Episode 410: Monday Mindset: The Victim Mindset

In today's Monday Mindset episode, You’ll hear concrete mindset shifts: separating valid feelings from limiting narratives, finding gratitude without pretending, advocating for yourself, and returning to the one lever that actually moves your life your choices. We end with a question you can sit with all week: where are you placing your happiness in someone else’s hands?

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Transcript

Monday Mindset And The Big Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, teachers. Welcome back to another Monday mindset. This one might challenge most of us. I know this concept of the victim mindset challenged me significantly when it first was introduced into my life. And it also radically changed my life when I decided to no longer be a victim to my circumstances. You know, a lot of the last podcast episodes, we've been talking about having agency over your life, the thoughts that we choose to tell ourselves, the way that we move throughout the world and allow our feelings to either dictate what we do or don't do based on our thoughts, right? A lot of this stuff has been about like this internal work. And I think that this concept of the victim mindset is really important when used the right way and when used to actually live a better life. And I'll start by sharing a story with you. As many of you know, I suffered from a severe traumatic cerebral spinal, cerebral spinal fluid leak injury last year, um January 21st of 2025. And it was seven grueling months of really not being able to do anything. I couldn't watch TV, I couldn't read books, I couldn't listen to audiobooks, I could barely walk. I was mostly bedridden with nothing to do. And when that happens, you are left with a lot of thoughts, and your mind can go to some pretty dark places. One of the things that I continue to tell myself, and I actually still have this as the like phone background, is that all is well, everything is working out for my highest good. And out of this situation, the so-called problem, only good will come and I am safe. And I remember there were quite a few moments throughout that experience where I felt sorry for myself. You know, I'd get mad. Why did this happen to me? Like I just want to be happy. And which is right, like obviously, of course, that's gonna happen when you're going through something that dramatically impacts your quality of life. And there were a couple of moments that came up for me where I remember thinking to myself, okay, I can sit here or lay here, because I couldn't even sit. I could lay here and think to myself, woe is me, poor me. I'm never gonna get better. I'm so unhappy, I'm so miserable, I hate the world, I'm pissed, you know. Or I can sit here because this is gonna be my circumstance until I get better. If I get better, I didn't even know if I was ever going to be able to be fully healed and live a normal life again. I can sit here and choose how I'm going to experience this. And I finally got to a point where I was like, I am sick and tired of waiting to feel better, to feel happy. I'm sick and tired of waiting to feel better, to feel happy. Because in that instance, if I was gonna wait until I felt better, I'm putting the agency of the happiness of my life on an external circumstance that I had no control over. I mean, I kind of did by talking to doctors and, you know, neurosurgeons and being an advocate for myself and making sure I got to the right neurosurgeon when all was said and done. But it was a long, what could have been very depressing journey. And instead of sitting in the victim, like this happened to me, I can't believe that this happened. I'm so angry. I definitely went through those feelings, a lot of that stemming from fear of not knowing if I was ever gonna be okay. And when I shifted my mindset and my perspective into no longer being a victim to this, but being like, you know what? I'm gonna choose to be happy. I'm gonna choose to find the gratitude in the small things, right? What are what are the silver linings that I'm experiencing here? The silver linings is I had so many friends show up for me in such a way that I didn't know that they would. And it made me feel like, oh my gosh, I really do have a community of women who care about me when prior to the injury I didn't feel that way. Or it deepened my relationship with my mom because my mom, at one point for a couple of days, had to spoon feed me food because I couldn't even lift my head. And so it was choosing to move into gratitude, to move into happiness, to change my perspective of this circumstance and the situation that I was in, as opposed to being a victim to my reality of what I was going through. And I look back on it now, and granted, I never want to go through it again, but it was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me in my life. I have so many beautiful shifts and lessons and changes and relationships, and I have so much that I gained from that horrible experience that I wouldn't even consider it a horrible experience. I consider it a gift that was given to me. And so I share this with you as a story because this is a larger like life theme around victim mentality. And what I want to say about that, and I say it with so much compassion because I've lived it, not just through my injury, but a victim mentality to being a mom, a victim mentality to being in a marriage that was suffocating me, right? When we are carrying something that is unhealed, an unhealed part of us, it leaks and it comes out sideways. And a lot of the times what happens is it attaches itself to like the nearest available target, whether or not that's a principal who didn't say thank you to you, or a curriculum that doesn't give you enough time, or a classroom full of kids who won't cooperate. And what the victim mentality does is it points the blame outside of ourselves. It's this situation, it's this is the why, this is the reason I'm struggling, this is what's standing in my way. And the thing is, is that completely feels true when you're in it, right? The evidence feels real, the frustration