Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After. I’m life coach, jen, I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed, certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
I know I’ve talked about both of these subjects, probably many times, but again, I was listening to the Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate and they were talking about this and you know his take is of course, life is not normal Like the idea of normal, what does that even mean? And he talked about vulnerability and victim mentality and that always resonates with me because I think for a long time and I’m not saying even sometimes now I get stuck in being the victim and how powerful vulnerability is in crushing that and releasing you from being the victim and a lot of us, because we’ve had traumatic things happen in our life, in our marriages, in our relationships, whether we were betrayed, if we were the ones that betrayed, whatever situation you find yourself in, but especially in betrayal, it can you for sure feel like the victim, right, when you get triggered with your past trauma. I just want you to remember like this was the thing that he said that really resonated with me Instead of reacting which we kind of talked about that last week with our response flexibility, right, this is just another tool, another way to think about it and a tool to use. I like giving you lots of tools because I think tools help us, right, but if you take a moment and consider what part is true, instead of getting defensive and start blaming yourself or others, if you can go inward instead of outward and so I think so often we are triggered or something comes up for us that’s not even connected to what we’re experiencing in that moment, but it’s a past memory or situation and we get triggered because of past trauma we can prevent ourselves from reacting and consider what part is true, instead of getting defensive, start blaming yourself or others, and if we go inward and look at ourselves instead of outward and look at everyone else Okay, of course I’m not telling you like you’re not a victim, like if, if your spouse had an affair and of course you didn’t consent to it.
Yeah, that feels you were taken advantage of, right? Your spouse probably lied to you for weeks, days, months, years. So you want it, you feel justified to blame them, for you know, we say they ruined our lives, right, we talk in a lot of drama and make it very dramatic because it feels very dramatic, but the problem with this is that many people stay stuck with this train of thought, which is completely disempowering, and my whole mission is to help empower women and men to get out of victim mentality. I see, when I look at my marriage, my past, I for sure was stuck in victimhood for years, didn’t even know it, I had no idea, I didn’t recognize it, I was stuck there. And so the moment for me when I found life coaching and I started pulling myself up and realizing like I don’t want to feel this way anymore, and I was able to feel more and more empowered and start healing. And so that’s my hope for you that you don’t wait 20 plus years to do this right. I don’t want you to have my same story. I want you to be able to recognize it quicker and I think because of the tools modern technology, instagram, people like Gabor Mate that are doing all these studies in real time that haven’t been weren’t done in the past, we have a lot more understanding of what trauma is, what all these things are. Brene Brown is one of my favorites as well, and she talks a lot about vulnerability, so, but I just want you to recognize that if you feel stuck, it’s probably time to have a different thought and to think something different.
In order to get out of victimhood, you have to process your feelings and I know you might say but Jennifer, I cry every night. I can’t stop crying. I for sure have processed all my feelings. I for sure have processed all my feelings, but many people avoid feeling angry. I’ve talked to so many women that are like I feel angry, but I’m not supposed to be angry. Like women, and also men also feel like anger is a bad emotion. Anger is a necessary emotion, a bad emotion, anger is a necessary emotion. And just pay attention to what is underneath the anger.
Most of my feeling I’ve been able to identify, for sure, sad and disappointment. Right, I’m very sad my marriage ended. I’m sad that this happened. I’m so disappointed because I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want. I didn’t get married to get divorced, didn’t get married to have my husband be unfaithful to me. That wasn’t part of my plan.
So, acknowledging those feelings and just realize they’re going to ebb and flow throughout your life, throughout your healing process, but they are going to get less and less frequent, of course, until something comes up and we have a memory or something. But what happens is we get stuck in this cycle of victimhood, right. Stuck in this cycle of victimhood, right, and the biggest key, if you find yourself identifying as a victim, it is important to remember that you are losing your power and it will affect the way you live your life. So just recognize, if you are that person, that you’re always the victim. Everything always happens to you, okay. So I think it takes a lot of self-awareness and many of us like to pretend that none of this is going on. So that’s why awareness is the biggest key to know if you’re going to change. Okay, if you can change, you totally can, but you have to be aware.
So if you want to know, like, how do I know I’m stuck in victimhood, the first clue is that you blame others for how you feel. You are blaming everything on your spouse, who had an affair, and many people also blame the affair partner. They almost put more and I’ve totally been guilty of this. It’s like I almost made the person my spouse was having an affair with. I blamed them more than even my spouse, which now that I see that it’s ridiculous and almost they’re a victim too right, because they were probably being lied to. Who knows what was going on for them Maybe not, but the thing is we have to. When we put blame on other people, it’s like we’re trying to take it off ourself to try to make ourself feel better. Okay, but if we let people control our feelings, it is going to be very disempowering.
