si dawson

experiments in self-improvement

Category: relationships

May 7, 2011

How To Stop Being A Victim And Regain Your Power

Being a victim means feeling that something or  someone outside ourselves controls some part of our lives. Put simply, we lose connection with the fact that we create every single aspect of our existence. Often it may be difficult at the time to see how or why, but we do.

Of course, this can be a very hard concept to accept as truth. However, in order to get out of being a victim, it’s helpful to just go with this for the moment.

(Yes, this is a very confrontational post. Bear with me.)

Basically, every step we can take towards having complete power over our lives is one step away from being a victim (where we have none).

Regarding any specific situation, it’s critical to remember:

  1. It’s already happened. We can’t change the past. So, the best thing we can do is accept what’s happened, and let it go. Ie, get peaceful about it.
  2. For better or worse, the myriad of tiny decisions you made up until that point is why you were there. ie, you put yourself there. Often it’s impossible to see the exact chain of cause-and-effect, but you created that situation, if nothing else then just by being present (athough there’s always a lot more going on than just that).
  3. Accepting the past does not mean choosing to create the same situation in the future

Remember, this isn’t about blaming yourself, this is about accepting the past & letting it go. It’s also about realising the true power we have. Once we accept the past, we can move on and make better decisions in the future. Have better beliefs and self-image. Create a better existence.

How to drop victimhood

Think about something terrible that’s happened to you. Just start with whatever pops in your head.

Then say (as always, preferably out loud if possible):

  • (describe the situation)
  • I created this (or to save time, just “I created [describe situation]”)
  • I accept it.
  • I accept myself.
  • I love you Si (or your name, if you’re not called Si).

As you’re doing this, you may feel a lot of energy come up. It’s very likely that part of you will be screaming as loudly as it possibly can “NO NO NO, I DID NOT, I WILL NOT. I DON‘T.” This is completely normal — and in fact, why we’re doing this — to bring all that resistance to the surface & let it out, harmlessly and safely.

You may feel tension or clutching in your body, shortness of breath, etc. Just let it all go. Relax that part of your body and let all the energy out. Keep cycling through the above four statements until you feel completely at peace about the issue.

Some tips:

  • If it’s hard to say “I accept it” (which, oh boy, is understandable), try “I choose to accept it.” Again, this reasserts your power.
  • If it feels like there’s still some ickiness around the subject, try amping the statements up:
    • I accept all of this
    • I accept every part of this
    • I accept myself completely
    • I love you anyway

(you get the idea)

Basically, just say these variations & let go (ie, accept) everything that comes up, until you feel super calm. Estimated time per subject? Oh, typically less than 20 seconds.

What do I feel a victim about?

Where to start? Here are some suggestions:

  • Any feelings of inadequacy towards your parents
  • Any situations where you felt “not good enough”
  • Any situations where you compared unfavourably to friends
  • Any strongly negative judgements (eg, feeling like a loser, a failure, etc — any of those deep dark criticisms)
  • Big life mistakes (particularly those around relationships, or money)
  • Traumatic events where you felt you had no power or control
  • Anything you want to change about your life

Basically, any memory you have that you hate the hell out of; makes you feel crappy every time you think of it; you wish were different. Just go with whatever pops in your head, your intuition will guide you.

It’s ok to address multiple aspects of a given relationship separately. Some people have very major (read: traumatic) roles in our lives, often spanning decades.

Why bother?

The whole intent here is to simply accept the past for what it is — done & dusted. The peace this brings is incredibly freeing. It also has the benefit of stopping you continuing to create these things in your life.

Why? Well have you ever noticed how we tend to cycle — have the same crappy things happen to us, until we finally learn our lesson? Yes, well this is one powerful way of breaking those cycles. Think about it, when you learn a lesson, you relax & accept it, right? So think of this as a shortcut. This is how you unwind karma and free yourself from those patterns.

When you’re truly peaceful about something that’s happened, you’re also truly free — you can choose to create it again, or create something completely new. You don’t have emotional detritus pulling at you. You regain your true power. You stop feeling like a victim.

The other thing to realise is — even though we may not be consciously aware of it, our subconscious is constantly churning over all this noise. The amount of peace we bring ourselves by pulling all this junk to the surface, accepting it & finally letting it go… well, you’ll just have to try it for yourself. Words really cannot do this justice.

