Victim Vs. Victor

To be more powerful, successful and happy, we want to make sure we have the victor mentality through and through. You can do it!

Our agency or power to choose, is one of the most important powers that is truly ours. This skill is something we must master here on Earth. Your agency, fully and completely belongs to you. The absolute truth is that NO ONE can take this power away from you. When we are not aware of our power to choose, we give this power away. We need to always be mindful that we are our own agents.

Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor said it perfectly. His captors can take away his family, his possessions, and dignity but they can not take away his power to choose his response in any situation.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

~Viktor E. Frankl”

Even if it is a nano-second between what happens to us and how we respond and react, we still have the power to choose how we respond and interpret our world and our experiences.

A man once commented to me why he hates using Facebook social media. He said, “Don’t you hate it when people post …., it makes me so…(blah blah blah.)”

I told him, “No, I don’t. I don’t have to choose that response.”

I am not perfect but I am working on CHOOSING to look for why people do what they do by going to the emotional and spiritual level, I understand their need for love, importance, self-acceptance and recognition. Everyone is on their own journey of progression. Why should I play judge and come to any conclusion about people’s intention and choose to be annoyed?

Be careful not to manipulate or be manipulative of others. Sometimes this society sells through manipulation, parent through manipulation, and even govern through manipulation. That is a subtle way of trying to take people’s power of agency away.

But wait Jade…What about the automatic responses we choose that our ever helpful energy-saving subconscious makes for us without involvement of our consciousness? Yes, a staggering 30-40,000 decisions are made subconsciously in the Reticular Activating System (RAS) daily.

“Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.”

Most of these decisions are for our basic physical functions which is very helpful and necessary. However we need be aware and vigilant to when these automatic responses are negative and limits or stops our spiritual growth. In the scriptures this is referred to the ‘natural man.’

“19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)

When we live in a reactionary state allowing all the automatic responses to rule, then it is the opposite of becoming more like God. We need to apply our FAITH in God and adopt the positive saintly traits with humility in order to be self-aware enough to change.

How do you know you are reacting and responding to your world as a ‘natural man?’ You are responding as a ‘natural man/woman’ when you are experiencing fearful thoughts, self-focused emotions and feelings because of the subconscious victim-mentality and core beliefs! You are responding as a ‘natural man/woman’ when you are often experiencing sicknesses and dis-eased. Your physical body will tell you when you are not in alignment with your saintly victor-self.

Sometimes being human or ‘natural-man’, causes people to believe and conclude that they are innately bad. Some people go as far as to not ever trust themselves again. This is exactly how Satan or evil works. Evil wants us to know half truths and go to the polar extremes of all things. He wants us to believe that we are either or, black or white, we are either awesome and all-saintly or we are all-bad and evil natured. In reality we are different shades of grey and ever changing. We are working on perfection but it is ok not to be perfect now or even in this life.

According to the light and understanding I have received, I believe that we are here to work on refining ourselves as we identify each of the negative automatic responses and then powerfully changing them to positive ones. As we do this ‘cleaning up’ work we learn to harness our personal spiritual power that prepares us for our eternal God-like existence. When we fail to do that we are what the scriptures call ‘damned.’ This basically means our progression is halted where we can not experience a greater level of joy and power. If you are not progressing and refining yourself constantly you will feel sad, lost and depressed.

What are the signs of that reactive victim-mentality and proactive victor-mentality?

One sign is by what we say often. If the first response we say in daily speech is, “I can’t because…” and then we come up with many reasons why we can’t that is often the sign of a reactive victim-mentality. Other signs of reactive victim-mentality are feelings of overwhelmed and stuck, gut problems, weight problems, and leg problems.

This is because in our subconscious we have not learned to rely on God fully and drawing energy from Him through pure faith. We unknowingly draw energy from our core, our knowledge, from our limited understanding, and we move forward slowly with fear. Even though we feel we have so much faith, we are also holding onto so much opposing fear-energy at the same time.

When we are in this space, we do not have the proactive mental space or mental instruction to find solutions. There is always and excuse or drama or sickness in their lives or attached to their lives. I could demonstrate this easily by picking up the phone and texting certain people. If I were to text a ‘reactive victim-mentality’ person, I can predict her/his reaction 99.9% of the time. “Oh Jade, I can’t because…my kids/my neighbor/my work have (excuses and excuses) It’s been so stressful. I wish I could but…(excuses and excuses). You don’t understand (excuses and excuses) I am so overwhelmed, stressed (list of negative emotions).” Keep an eye out and see evidence of this in the people around you. They just haven’t figured out that they can simply choose to be proactive because they are power children of God. A simple choice can trigger a chain reaction of positive changes in their lives.

On the other hand, I could text the same text to another friend who I know has the proactive victor-mentality. The response is predictable. It will sound something like this. “Oh Jade, that is great. I would love to. I am excited. Let me look at my schedule and let’s figure this one out.”

Which friend has better health, more success in life, and more happiness? Yes of course, the one who owns the proactive victor-mentality. Who believes strongly that with God, we can do anything. Who believes we can figure out, solve, resolve, and sort out all things? Yes of course, the one who owns the proactive victor-mentality. Her words and actions is evidence of it.

Who do you choose to connect with? I choose to connect with God. We are not victims to the world and its trials. We are victors. This mentality helps us have hope, resilience, positive outlook, joy, power, energy and ideas.

Let’s start our reply to challenges with, “With God, I can because…”