Being a victim of something or feeling this way is incredibly annoying. You feel vulnerable and attacked. This can cause a lot of stress, so what can you do to stop being a victim (even though that may be something you are), but how can you stop feeling like a victim no matter what happened.
Victim meaning
First, it may be helpful to know what the definition of victimization actually is. If you pull out the Van Dale, you get two meanings:
- Sacrificial animal slaughtered on an altar.
- Someone who suffers physical, financial or mental harm through no fault of their own; Someone who must suffer[1].
In this blog, we talk mainly about the second definition of victim. Of course, it is terrible when you suffer or have suffered harm through no fault of your own. But at some point, you still want to be able to get on with your life without the feeling of being a victim weighing on your shoulders.
How can you do that now?
Victim Role
Something to realize is that if you have repaired the damage and you still continue to feel like a victim or behave that way, you may end up in a victim role of sorts.
Research shows that in societies where justice is a thing, such as with a working rule of law, people are more likely to call themselves victims[2].
Note! Some people have assumed this role even though they are not even initially a victim.
But so it may be that you have noticed somewhere that if you are a victim this apparently has certain benefits. It may then feel attractive to continue to set yourself up as a victim.
Yet at some point, even then, you may find that this is no longer something you want to do or what works for you. You want to feel strong and powerful again.
So how do you get rid of the feeling of being a victim?
Then something else can happen. You have been victimized, you take revenge, and then that other person takes revenge again. Then suddenly it can become very unclear who is actually the victim.
Exercise:
A fun exercise you can do then is to observe this sentence:
"I'm not a victim of the world I see," says the author.
Apply this idea to the world around you and your inner world.
You can have longer practice periods of three to five minutes twice a day. For example, in the morning when you wake up and before bed. During that time, look around you slowly and repeat the idea. Close your eyes and apply the same idea to your inner world. You will then escape both immediately, because your outer world is determined by the inner world.
See everything, all your thoughts, come and go as equanimously as possible. Don't dwell on what you "see," but let the flow go by.
Repeat the idea today as often as you like, observing your thoughts, without being hasty in doing so.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/7577164-eciw-les-31?t=0
This is just a small exercise you can apply yourself, but beyond that, there is much more you can do to not feel like a victim of the world or anyone else.
Stop being a victim stops bullying
In fact, if you manage to tell yourself that you are not the victim, it can be of great benefit to you. For example, if you are now a victim of bullying, stopping this feeling can cause the bullying itself to actually stop. In children, at least, this can happen.
The kids we're talking about were actually adolescents. One of those adolescents, a girl, managed to escape bullying by building status. By indeed behaving differently and that was suddenly seen as cool. Being good at something and making connections with other kids can be very helpful. By the end of her schooling, she was actually one of the most popular girls (at least in her memory). So the story you tell yourself is important and dare to experiment to see how people respond to it.
Another victim overcame the bullying by saying at one point that enough was enough and it had to stop, then she walked home in her gym clothes. This was because she no longer recognized herself in the story of the bullies and in being a victim. Apparently this was enough to make it stop.
A third victim also did not see himself as a victim, but was afraid of being bullied. Instead, he tried to avoid being bullied through humor and making jokes (sometimes about other classmates)[3].
A key similarity of these three stories is that, above all, you don't see yourself as someone who deserves to be a victim. In one case, it didn't even occur to someone to see themselves as a victim, and in the others, other factors made it clear at some point that being a victim was not something they were. At some point, being a victim just wasn't part of these adolescents' identity anymore, so the bullying stopped as well.
Changing perceptions about yourself
So it may be wise to let go of the identity of victim. No matter how badly you have been victimized.
Instead, you can also think of yourself as:
- Survivor
- Victor
- Perpetrator
- Winner
- Hero
Indeed, renewing yourself is a strategy that people employ to overcome a personal crisis. This is not just about a fun makeover, which does form part of self-renewal, but also about redefining yourself[4].
Sometimes it is difficult to redefine yourself and give yourself a new story. In that case, a hypnosis technique called future-pacing can help you become more future-focused instead. This can also help you renew yourself.
This is actually the opposite of regression. Instead of looking to your past to solve something there, you start looking to your future.
You then visualize, with the help of the hypnotherapist, where you want to be in, say, a year from now. How you will be and what your life will look like. Then you take a step back each time until the moment of therapy. This gives you a clear plan, a clear way in which you can redefine yourself.
This is an advanced technique taught at Hypnosis Institute Netherlands in its third training.
Forgiveness to stop feeling like a victim
Something else that can help you stop feeling like the victim is to forgive the perpetrator. This does not mean that what happened is suddenly okay. It mainly means that you are no longer going to spend energy being judgmental about it.
This can help you move forward in your life again.
Forgiving someone can be done in several ways.
For example, you can look at how someone got to the point in their life in the first place that they wanted to do something to you. Understanding sometimes makes it easier to forgive.
Another way is to take revenge on that person in your mind. You can do all kinds of things to that person in your mind. Just until you begin to find it pathetic. Then you can also get to the point of forgiveness more easily, so you can continue to change the image of yourself.
With this, a hypnotherapist can also help you.
Hypnosis to hold your new you
In addition to all these techniques and tips, hypnosis and self-hypnosis can help you hold onto your new view of yourself so you don't fall back into feeling victimized.
For example, you can receive a self-hypnosis guided visualization from your therapist that you can listen to daily. In addition, you can also be given affirmations or suggestions that you can repeat daily, such as:
"I determine the course of the rest of my life."
"I get to be who I want to be."
"My past says nothing about my future."
"The future is bright."
These are just examples. Depending on your beliefs and issues as a victim, you may receive other suggestions from your hypnotherapist.
Want to learn more about how hypnosis works and how it can help you and others? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis.
Or enroll directly in one of our training courses. Ideal if you work with people, whether as a coach or otherwise.
Sources:
[1] https://www.vandale.nl/gratis-woordenboek/nederlands/betekenis/slachtoffer
[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305829814550258
[3] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1019.2598&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022167885254012