Finally, with big issues it’s often helpful (and easier) to take smaller steps. Acceptance is one such super useful step towards fully loving every aspect of your life.

 

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    June 10, 2010

    Stop Bashing Your Head Against The Wall!

    Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It enables us to look back & say “Oh wow, that was a complete waste of a day.. or 10 years.”

    Wouldn’t it be useful to know in advance if something was going to be pointless? Or how about just at the time? Even cutting that wasted 6 months back to a day or two would be a huge win.

    How the hell would we go about that?

    Well, an obvious way is to get more present (eg this excellent video tutorial on ‘Falling Still’ by my good friend @Dhrumil). The more aware we are, the more attention we’ll pay to warning signs that perhaps we’re wasting our time (aka, not being in the flow of the universe).

    Getting more present is well covered territory, so how about just ensuring we’re not massively out of sync with the world in some huge way?

    How do we spot when we are really, really nowhere the hell near what’s best for us? Or when we’re exhibiting akrasia, and actively going against our own best judgement?

    In other words, how do we identify (so we can correct) when we’re  making life unbearably difficult for ourselves?

    Turns out, this is easier to spot than it might seem. The bad news is, it’s usually easiest to see about ten years after we’ve stopped doing it. It’s also typically accompanied by enlightened self-observations such as “dipshit” & other such beating ourselves up.

    pic by rob, rich & tim

    So what are typical head-bashing symptoms?

    Very simply: pouring massive amounts of time, energy & effort into a situation (or person).. and getting disproportionately little in return.

    What are the warning signs?

    • Are you always the one to initiate contact?
    • Is it always a massive effort to cheer them up (or them you)?
    • Do you put way more effort into communication than they do (as I discussed recently, asymmetrical communication)?
    • Does it feel like you have to “chase” them, but they’re never chasing you in return?
    • Do you come away from them feeling drained?
    • Is there a mis-match between your communication tones? (eg, you’re generally positive towards them; they’re generally negative towards you)
    • Do you compromise way more often than them?
    • Do you feel you need to ‘convince’ them of things that are obvious & reasonable in every other similar relationship you have?
    • Do you dread seeing them?

    Seeing these signs isn’t enough by themselves, of course, you need to allow for context. Everyone goes through difficulties, & every relationship in your life will show some of these at some point or other.  One symptom by itself may tell you nothing more than that person desperately needs your support.

    If you’re seeing a large number of them though? That’s a pretty good sign you’re just wasting a ton of time & energy for no good reason.

    One obvious solution is just to remove those people from your life – or at the very least minimize contact as much as possible.

    pic by eventhestreets

    Of course, people always change, & in time they may well end up being your closest friend ever. Right now though? They’re not.

    However it’s always a mistake (& one I’ve learned the hard way, repeatedly) to fall in love, or spend time & energy on someone based on who they might become – instead of who they actually are right now.

    I’ve had relationships I’ve bailed out of because I eventually realised I’d been hanging on (for years in some cases), solely in the hope they might one day become the person I could see they were capable of being.

    If you abstract this conversation up a level, you’ll also see you have relationships with companies – those who give you money (your employer, your customers), and those you give money to (your utilities, local cafe). The same rules apply.

    Why waste your time, your energy, your life on any relationship that is non-reciprocal & not adding value to your existence?

    Similarly, & in the interests of balance, it’s worth reassessing how you are to those around you. Are you “take take take”? Could you enrich the lives of those who love you by putting just a little more effort in?

    Trust me, it is always going to be worth your time to do so. Really it’s simply a case of showing them the love & respect that they are showing you.

    These small (though occasionally scary) observations & steps can help save years of your life, untold misery, & free you up to truly get in the flow of the universe.

    Life is supposed to be easy. Not without effort, but certainly not a perpetual struggle. Believing otherwise simply leads us to create these walls & spend years, as I’ve done, bashing our heads against them.

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      June 7, 2010

      Talking By Text Sucks (& How)

      Particularly in recent years, reading & writing have taken over our lives. We communicate primarily by text an increasing amount of the time. Facebook, Twitter, email, IM, SMS, blogs, forums, the list goes on.

