Am I A Victim?

Why does this always happen to me? How come any partner I choose ends up doing the same things to me that the last one did? Why do I find myself in the same relationship over and over again?

What do these three questions have in common? They all allow us to believe that we are the victim. In that role, we give our power away. How did we come to be the victim? What are we getting out of this role? What can we do to over come this pattern in our lives?

We may have come to see ourselves as victims through the lens of co-dependency. During a time in our lives when we lived with dysfunctional people we may have truly been a victim. We may have been a young child incapable of independence who needed our family system to survive. We may have been in an abusive relationship. We may have been genuinely hurt as a result of some past event.

If we didn't realize how we had adapted to survive these experiences, we may have become comfortable in the victim role. We may not realize we are feeling like a victim, but our language gives us away.

We may feel empowered in our capacity as victim. We may be using our role to passively control others and outcomes. In our past we may have needed to rely on our ability to manipulate through victim hood to ensure our survival. Now that we no longer live in that same family system, we have not yet realized how our victim identity has affected our current circumstances. In essence we continue to re-create the same dysfunctional familial dynamic in our new relationship by maintaining our victim status.

Once we realize our pattern and come to grips with the fact that we are no longer victims, we can begin to rebuild our self image and self esteem. It is vital that we let go of the need to control others and outcomes. In doing so we free ourselves from the need to continue our passivity and begin to own our power once again. As we begin to practice self care in our daily lives and use our tools to increase our self esteem, we free ourselves from the bonds of victim hood.

Are You A Happy Person?

What I have seen thus far of our new President, seems to indicate that he is a happy person. He also seems to be very much in love with his wife. We smile as we see images of him with Michelle, attending the theater in New York, having a romantic dinner in a local DC restaurant, playing with the kids. We see our leader as a happy fulfilled human being as well as our President.

Having a successful relationship with our partner may allow us to feel, in large part, that we are successful in our lives. Being capable in our chosen profession is important to our self image and self esteem, but the happiness level of our partner is a key factor in how we measure our success as persons.

When our partner is essentially happy with themselves, us and our relationship we feel content. Our inner view of ourselves seems balanced. We connect with our partner easily and often, moving in and out of intimacy and communication readily. As we co-exist we produce chemical messengers in our bodies that improve our health and increase our feeling of internal happiness. We are literally hard wired to enjoy connection and our bodies produce chemicals to reinforce that message and feeling.

To that end it is vital for us to increase our skills at building and maintaining our relationships. Effective communication, empathy, patience and compromise are the life blood of our relationships. We invest our time, energy and being into them and need their continued existence for our optimal health.

Just as our country needs an effective President, our relationships need our leadership. We devote ourselves to self care to increase our self esteem. We use our tools in our daily lives allowing us to be centered and emotionally available to our partners. In this way we give ourselves the gift of happiness.