It may be hard to see it as blame, especially when we are experiencing betrayal. So it’s like we can’t necessarily see that we’re blaming, which makes sense. But just try to recognize this. And again, why I think having a coach is so helpful is because a coach is neutral. They can help you see what you cannot see and especially in betrayal you get so bogged down by all those heavy emotions it’s almost you can’t see right in front of you. But that’s why you have a coach front of you. But that’s why you have a coach. They can help guide you so you can go on this healing journey and they can help guide you to see what you cannot see inside of yourself, because our brain is really powerful and we have a lot of habits and we can go down rabbit holes. I go down rabbit holes a lot. You can go down a rabbit hole really quickly and it’s hard to get out without someone helping you.
So we will go from blaming them for cheating or blaming us for not being nice enough or thin enough. You see where this is going. So it’s interesting because many women blame their spouse or what happens. Their spouse blames them and they believe them. That’s what breaks my heart so much is that? Because women it’s almost we’re like we make excuses. Of course they cheated on us. I wasn’t very nice If I would have been thinner, if I would have lost my baby weight quicker, if I would have had sex. Every time they asked if I would have done X, y or Z, and so we blame ourselves and we say that we if we were just better or good enough, and we compare ourselves if we’ve seen a picture or know who the other woman is to them and it is a lose-lose situation all around and it isn’t true, okay. So if you find yourself stuck in this pattern, just know there’s a way out. I’m going to help you, okay.
Another way to tell if you’re stuck in victimhood is if you get defensive when your partner says something to you or ask you a question that triggers you. So if you find yourself getting really defensive, if you feel like you need to justify or explain your actions, then you are probably stuck in a victim mentality. Byron Katie is a coach which I love, and she says that defense is the first act of war. If you feel like you need to defend against other people, then you probably are stuck in victimhood. So pay attention if you’re blaming other people or blaming yourself, or if you get defensive and many of us we don’t get defensive. If someone were about everything, we don’t get defensive about everything. If someone were to tell me like oh my gosh, I hate your blue hair, I would be like okay, like are you colorblind Because I have blonde hair? I don’t have blue hair, and I wouldn’t get defensive about that because it has nothing to do with me, right. But if someone were to say something that hits more deeply, like I think you’re a bad mom, and if I in some way believed like oh, I’m not doing the greatest job right now. I might get defensive and I would want to tell them all the reasons why I think I’m a good mom and why they’re wrong. So, if you find yourself doing this in your life, just know like okay, there’s some work to do and maybe this is the area to do that work.
Another sign that you are a victim is you have a lot of shame. If we remember, shame causes us to hide. Okay, shame says to not put yourself out there. You don’t want to be seen. You just want to protect yourself and it feels like a protection. Right, shame feels like it’s protecting you, but it’s actually just creating this layer that is going to keep you stuck. Okay, having a victim mentality does not mean that you are weak, so I don’t want you to think like, like, if I could just do better, if I could be better, if I could stop thinking this way. It is a pattern in your brain that is affecting your life. It just means that you are unconsciously choosing to stay stuck in a past pattern that has been justified to you. So just recognize that. It’s totally understandable, it’s okay, it’s fine, but there is a way out, and we just have to start becoming aware, because right now you’re unconsciously doing it.
Probably, if you catch yourself complaining a lot and everything’s like a negative, you’re like, oh, poor me having a lot of self-pity, why did my husband have an affair? This is just. These things that you’re telling your brain are just going to keep yourself stuck and trapped. Pay attention to when you tell your story to someone. Listen how you describe yourself. Are you the victim of your story, are you the villain of your story or are you the hero of your story? And this is a process, right, and sometimes you might be the victim, you might be the villain and you might be the hero. But just recognize what you’re doing and how you’re telling the story. When you become the victim, everything is about you. Right, you’re not thinking outward, you’re thinking inward and you’re thinking what is wrong with me and poor me. So pay attention to these things that might be affecting your life. Oftentimes we are learning this behavior, even as children.
Trauma can cause us to get stuck in victim mentality. So just remember it’s from maybe a traumatic event. Maybe you, you know, look back in your life, and I’m not saying because you had trauma in your past. That means your husband’s going to have an affair. No, it just is manifesting this way, and this is what is bringing you to probably wanting to change something. You’re like I don’t want to be stuck, I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I want help. I want out of this nightmare. And so, any time that this happens whatever brought you to this point acknowledge it and then know that there is a way out and there is a way to change this.