      There are some very real problems with communicating by text.

      pic by alex guerra

      Asymmetry

      Unless both parties are typing an equal amount, any text based conversation is going to seem very one sided very quickly. In fact, not just a roughly equal amount of text, but an equal amount of thought, energy & attention (eg, not just blathering for the sake of word count)

      This isn’t how regular conversations work though. If you’re face-to-face and actively listening, you are communicating back, a lot: with body language, intonation (even if you’re just saying “go on”), energy, presence, being, even touching. There’s a lot going on that isn’t spoken.

      Particularly being an active listener (where you’re really paying attention to the person you’re listening to) you’re communicating a hell of a lot. With zero words.

      Depending on who you ask, as much as 93% of communication is non verbal. Of course, all of that is lost via text.

      If someone doesn’t reply to you at all, you get exactly zero information  – unless of course you’re able to deduce something from what they didn’t reply to.

      With so much of how we normally communicate unavailable to us, imbalances occur very easily.

      pic by naunau

      Context

      The other thing that text loses completely is context. In person, it’s possible to see if the other person is distracted, tired, stressed or has just spilt coffee on themselves. Via text, you have none of this, unless they explicitly tell you.

      In the days of writing letters this may not have been such a big deal. Writing a letter a week is low volume enough that whatever is immediately happening in your day will have negligible effect on the words that are sent. However, these days so much of communcation is via text – email, im, twitter, facebook, texting, you name it. There’s so much, & it’s all day every day.

      It’s quite possible that something you took to be incredibly serious & upsetting just happened to be right after they got scratched by their cat, or spilt coffee in their lap.

      Now that’s environmental context – there may be tone coming through the message that is actually utterly irrelevant to the conversation.

      The other thing that’s very easy to lose commonly occurs in formats that allow for multiple overlapping conversations at once – twitter, irc, im etc. It’s quite common for conversational context to be lost. A statement may be made, but because of the overlapping, it becomes unclear what it’s in reply to. We need to stop, reconnect the threads again & then continue. Or, worse yet, we don’t realise there’s been the loss of context & instead get completely the wrong message.

      A third difficulty is how hard it can be to both accurately convey and interpret such nuances as sarcasm.  People typically over-estimate their ability to convey sarcasm and their ability to correctly identify it. Online this can be deadly.

      pic by krazy dad/jbum

      Building Relationships

      The combination of the above two – asymmetrical & contextual difficulties, mean that text communication is frightfully prone to misunderstandings. Some studies say that as much as 50% of text communication is misunderstood.

      In terms of building a relationship then, while it is possible to do this over text, you’re making life a lot harder for yourself. Missing out on many subtle sub-cues, making it harder than ever to communicate clearly, and so on.

      Additionally unless you love text, you’re immediately disadvantaged. If you express yourself better verbally, or physically, you’re just plain out of luck.

      The worst situation is if one of you is someone that enjoys & is good at text communication, & the other isn’t (or primarily communicates through another modality).

      I’ve met some people for example who can’t write an email to save themselves, and yet in person are an utter delight, like a sunbeam dancing on a rainbow. Obviously the only solution here is to make sure you always live in the same city, so you get to fully enjoy the wonderfulness that is them.

      pic by abhi

      With all these limitations, difficulties & complications, how many otherwise potentially wonderful friendships are lost to text? Who really knows.

      All I can recommend is this:

      1. Understand, be aware & compensate for the limitations & distortions of communicating via text
      2. Get the hell out of it into a much richer medium as soon as you possibly can

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        September 12, 2008

        How To Get What You Want In Relationships (But Not What You Asked For)

        I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how we attract people into our lives – who we end up in relationships with, and so on. This applies both to intimate relationships, and more importantly friendships (since we generally have far more & are less discriminating with friends than lovers)

        It’s pretty obvious (in hindsight) that while a bunch of factors determine our partners – very few of these are actually at the conscious level. You want a guy who treats you well, and yet somehow always end up with angry drunks? Huh?

        Here are some of the reasons why this sort of thing happens:

        Your Patterns
        If you look back over all your relationships, what recurring themes can you see? I don’t mean obvious things like age difference, or hair colour.