is justified, right? When I was sick in bed, it was like this is the reason, this is the if I hadn't done this, if this hadn't happened, I wouldn't be sitting here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of this stuff. And I was frustrated. My feelings were justified. The evidence of that was real. But the story underneath it is the one that we want to look at, the one that says, I'm a victim to my circumstance. And when we have that story, that narrative, that becomes a cage. And as long as we are in that cage, nothing changes because we have handed our power to something outside of ourselves, to something that we can't control, to something that can't get, we can't get back once we give it away. And that's a hard thing to say out loud. It's a hard thing to sit with. It's a hard thing to confront. Because when we do that and we make that shift, we realize, oh my gosh, my thoughts about this situation are a lot of the times the reason that I'm unhappy. It's not actually the circumstance, it's a story and the narrative that I'm creating around that circumstance. I'm going through that in my own life with some personal things. I'm like, what story I have to keep going back to, what story am I choosing to tell myself about this situation? What story am I choosing to tell myself about what's going on with my son? What story am I choosing to tell myself about dating or whatever it might be, right? And that story shapes our reality. And so when we create a narrative from the place of I'm the victim, well then you don't have any agency to make change because change comes from within. Change comes from you. And I think back to being a mom and in the early stages of my motherhood, I really felt like a victim to motherhood, really, really deeply. And it's hard to say out loud, but it's the truth. And I think some of you need to hear that because I know some of you have been there. And the same thing goes with teaching. I see it all the time on social media. A victim to being a teacher, a victim to the system. Yes, that's true. And it doesn't have to be the excuse for why we're not happy. It doesn't have to be the excuse for why we're overwhelmed. I think back to the motherhood example. You know, most of the excuses that I had that had to do with why I wasn't happy, why I was overwhelmed, why things weren't working, why life felt miserable. I kept blaming it on being a mom, right? The demands of it, the relentlessness of it, the way it seemed to just swallow every other part of who I was as a person. And those things were real, right? I don't want to take away from the feelings that I had about them. Motherhood is demanding, it is relentless. I wasn't making that up, but it was also what I was using as a reason to stay stuck, as a reason to stay unhappy, as a reason to avoid the deeper work, as a reason to point things outward. It's this circumstance that's causing me to be this way, as opposed to looking inward. And it wasn't until I went through a lot of therapy, through a lot of intensive personal work and a lot of genuinely hard and uncomfortable healing. I'm still going through a lot of that and it's deeply uncomfortable because it challenges you. And what came out the other side of all of that work that I did, and I still have plenty of work to do, was that I realized that I'm not a victim. I'm not. I get to choose whether or not I'm happy, no matter what my circumstances, that power was always mine. That power is always yours. And that realization that you get to choose, you get to choose whether or not you're happy, that realization changes everything. And so the question that I want to leave you with today, and I really want you to sit with it honestly, because it does deserve honesty, is where in your life, either in your personal life, your professional life, whatever it might be, your motherhood, where in your life are you placing your agency in someone else's hands? Where in your life are you placing your agency, your happiness in someone else's hands? Maybe it's your administration, maybe it's your curriculum, maybe it's your students or their parents or the 43 minutes you've given to do what feels like an impossible job. Or maybe, like me, it's something closer to home. Maybe it's motherhood, parenthood, partnership. None of those circumstances are small, none of them are easy. And I'm not standing here telling you that the hard things in your life are not hard, right? Both things can be true at the same time. But what I'm asking you to do is consider this: the actions of other people, the limitations of your circumstances, the things that feel totally outside of your control, they have very little to do with your ability to build a life and a classroom that you love. That part is yours. That belongs to you. And the moment that you stop waiting for circumstances to change in order to be happy, the moment that you stop doing that is the moment that everything starts to shift. And so this is one of those Monday mindsets that's probably gonna challenge you. And I'd really encourage you to share it with a colleague who's been struggling, with a friend who feels stuck, maybe even with your students if it feels right to you. Although I think I did say pissed in this episode, so maybe don't share it with them. Maybe share it through your own lens. Because this isn't just a teacher thing, right? This is a human thing. We have all given our power away to places, to people, to circumstances without realizing it. And we all have the capacity to take that power back, to bring it back into ourselves and to see that every experience that we are going through is actually a gift. It's actually a gift to expand us, to help us become the higher version of ourselves. And that quote that I have on my phone that I come back to every time something feels hard, all is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. And out of this situation, this so-called problem, only good will come. And I am safe. So here's to a week of living like you believe that. And I will see you guys tomorrow on the podcast and next Monday for another Monday Mindset episode. Bye everyone.