Breaking Free from Victimhood: Empowering Your Journey to Conscious Awakening

Have you ever wondered if you're unintentionally living in a victim mindset? Embark on a journey with me, Susan Sutherland, as we challenge the conventional wisdom surrounding victimhood and spiritual awakening. We'll dissect the layers of consciousness, exploring how moving beyond victimhood can lead to personal empowerment and a greater connection with the universe. Together, we'll explore how to break free from the chains of external blame and recognize the power you hold in shaping your life experience.

In this episode, we address the personal, familial, and systemic issues that nurture victim cultures and offer insights into reclaiming your power. By transforming fear, anger, and limiting beliefs into courage and willingness, we pave the way for resilience, emotional well-being, and personal growth and empowerment. Listen and learn how to elevate your vibration and contribute to a more awakened collective consciousness. This conversation is more than an exploration—it's a call to action for anyone ready to live with intention and embrace a fuller, more empowered life.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it. Hi everybody, thanks for joining today.

Speaker 1: 0:30

Today, we are talking about victim mindset and shifting out of victimhood. And before you say, oh, no, no, I'm not a victim, just hear me out on this, because a lot of times, there are areas that we have really moved on and feel in control of, and then there's a lot of other areas that we still feel like everything is happening to us. So I want you to listen, because this is a great way for us to shift the vibration, shift your vibration, move you up the scale, but also that helps raise the collective consciousness, which is what we're doing right now. Right, so, before we get into victimhood, I want to cover just four phases of spiritual awakening and in some aspects you might be in different phases, but I want you to hear me out on these. I recorded a whole episode on these phases, which I will link in the notes, but today we're focusing on victimhood.

Speaker 1: 1:29

So first there is victimhood. The first level of consciousness is unconsciousness. It is thinking that there are outside forces that are creating your experience, and this is when things are happening to me, okay. So the next phase is manifesting. It is when you start understanding that you've got some control, you got some skin in the game here and you can start navigating your experience with intention, and this is when things are happening by you. You have taken control and you are creating your experience. Now, a lot of times that is done in specific areas. Maybe you have a vision board and you think you are manifesting a certain car or a certain vacation. Meanwhile, you are also manifesting your relationships and your job and your financial status and your health. So it is not just what's on your vision board, but it's your entire life. The next phase is through me. It's the surrender phase, where you stop white knuckling and deciding that you are this magic manifester and you can create the life of your dreams. You can. However, there becomes an understanding that we are in a benevolent universe with a force greater than us, and to yield some of our control to the benevolent force, knowing that the divine plan for my soul's journey is likely better than my mind's can create and more intentional and purposeful for my soul's journey, and so I yield to the experience of the divine so that it can work through me. And the last stage is oneness, when everything is happening as me, when you understand that you are the universe and you are creating all of the experience and that there is no separation.

Speaker 1: 3:36

But that's not today's focus. Today's focus is back to victimhood. Now I will tell you there's not many people who are going to raise their hand and be like, yes, I'm in victimhood. It's a trigger word and nobody wants to claim it, but I would like you to think about how you are having. That is being in victimhood.

Speaker 1: 4:07

When we have put any kind of control outside of ourself for our experience, we are in a state of victimhood. Victimhood has been experienced by all of us and is experienced by groups at the same time, and the problem with this is it's really disempowering. When you believe that things are happening to you, you put the solution outside of yourself. You put the solution to the problem in someone else's hands. We have had systemic problems that lead to creating cultures of victimhood and, instead of empowering, we continue to look for others to blame, and so, instead of building our courage and our willingness to transform our situation, we are disempowered and stuck in this victim mindset. Often these individuals in victimhood, or even groups, are quick to blame others, to point fingers and to feel sorry for themselves. But we have to realize that this is just years and years of programming fear and limiting beliefs and anger. A lot of times, we are taught to believe that others are oppressing us and keeping us down. Issue is, when you're stuck in a victim mindset, it affects everything Our mental and our emotional health, our relationships, even our career and personal growth. When we see ourselves as victim, it can lead to feelings of hopelessness and lack of motivation. But here's the kicker it doesn't have to be this way. We can change our perspective and take back control, and that's what today's episode is all about.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Now let's dig a little deeper. Why do we fall into the victim mindset in the first place? It could be past trauma, learned behaviors from upbringing. It could be past trauma, learned behaviors from upbringing, even societal influences. We all have our triggers right.

Speaker 1: 6:14

All right, self-reflection is really important here, because you need to examine your life and find where are you placing blame? Outside of yourself? And it is not to make a move to blame yourself. That's not the case. Is not to make a move to blame yourself. That's not the case. It is to take accountability, because with accountability you take your power back. But when you are reflecting on what you are blaming others for, think to yourself. Bring to your awareness where you pick that up from, because a lot of times we have learned from our parents to blame the other side politically, to blame a different religion, to blame different race in our community, to blame our neighbor for whatever. We hear these things over and over and so you might be programmed to blame others. It is how you grew up. Really, think where you got this programming. Is it something that came from you, where you had an experience and you didn't take accountability for it and you placed it on someone else and they have become your scapegoat.

Speaker 1: 7:20

This is really about calling your power back. So you have to be really honest with what are the stories you're telling yourself and it might be what are the stories your parents told you about whose fault? You know? It's these people's fault, this group's fault, and right now you can see plenty of posts of people who are just so grateful that the president has changed because the last four years were the worst years of their lives, or people who are anticipating the next four years being so awful because they are putting their joy and their abundance and their everything outside of themselves onto who is leading the nation, outside of themselves onto who is leading the nation. When we call that power back, we are saying that I am ultimately in control of my experience and whoever is leading the country is not going to dictate that for me.