        I mean things like – were you meeting damaged people & trying to fix them? Were you with people who supported you as much as you supported them, or was it all one sided? Did they respect you? Do you often find yourself in relationships with people that were selfish or self-centred? That have no money themselves but lots of ideas how to spend yours? People that are angry? Rude to waiters? Lazy?

        The problem is – whether you’re aware of these patterns or not, whatever it is inside you that is creating them will continue to create them – at least, until you heal the patterns or otherwise clear them out.

        For example, I know that until very recently I’ve had a very deep need for approval (Thanks, great-great-great grandma! Fortunately this is sorted now). As such, I’ve regularly got in relationships with “broken” people – not bad people per se, just those with a lot of issues I could then help them with. As I help them, they’re grateful, and voila, my need for approval is fulfilled.

        Now, I saw this vividly in my very first relationship – with a suicidal bulemic – and swore I’d never do it again. At a conscious level, I chose to stay away from these situations, and yet – they continued to echo through my life regardless. Despite my best conscious attention, I’ve been involved with a violent alcoholic, an anorexic, sociopathic liars & many serious abuse victims. Most interestingly, none of these attributes were visible in the early stages of the relatonships. There was no way I would know until it was too late.

        At some level, I was drawing these situations to myself, despite my best (conscious) intentions.

        Their Patterns
        There are two people in every relationship (well, ok, excluding polyamory), so it’s worth remembering that any characteristics you have will attract people looking for those attributes.

        Think about it this way – whatever you dislike most about yourself? There will be people who are drawn to that (for many reasons). You will be part of completing their deepest desires – even if it’s a part of yourself you don’t particularly want to be sharing with anyone.

        Your Fears
        One of the most maddening aspects of life is that you not only attract things that you desire, but also things you hate, or fear.

        It breaks down like this – anything you place attention on – whether positive or negative – is drawn to you. Yeah yeah, law of attraction, etc etc.

        So how does this pan out in relationships? Well, if you have (as I have for years) a fear of being used for your dosh? Sooner or later (or worse – very often) you’re going to end up with someone who is mostly there for the bling. Have a deep fear of jealousy – you’re going to end up with people who make you jealous. Trust me on this – like crazy. Afraid of being cheated on? Your partners will cheat on you. Afraid you might be a loser? You’ll attract people who believe you really are.

        And so it goes.

        relationship.jpg
        pic by McNeny

        What To Do About All This
        This could get frustratingly depressing very quickly. Hold your hankies though! There is, as always, good news!

        The first is to be aware that you always have choice. With the exception of family, every single person in your life is there because you (at some point) chose them to be there. So, you can also choose for them not to be.

        It’s also important to realise that unless you’re VERY careful (on an energetic level) every person you interact with will affect you, at some point. Your friends that you see all the time? They’re going to have a huge, cumulative effect on your life. Your boyfriend gets angry at the traffic? You’re going to end up road raging along with him.

        So, it’s worth thinking about who you want near you. It’s an important decision, and needs to be made for every significant relationship you have (not just your intimate partners)

        Secondly, once you figure out the worst of the patterns, merely being aware of them will help you avoid the most egregious examples. While I may have not have successfully avoided girls with eating disorders, that was the last time I spent time with anyone (friend or partner) who was aggressively suicidal. These are small but important steps that will still save you a world of hurt.

        Thirdly, by seeing the patterns, you’ll be able to track them back & heal them. There are tons of tools for doing this of course (heh, I feel like I’m always saying that – but I do keep discovering more of them every week).

        Even just giving some thought to your most recent relationship – or your closest current friends, you’ll be able to see definite patterns. If you were using EFT, for example, you could start with something really general like “Even though I attract people that don’t respect me..”. Something non-specific like that probably won’t clear the problem out completely, but it will definitely give you enough traction to really find out what’s going on, & then kick that junk to the curb.

        think_baby_think.jpg
        pic by Mark_2000

        The greatest thing is this – if you’re, say, 30 now, you may live another 100 years (yes, the typical life expectancy for 30 year olds today is 125-150 years).

        So, how many friends will you have in the next 100 years? If you make 5 new friends a year, that’s 500 friends. If you have one new partner every 5 years, that’s another 20 intimate relationships. So, even just clearing out one negative pattern will mean you straight away get 500 better friends & 20 better partners. How awesome is that? (answer: unbelievably!)

