[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #44

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2011 - #44

Sept. 13, 2011

 

 

 

THE META-STATE OF RESILIENCE

Part IV: Refusing Being a Victim

 

 

As the worldwide recession continues, Are you a victim of the recession?
Ah, yes, it could be very easy to feel that way, to interpret things through
that frame, couldn't it?  And many people, to their own detriment, are doing
that.

 

I've been writing about resilience, about suffering a set-back, about being
knocked down, and about developing a "learned optimism" at your core and
proactively developing resources that will put bounce in your soul so that
whatever happens, you have the ability to just get up again and get busy
solving the problems that life throws your way.  When it comes to
resilience, the continuum of choices before you is that of feeling like and
acting like a victim on one end and access the meta-state of resilience on
the other.

 

                Victim ____________________________________________
Resilient

            I can do nothing
I can always do something!

                Fate: Life is determined.
Choice: I can choose my response.

                Dis-empowered
Empowered

 

 

Now the victim polar is actually an easy one and one that's seductive for
lots of people.  In fact, given "the media's" tendency to look for and
highlight sensational stories of tragic and for people who have suffered
something, and the way people all around us talk, we are all culturalized to
a great extent to divide the world into people who victimize and those who
are victims.  We think in either-or terms to make things simple: bad people
hurt good people out of the blue and make them victims of their cruelty.

 

This way of thinking shows up in how most everybody seem highly liable and
skilled in the art of blaming.  Something bad happens, we suffer a set-back,
and the next thing that happens in our brains- we go looking for someone or
something to blame.  We didn't do it, certain people made us do or
experience something.  We didn't do it, it was an event, a situation, our
parents, our teachers, etc. that caused it.  We look for causation and while
we may not know who or what caused us to experience whatever we experienced,
we know it was not us, so we look around with eyes set on finding out who or
what did it so we can accuse them.

 

Opposite to being a victim, to being victimized is being an empowered
resilient.  This state operates from the realization, and the lifestyle,
that you can always do something, that you are an active player in that game
of life, and that you do have the power to positively affect things.  It is
being responsible, holding yourself responsible, and looking to yourself for
the role that you played in any given situation.  If you are accepting,
assuming, and acknowledge your role, how you are part of any system, then
you can't be a victim.  No one "set you aside" and did something to you.
[The literal meaning of "victim."] The only exception would be if you were
minding your own business and a madman ran out of a building being chased by
the police and he grabbed you as a hostage or shot you to slow the police
down.  And that's a very, very infrequent type of situation.

 

If you access a victim state, then you have to keep dis-empowering yourself,
you have to keep avoiding the present and taking action today to do
something.  Do that even a little bit and you begin to move toward the
resilience end of the continuum, and you'll start to feel better and to
change things.

 

To be a victim, keep playing the hurt, the set-back, the undesirable problem
over and over in your mind.  And especially keep looking for someone to
blame!  Refuse to face your role in whatever happened.  Assume no
responsibility whatsoever.  Refuse to even consider that you were part of
the system and that you played a part in it all.  And if you do become aware
of something you did or didn't do that played into it, immediately create
excuses.  Whether the excuses are brilliant or stupid, create them so you
can escape being responsible.  Play dumb, play weak, just do not accept that
you had any choice.

 

To be a victim you will need some powerful limiting beliefs.  Believe that
the world of people, events, and circumstances determines what and how you
think and feel.  Believe that all you can do is react, and never respond.
Believe that you have no true choice, that things happen, that fate
determines life, that you are unable to effect change.  To be a powerful
victim-to play lots of "what if..." and "if only" tapes in your mind and use
them in your languaging:

"If only I could get a break..."

"If only I had the intelligence, looks, or good fortune that John or Jill
has."

"But what if something goes wrong?  What if someone laughs at me?"

 

To deepen the victimhood, then use catastrophic language that exaggerates:

"I could never stand it if someone rejected me."

"It's the end of all of my hopes and dreams, I'll never recover from this."

"Why did X do that to me?  Why didn't I resist?  What's wrong with X?"

 

If that's how to develop a victim strategy, to the other side of the
continuum and step up to resilience, do the opposite.   Change that kind of
thinking and languaging to acknowledge your powers of response.  

"I can always do something."

"They can't take away from me the ultimate human freedom- the freedom to
choose my response and attitude." (Viktor Frankl)

 

One has to assume response-ability: "I can and will choose responses that
will increase my chances for succeeding."  "I refuse to torment myself with
'what could have been,' or live by regretting the past."  And of course, to
fast track this, hire a Meta-Coach to coach you for self-actualizing
resilience or find a Neuro-Semantic Trainer who is running the Resilience
Workshop. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neurons now on Facebook: You can now share the Meta Reflections with friends
on facebook.

 <http://www.facebook.com/lmichaelhallneurosemantics>
http://www.facebook.com/lmichaelhallneurosemantics  - (Thanks to Nathalie
Himmelrich).

 




 

 

If you are thinking about Meta-Coach Training and you already have the first
two prerequisites (which is NLP or Coaching Essentials and Meta-States or
Coaching Genius) then here are the next three: 

.         If you are interested in becoming wealthy in your core coaching
skills, the next Module III of Meta-Coaching is in Oct. in Auckland New
Zealand --- Oct. 8-15   Contact: Lena Gray, lena at ignition.co.nz 

 

.         Next one after that, Guangzhou China, Oct. 30-Nov. 3 and Nov. 29-
Dec. 3.  Mandy Chai, mandy at apti.com.hk 

 

.          

.         In Pretoria, South Africa October 28 through November 4, 2011.
Contact: Cheryl Lucas, cheryl at psacoaching.co.za 

 


If you are thinking about Trainers' Training, the next NSTT for licensing as
a Neuro-Semantic NLP Trainer: 

            Date: Oct. 17-27, 2011

Venue: Regal Riverside Hotel, Shatin, Hong Kong

Investment:  There's a special $500 saving right now.

Contact Person: Mandy Chai

Email: mandy at apti.com.hk / alex at apti.com.hk

 

            Part of that includes The Psychology of APG

Date: 17-19 October   and again special savings prior to Oct. 1

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                             ----
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

1 970-523-7877                                               ----
<http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

 

     

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