will win out. Much of the energy in troubled relationships is drained through power struggles – who’s right, who’s wrong, and who’s the biggest victim. Relationships (healthy ones, that is) exist only between equals. When both people are not taking 100% responsibility, it is an entanglement, not a relationship. There’s only one way to transform and entanglement into a relationship. Bot people must drop projection and see that they are 100% the creators of their reality.”

He’s using a different language, and when he’s talking about projection, this is very similar to the victim orientation – the way we perceive and the way that we believe influences our reality… And projection is very much what we believe and what we perceive, and we’re putting that on someone else, and this is where the entanglement happens – people argue around whose reality is actually correct, when in fact that’s just an endless (as he’s saying) vicious cycle.

Again, I wanna underscore, the biggest key here is focusing on the solution, and continually focusing your mind, your attention and your intention on this goal. That is powerful, and that begins to shift into a creator’s orientation.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Again, today’s episode is 157, “How to shift out of the victim position.” Again, you can find today’s show notes on my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all of the episodes there; the most recent ones are at the top. If you are looking for more support, feel free to reach out to me on my website, as well. You can find the Contact page and all the ways to reach me there.

Until next time, I hope you take great care.

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