        And if you really get into it? Why, the sky’s the limit! Awesome relationships all round, on the double!!

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          August 2, 2008

          Breaking Up Is So… Easy To Do?

          I’ve just broken up from a two & a bit year relationship.

          Normally these things are incredibly painful. This time was very different though, so I’d like to talk about it a little.

          I’ve had a few serious relationships in this life, so I’ve got a pretty good handle on how these things generally go for me:

          • Three to six months of random unprovoked crying & misery
          • Lots of various forms of self destructive behaviour (alcohol, mostly)
          • Depression & general feelings of worthlessness, loneliness

          broken_heart.gif

          This time though, ohhhh, completely different.

          Very little pain, almost no tears, no depression, no self-destruction (unless you count a couple of cups of coffee). Aloneness, obviously, but no loneliness.

          What’s changed? Well, here’s what I did (and continue to do):

          • Every time I’ve thought about my ex, I’ve released on the thought
          • Every time emotions (even ones I can’t specifically pinpoint) have become overwhelming, I’ve tapped them out.

          I admit this is, uhh, a little aggressive, but there are two ways you can do any breakup – short & sharp, or long & drawn out. I choose the former.

          I’ve talked about releasing before (here), but to recap: I imagine the thought or feeling inside me, then just let it go. I imagine it floating up out of me. This is something I got to practice a lot with the juice feast I was on since it’s also super useful for food cravings. In terms of repetitive thought patterns, this kills them dead. A lot of the time there would be a sudden rush of emotion, some very brief (5-10 seconds of) crying, and then gone. It’s the hanging on to pain that amplifies it, with this it disappears before it can grow into something worse.

          In terms of the tapping (EFT – lots more on my site there), a lot of times I didn’t even tap on anything specific – I just tapped while letting my mind churn away. This just helped even out my energy field (and hence emotions), and calm everything the hell down.

          After all, where does most of the pain of a breakup come from?

          1. Emotional trauma (from things said & done)
          2. Negative memories
          3. Self-inflicted repetitive thought patterns (obsessing over the past)

          If you get rid of those, what’s left?

          Well, the acid test, as always, is how things are when you next see the ex. And the proof? I spent a day with her this week, and the only negative thing that occurred was me saying a few stupid nasty things, from a habit I had left over of wanting those who’ve caused me pain to suffer. Once I realised what was happening I tapped it the hell out, but really, that was it. And, unsurprisingly, once I’d tapped out the habit, it disappeared instantly & everything was fine between us. Yes, I explained & apologised, of course.

          And the rest of the day? I was calm as a hindu cow. Inside & out. No negative thoughts, no negative emotions, nothing. After she’d left, I cried for half an hour – realising I was going to miss her, but some tapping & just releasing all the emotion that came up, and I felt great again.

          Now, to be fair, there are a couple of situations I can think of that I’m not sure how I would deal with yet:

          1. Finding out that I’d been lied to about something serious, for example, that she’d slept with someone else while we were involved (or very shortly after)
          2. When she gets involved with someone new

          But really, I suspect these will involve maybe five minutes of tapping each, and they’ll be gone too. So, frankly, if they are going to happen, the sooner the better.

          What’s a good litmus test going forward? We’ve been broken up for a week or two now, and I only think about her maybe 20-30 times a day – this is with continued contact. Given how closely involved we were (24 hours a day for 2 years – living & working together), I probably would have thought about her at least every 5 minutes – particularly once you include the many fleeting thoughts that spin through our minds (how often do you think aboutt someone while you’re talking to them?) .. So once every half an hour or so (if that) is a huge step forward.

          I’ll continue releasing & healing. I’m damn sure things will drop away to nothing, or near nothing, very, very quickly.

          Now, this doesn’t mean I’m ready to jump back on the horse (uhh, so to speak) just yet. It is still important for me to re-ground, re-centre & get comfortable with who I am as an individual again. However, in terms of speedy & painless resolutions, this has surprised the hell out of me.

          I don’t want to hide from the world. I feel calm & positive about myself, my future.. and my ex. It’s far better than I ever could have imagined. It’s a whole new way of being.

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