A portion of our business is devoted to private, individual consulting, which we frequently do via the telephone. Last night, we had a conversation with a high-powered executive in a large public relations firm who is not feeling well about herself and hasn’t been for quite sometime. During the course of our conversation, what was revealed was that about three months ago she had had some disappointments at work as well as in her personal life.
What most people don’t realize is that when you have a disappointment it knocks you off balance and can have far reaching ramifications if you do not recover from it quickly. The longer you stay off course in your life, the further off course you get. And eventually it reaches a place where you are so lost that you can’t even remember what it felt like when you were feeling well in yourself.
One major aspect of our client’s disappointment at work involved feeling misunderstood and not appreciated. There was this feeling in her of "I’ll punish them by not producing as much as I can and they will feel bad for not seeing my greatness." This is also known as a temper tantrum but there is a cost in being right. This feeling of being victimized by her circumstances and the decision, whether conscious or not, to withhold her full energy from her job and complain in her head about being misunderstood was very costly.
In life you can only do one thing at a time. For instance, you can do your job or you can complain in your thoughts about being misunderstood, about not being sufficiently compensated or appreciated, all of which makes you the victim of your circumstances and does not allow you to be very efficient, effective or satisfied in your life.
It could be said that there are no happy victims. By definition, a victim is one who is abused in some way by another or by Life’s circumstances. Have you ever seen a happy victim? One of the prerequisites of being a victim is to be sad or demoralized or upset. Frequently we victimize ourselves by listening to our own thoughts and believing that we are telling ourselves is true. For instance, with our executive, she had been so preoccupied with her thoughts about not being appreciated for her ideas that her work suffered. She hadn’t been just doing her job, she had been spending the vast majority of her time complaining about being misunderstood. However, the story has a happy ending. By applying the principles of transformation, where awareness is the key and just seeing a behavior pattern is enough to complete it, our executive saw where she got off course and involved in the thoughts about the inequity of her situation. The mere seeing of it was enough to inspire her to bring herself back to her job with full dedication.
People get sidetracked in their lives. Most of us have the misbegotten idea that things should turn out the way we want them to. Life is a series of disappointments, really it is. What makes the difference between being a victim in your life and the author of your own experience, is the ability to recover from those disappointments.
Awareness is an ongoing process in which you are training yourself to bring yourself back to what is, rather than complaining in your thoughts about what isn’t or about what you would prefer, both of which again makes you the victim of your life. Totality, being totally engaged in what it is that you are up to, will pull you into the moment. Our executive friend was doing enough in her job to get by. But she wasn’t giving her heart. When she re-engaged with her full heart, her life came flooding back again.
Another client of ours was studying to pass an important test which, if he did well, would mean a promotion. Many people in his company were taking the same exam and there were only a limited number of positions available. We suggested to him that instead of trying to secure a spot with a passing grade, he study with the intent to get the top spot, the highest score possible. If you study to get an A, if you fall short, you still get a B or B+. If you study simply to pass, you leave the door open to fail. Also, if you go for the A, go to express your excellence in any given endeavor, you harness the moment and access satisfaction. You also gain compassion for your life and the challenges it presents and you build enough momentum to pull yourself past disappointments.
You might be reading this and saying, but you don’t understand, I AM a victim. A horrible event has taken place in my life. Perhaps this is true, but now what? You may want to ask yourself, who have you been making right and who have you been making wrong and what is the cost of being right?
The suggestion here is not that unfortunate events won’t happen, but that how you proceed in the face of adversity makes all of the difference in the quality of your life.
Since 1987, internationally acclaimed authors, seminar leaders, and business consultants Ariel and Shya Kane have acted as guides, leading people through the swamp of the mind into the clarity and brilliance of the moment. To find out more about the Kanes and their Transformational Community or to sign up to receive their article of the month, visit their website at: www.TransformationMadeEasy.com