If you want to move through this pain and become the hero of your story, you are going to have to heal and intentionally stop the cycle. Now that you are an adult, okay, if you are ready to change, you need to stop blaming your past, self or others for who you are today and in the future. Stop letting other people control how you feel. Remember you’re the only one that can control how you feel. So, in order to get out of this cycle, we need to take responsibility for how we are thinking and feeling. Our thoughts matter. Our feelings matter.
If your spouse in the past has said I don’t feel appreciated by you, I may pause and think is that true? Then I would own the part of it. That may be true. I may ask what it would look like if I did appreciate you. Decide if that’s something you want to do. So, instead of just responding or reacting, have a conversation. Do you want to be more appreciative with your spouse or whatever else they’re telling you? Right, if past me would have gotten defensive and I would have felt hurt, it wouldn’t have gone well. I might have said if you hadn’t had an affair, I could appreciate you. I would have blamed, shamed and gone into the past. This is unhelpful, especially if you’re trying to repair your marriage. Blame shows up victim and villain shows up as well as shame. This is unhelpful, especially if you’re trying to repair your marriage. Blame shows up victim and villain shows up as well as shame. So all the dynamics of victimhood come into this picture. So if you find yourself doing this, decide. Do you want to try something different? Because this is not going to be healing and this is going to leave you stuck in your past and we want to move you into your present and your future self.
Recently, a client’s spouse emailed them and said that they are trying to destroy their life. We found that ironic, since they did have an affair, but I helped them. See it was their perspective. We asked is it true? Are you trying to destroy their life? What part is true? And is it okay? They think that you are the villain in their story. How do you want to feel about this situation? So you see how this keeps the person empowered instead of the victim. Okay, so, when you consider, consider, when someone sends you a text or an email and you get really defensive, I just want you to pause and consider. Okay, how is this true? Is it true and it may only be 5% true or can you see the person that sent you the text or email, their perspective? Yeah, my client could see their perspective, how they could think that you know they were ruining their life, even though she probably thought you ruined my life. But that’s unhelpful in your healing. So it’s really good to pause and if you want to practice this like maybe, go to an email that you’ve gotten in the past when you’re not so triggered you’ve been removed for it for a bit and try to practice this and see this how would being empowered, how would being vulnerable, help you in this situation? Help you respond to this differently? So if someone sends you an email that you know you don’t even agree with, just pay attention right, if you’re getting triggered, if you feel shame, defensive. The key is become aware of areas in your life you feel like the victim. Pause and try vulnerability.
Brene Brown has taught us that vulnerability is a superpower. I think so often people think vulnerability is a weakness. No, vulnerability requires courage. If we are vulnerable, we are willing to experience any emotion. We are willing to admit that we aren’t perfect. If someone says that we aren’t very considerate, we try to see how this might be true instead of going to blame. Learning to be vulnerable can be our greatest asset and this is going to help you get out of victimhood and move through your healing and become more vulnerable. It means to tell the whole truth, to own the parts of you that are true, whatever they said, own it and take full accountability for it. We don’t allow others to control us. If we are vulnerable, we can hear someone’s feedback and not go into complete meltdown.
The better we get about being vulnerable, the stronger and more intimate and authentic our relationships will be. Unconditional. Love is vulnerability at its best. We love without expecting anything in return and we share our complete selves without hiding when we blame. We discharge pain and discomfort. When we are vulnerable. We believe we are enough, just the way we are.
Becoming vulnerable will take practice, but learning to own what’s true to you and know that you aren’t perfect, nor do you expect anyone else to be perfect. If someone points something out about you, you are willing to look inward and decide if that’s true and correct, if needed. So I hope today that you can find just one area of your life that you feel stuck in victimhood, stuck in the victim mentality, and try on vulnerability. It is going to take you practice. It’s going to feel uncomfortable, it’s going to feel maybe awkward, but your power lies in vulnerability. If you can not be afraid to feel any emotion. I promise no one has ever died from feeling angry, from feeling betrayed, from feeling sad, from feeling happy, you’re not going to die. It feels like it. I know Sometimes the pain it creates physical pain. But if you can move through any emotion and be honest about the parts of you that maybe someone pointed out to you, that is going to help you so much to empower yourself and to be able to get through maybe the hardest time you’ve ever experienced in your life, which could be betrayal, but it’s also going to help you get through other hard things in your life, because we know about life. The thing we know about life is we are guaranteed to have struggles and we’re also guaranteed to have joy, and I want you to feel all of it.
Thanks so much for listening. If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and leave me a review so other people can find it. Have a beautiful day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjen with one n dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
