Being a victim

I wanted to write three different articles on the topics hope and trust, duties and boundaries and instead it became one piece of poetry. During the process of writing I discovered how intricate the subjects were and how one topic leads to the others.

It is difficult to have hope and trust if someone constantly feels like a victim. Being a victim we only live in a scenario where everyone and everything around us either hates us, is angry with us or looks down on us or any of the combination of these. Our only concern is to try please them and avoid the negative consequences - that are unclear, something like "they will never talk to us anymore", which in case a scenario like this were indeed actual, doesn't even sound like a terrible thing.

I don't know where this is coming from. It might be some kind of a transgenerational heritage as I have only seen people in the family following it but the same way suffering from it but never enjoying it - if not for seconds when they got to be the dictator for the moment.

Feeling like a victim is many things. From being angry with whoever and whatever you come across (yes, even with the kitchen towel you can't find the hook of) to constant negative self talk and resentment. It seems most likely to be a learned way - to have copied someone who has criticised themselves all the time. We always say that we should be careful with the way we talk to our children because it will become their inner voice, and it is definitely so. But it seems like the way we talk to ourselves influences them in bigger proportions than previously thought. 

I have learned a negative attitude towards myself. I have learned it from generations and generations from one side of my ancestors. 

Whenever I feel like a victim and I feel that people /situations /anything is against me, I project this inner voice to the outside world. 

This is not sustainable. I must be on my own side. 

I have always felt something like this, like I had a distorted image of the outside world due to my "black lenses", but I used it to give free pass for anyone abusive. I said "I can't really understand why people make me feel like that, surely they didn't mean it, I have problems anyway, so let them do whatever they do". I didn't stand up for myself, I didn't protect myself because I thought it was only my negativity that made me feel bad. 

It wasn't sustainable. 

Now I don't only know of "having some kind of emotional issues" but I'm not afraid to look inside it and deal with it. Yes, I didn't love myself. Yes, I projected my lack of love and support for myself to the outside world and have always felt in need. But it doesn't mean that I have to accept and tolerate not being loved and supported by the ones that claim to be standing by me. 

I'm checking every small feeling and thought. Whenever there's a hint of victim-attitude, I stand back and stop. My children love me. The office is doing their job. (Actually, it's easier to work on it without negative, passive aggressive cashiers, shop assistants, ticket controllers and people on the street who look into your eyes with disgust.) 

So I stop and get back loving myself. 

If I don't love myself, I feel like others don't love me. But if I do, I don't feel they hate me or are angry with me. 

And only if I love myself I can spot if something is wrong, if someone is really negative towards me. Otherwise it would only be a basic starting point - that's how the world is, there's no love. 

There is. 

Our universe is made of love of the Creator towards us. Every atom in the nature, including ourselves is the reflection of this love. 

Not to love doesn't make sense - and it's not sustainable. I need to love myself to stay alive.