Speaker 1: 8:13

As you start understanding your situations of when things are hard and when you are spiraling kind of in a negative pattern and you want to blame someone else, it is your responsibility, now that you have awareness, to say what is my role in this situation and what are my options, because you are the decider. You get to be the choice maker. If something's not working, it is your responsibility now to take the appropriate action. So here's some steps we are going to take to move out of the victim mindset. Number one just the self-awareness and mindfulness Start listening to when you go to blame somebody for your experience, it doesn't matter if it is your health or your job or just how happy you were in your day. If you are putting your joy outside of yourself, you are in victim mindset and we have to catch ourselves. We have to know when we are doing that so that we can shift that.

Speaker 1: 9:14

When you catch yourself thinking like a victim, pause and reframe those thoughts like a victim. Pause and reframe those thoughts Instead of thinking why is this happening to me? Think what am I supposed to learn? You know how we say oh, this always happens to me. Well, it's because you haven't learned the lesson. Like, let's just be honest here, you guys, it will keep happening until you extract the lesson. When you are a victim, it just keeps happening. When you become conscious of it, you get to extract the lesson. Oh, I see, I was supposed to learn how to set boundaries. And then you don't have to keep having that same experience over and over. Once you pass the test, you can stop taking the course. Isn't that magnificent? So, while sometimes it feels hard to say, okay, that's my responsibility, it allows you to elevate all of your experiences because you don't need to get stuck in those swirly moments. We'll call them swirly moments, all right.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Number two we are going to reframe our negative narratives. I feel like I say this all the time, but you can catch what you're thinking. Shift the story that you are telling yourself. Focus on your strengths and your successes, no matter how small they are, but start being accountable. I take accountability for everything. I am the ultimate creator. I am that powerful and you know what that means if I drop a cup of coffee and it goes everywhere. I know that at some point previously I had some muggled up thoughts that I wish I would have reframed, and I didn't, because I created this experience that I would not have chosen. But you're not. You are creating it, all the good things and the bad things. We don't just manifest our vision board. We manifest our entire experience.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Number three set boundaries and take responsibility. It's about taking ownership of your life. Set healthy boundaries and take responsibility for your actions and decisions. If you know some people who are super unaware and they just drive you nuts and you're like that's definitely not my fault, that is definitely them. Well, how you take accountability is saying actually, I'm responsible for me and I need to set a boundary and protect my space and my energy. That's how you bring it back to you, even if their behavior is less than acceptable. Your responsibility is for how you engage with them.

Speaker 1: 11:53

And number four seek support. I always have a coach. I'm always working with someone. It goes for a little while and then I shift. I really know that having somebody to bounce ideas off and to help me grow and see things from a different perspective is very helpful for me, and especially as you are starting on this journey and trying to reframe how you think about things and how to take accountability without feeling like you need to be feeling guilty for something you've done. It is very helpful to have somebody to work with. I do work with people one-on-one If you want to shoot me a message. Otherwise, find someone. Find a conscious friend or a group of friends that you can bounce things off of. Knowing that the goal is not for them to give you your answers but for you to find them. And a lot of times, voicing your experience is helpful in getting there.

Speaker 1: 12:51

This is really not about making you feel bad for the experiences you've had or if things are not going well. This is not to make you feel shameful about that. This is really to make you feel shameful about that. This is really about empowering you, and living an empowered life means that you understand that you have the power to shape your reality. And if you have created something that you don't love, the good news now is that you can start shifting out of that. This is about remembering your strengths, acknowledging your worth and taking bold steps towards your goal, knowing that it is all in your power. When you move out of this victim mindset, you will find more joy and resilience and fulfillment.

Speaker 1: 13:38

All right, so one question you might have is like I'm not a victim, but my partner stays in victim mindset, how can I support them? And the answer is to offer empathy and understanding without enabling the victim mindset. You don't want to be like, yes, your boss is the devil, he did all of this stuff to you because we know he didn't right of this stuff to you because we know he didn't right. Encourage them to take responsibility for their actions and their situations and to plan positive steps forward to improve the situation. I think what is most needed on your journey out of victim mindset is self-compassion.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Journey out of victim mindset is self-compassion. Self-compassion is crucial as it will allow you to be kind to yourself and recognize that everyone makes mistakes. And if you were creating unconsciously, you got the results of that, but you don't have to beat yourself up for it. We can only act at the level of our consciousness. That's where we're all creating from is from the level of consciousness that we have, and so if you were creating unconsciously, then you see the fruits of your labor. The good news is now you can shift it, moving forward.

Speaker 1: 15:01

But there is no sense in beating yourself up for doing something that you were not even aware you were doing. If you have been coloring on a page in the dark and then somebody turns the light on, you're not going to be like, oh, look at this shit. It'll be like, well, the light was off, I was doing the best I could, and so now that the light is on, you can get your crayon inside of the lines. Okay, all right, thank you so much for doing this work. Thank you for taking responsibility of your mindset, of your actions, of your whole life. That's really cool. It's really cool that you know you are a badass powerhouse that can create the life of your dreams. All right, I feel like I've been using some high fives. I love you so much. Thank you for listening. Share this.

Speaker 1: 15:51

If there is someone out there, I mean, don't be like, hey, I think you're a victim. You should listen to this. Just say I thought this was really interesting. Why don't you listen to it and let's talk about it? Something like that might be better, because people do not like being called a victim. But go ahead and tell me how many people are running around blaming everybody for their shit. All right, I think every episode I'm using more cuss words. I gotta tone it down. All right, I love y'all so much. Thank you for listening. Hey, friends, it only takes a second to leave a five-star rating. Don't have time to write a review. That's okay, because clicking five stars takes no longer than clicking one star. So if you listened, you enjoyed it and you found this at all helpful, take a moment and leave me a rating on your favorite podcast app. Have a great week.