cc lic. By annzstream @Flickr

Are you sticking to your story?  I was listening to a talk that might be useful especially for memoir writers, or those who draw heavily on their story in writing;  especially the first half talks about the process and cathartic effect of writing on our  healing and how it can impact others.  See also my How to Quit Your Life & Not Become Homeless, (my story of woe) published at Elephant Journal.  One speaker in the online radio show said the phrase “I’m sticking with my story?” in a funny way.  That resonated exactly with a quote from one of my teachers on clinging to the past and our “victim story.” But perhaps it’s time to let go of our story of woe and stop feeling/living like a victim!

1. Use Creativity

1. Are you sticking to your story? It takes awhile a few months even longer perhaps-but the is a point at which you personally need to stop automatically launching into your victim story to others and yourself.  This can only happen after you have fully processed, the emotions that went along with it.  Try journaling, making art especially collage or drawing or seeing a therapist, or all 3.

2. Focus on Self-Nurture

Seems simple but things like:

• getting enough sleep
• cutting down/or cutting out stimulants,  sugar
• Get a massage or bodywork (Contact local massage school, they always have low cost clinics for students to get practice) Can be as low as $25 depending on your area.
• Even just soaking in the bath with natural products that contain lavender or rose/neroli. Or even cheaper buy some sea salt-yum, dump a handful into your hot bath/epsom salt is cheap as is baking soda, you really will feel cleansed.
• While soaking why not repeat some affirmations about you new life and the changes you want to see.  See my Joy of Life Manifesto, which is really a spirit boosting overall mega affirmation-that you are safe, whole and cared for.

3.  Try Forgiveness Meditation

1. Now I’m not saying it’s a secret after that-that you can’t talk about the particular trauma.  It’s more from my experience when it is your “go to” response to questions or meeting new people…”oh I was fine till _______happened and now I”m________.”   Your painful experience  happened it was awful.  But can you allow the emotions and the attachment to that identity as a victim to expire-to just wither away.  How can you transform if you cling to the past, beaten down and helpless?  Here is a free audio talk on forgiveness, by Jack Kornfield a wonderful Buddhist teacher & psychologist, over at DharmaSeed.  The talk is called “Redemption: Forgiveness, redemption & the great capacity of the heart to begin again.” (please consider a donation to them, they are a non-profit.)

4. Find the UPLIFT-Give it Meaning.

1. Consciously think and journal again about-how you got stronger as a result of the: assault, firing, or abuse, put down whatever it was.  Did you learn to look for certain signs in people who will not be trustworthy, for example?  Did you get motivated to actually live your dreams-go back to school etc. after the divorce?  Begin to tell that story-shorten the victim part at this stage but tag on the UPLIFT!

5. Do Some Inner Energetic Work

1. I really believe we get in part what we expect and exude, we co-create with the Divine.  So focus on the UPLIFT, on your strong qualities.  Write out affirmations-clear statements in present tense of how you want things to be ie.  “I’m now confidently working as an educator and I love it.” I think there is also karma our own, and societies that we are part of.  This is very hard for people to see, perhaps you can see it in others-say a friend who is always negative and then you notice “bad’ things do seem to happen to him all the time.

6. Be Aware of Your Speech

1. Notice pay attention to when  in conversation you bring up the “story” to explain why something is not happening now for you.  It’s in the past.  Are you sticking to your story?  Notice what you gain? Sympathy, a pat on the back that says “it’s ok you dont’ have to succeed,” simple comfort.  Are you in any way manipulating to get out of something you could actually accomplish or out of something you don’t really want to do.  Perhaps it was someone else’s dream and you need to let go of it as a goal.  My wanting to be a professor was in large part from family and societal pressure.  I even found in a journal written years before I took the teaching position.  The journal entry simply said “I don’t want to be a professor.”  But the lure of steady money, prestige and predictability led me to overlook my own inner voice.

7.  Help Others

At this stage you may feel able to help others who have suffered in a similar way- abused children, or battered women, perhaps simple tutoring in public school or big brother program. Or offering workshops at the women’s shelter.  Or  donating some money to a worthy cause that captures your heart.  And whether giving time or money, especially for the first time sit and consciously set an intention to help and link it to the what you have overcome– so you can see the full circle that you have come!  As my income grows my pledge is to give to two causes dear to my heart, helping Tibetan and Burmese nuns, who struggle to continue their practices under sometimes crazy harsh conditions.  The reason I support  them over other causes? Well I truly believe that people growing spiritually help the entire planet by their evolution.   And secondly I’m always told and I was a nun/monk in a past life!  When I was a small child one key memory is of seeing a Catholic (?) nun walk by in full habit, I turned to my  mother and said-I wanted to be one too!  She was not happy and yanked my arm and hissed “we are not Catholic.”

Please share your strategies of to rise up and stop feeling like a victim, and reclaim your identity as a strong, creative being.

Namaste, Kala