“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”- Rumi
I came across a wonderful story. The story is about an alcoholic man and his 2 sons. Here is the story :
There were two boys who had a father who was an alcoholic. They grew into young men.
One grew up to be an alcoholic and led an unhappy life ,when asked he said “ I watched my father and I didn’t have a choice”. The other grew up to lead a successful, satisfying life and never touched a drop of alcohol, when asked he said “ How could I?, Look what it did to my father”.
From this simple story, we learn 2 lessons
- The first son thought that his father was responsible for his life and he blamed his father for his own alcoholism – being in a victim state
- The second son took charge and realized that he was responsible for his own life and stepped out to lead more successful and happy life.
We all have 2 choices, either continue to stay in a ‘cocoon’ or ‘step out’.
How do we ‘Step out’?
Being aware – acknowledge and accept
The first step to overcome victim state is to acknowledge that we are in that state ( to understand what is a victim state, please refer to my blog – A cocoon). Being aware itself a healthy start towards transformation
Be in charge
Remember, it is about us. It is time we acknowledged that we are responsible for our state. Our actions, thoughts,feelings and perception of self and others is the reason for us to be in a victim state.
Own it up
The moment we realize that we are responsible for our own actions, feelings and perceptions and also develop an ability to differentiate between what is in our control vs. what is beyond our control, we take huge step towards setting ourselves free from the victim web that we have woven around us.
Create a new empowering story
Finally, change the perspective by creating a new story – ask some of these questions:
- What do I want?
- What would happen If i continue to be in this state?
- How will not changing affect my life?
- What are the short-term and long-term consequences of not changing?
- What would happen to people who matter to me?
- What is in my control?
- What is my current story?
- What is a more empowering story I could tell myself?
- What are some of the positive aspects of my story?
- What have I learnt from my experiences, will that help me create a more positive future?
- Do I want to be in control of my story? If yes, then where is the control now and how can I take control?
- What if I was to rewrite my story from an observer’s perspective?
Putting it all together
To ‘step out’, let us be aware that, we are responsible for our state and we must take ownership and create a new empowering story.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope you found it useful. The fact that you have read this article means that you would like to read about NLP and Coaching. For more on Coaching and NLP, consider reading my previous articles.
