The High Vibe Guide
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Whether you're a seasoned venturer or just starting out on your journey to radiating a more positive energy, my episodes will provide a wealth of inspiration, tools and wisdom to guide you in creating a more vibrant and positive life. It is possible. I have lived and breathed this journey. Let me explain how you can do it too.
The High Vibe Guide
37. Happiness Blockers#1 - Break Free from Victim Mentality
Welcome to the first episode of my new mini-series, Happiness Blockers. In this series, I’ll explore the mental and emotional barriers that keep us from living happier, more fulfilling lives - and how to break them down for good. Today, we dive deep into the victim mentality, one of the most toxic mindsets that can trap us in cycles of negativity, frustration, and stagnation. We’ll explore how this mindset forms, how it keeps us stuck, and most importantly, how we can break free from it.
Tune in as we discuss practical strategies to shift away from blame and powerlessness, and start building long-lasting, positive thought patterns and behaviours that lead to true success and fulfilment.
@thehighvibe.guide
@soulcircle.uk
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Welcome to the High Vibe Guide, the podcast where I demystify the concept of raising our vibration. I'm Jenna, a yoga teacher, mum of three and passionate advocate for helping others to just feel happier. Let me explain to you how we can all live more contented and fulfilled lives, and how it's so much easier than you think. Hi guys, welcome back to the High Vibe Guide. How are you all doing? Oh, I've literally just finished recording a guided meditation the ones that I do want to hear that you can subscribe to my weekly ones that get launched every friday. But it's such a lovely one as I was scripting it and I was recording it, it just felt amazing. But it was all about yin and yang and balancing the opposing forces between us. So just a very quick reminder that you can subscribe to the High Vibe Guide and it's only four dollars a month and you get this instant access to my weekly guided meditations. So get your week set up properly and get meditating. But for today, I've done an episode before, all about my low vibe activities. It was episode six, yes, it was, and I covered quite a lot of activities or mentalities and general things that we think and say and do that keep us operating on this very low vibrational frequency, things like lack of sleep, an unhealthy diet, too much media consumption, toxic relationships, excessive screen time. But now I'm creating this kind of mini series. I think that's what I'm envisioning for these surefire ways that are going to block our happiness, happiness blockers, things that I've been personally working on and I can now look back over this last year or so of dedicating this time and effort to my own personal growth and I can see how much I've progressed in these areas. You know it's still ongoing, I still have room to grow, but it's just a really cool feeling being able to look back at how my mindset used to be, how my mind used to default to certain patterns, mainly negative and how this doesn't happen so much anymore.
Speaker 1:I think we can all get a little lost on our missions, our journeys. We can sometimes forget the progress we've actually made. So making yourself look back to that day one where you first decided you wanted to make change you wanted more happiness, more positivity, more love, more contentment, more of whatever you thought would improve your life and to remind yourself of how far you've actually come, it's a very important thing. So this little series is, for me as well, kind of like using these episodes as a bit of a benchmark, but mainly the big fat, main reason is so I can hopefully pass on a little bit of this wisdom to someone who really needs it, someone like who I was a year ago, because I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who has felt like I used to feel.
Speaker 1:So today is all about victim mentality, and I think it's something all people do and feel in varying degrees. I think some people fall into this way of thinking more than others, and I believe that there is one quality that people possess those people that are less likely to fall or default into this way of thinking and this one quality, I believe, is emotional resilience. Now, the victim mindset was something I used to fall into all the time. I was in the thick of feeling like a victim when I had my light bulb moment last year that then led to a multitude of positive decisions that ultimately got me here talking to all of you lovely lot today about how to bring more positivity and happiness into your days, which, I won't lie, still sometimes feels mad, but it was about a year ago now, and I've told this story before, but we were in some very difficult financial trouble and it lasted a long time. We basically had no income, zero, no savings to fall back on. We had to go on to benefits, which was a very humbling experience, and we were having to borrow money from family. So debt was racking up and we were both just feeling like the world was against us. We weren't getting out of the hole we perceived ourselves to be in and we were thinking you know, when are we going to get our break? It wasn't fair. When was it our turn for some good stuff, for a stroke of good fortune, for some luck to be thrown our way? We, we don't deserve this. You know where, where, where, whinge, whinge, woe is us. Well, I think it was most well, I think it was more me feeling this way. Callum doesn't really do the whole victim thing, or if he does, it's not for very long. So I was feeling like a victim and he was very stressed, very anxious, generally very worried. None of these feelings are particularly high vibe. We were not looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, we were only looking at the dark, the bad, and seeing and feeling the negative very severely. So if that hasn't done it for you already.
Speaker 1:Let me define a victim mindset. It's a psychological and emotional state in which a person consistently perceives themselves as powerless, as wronged or mistreated by others or by life's circumstances. They feel they have very little control over their lives and tend to believe that external factors or other people are responsible for their problems. There's an ongoing focus on blame, helplessness and self-pity, rather than accountability, problem solving or personal empowerment, and the key traits of a victim mindset are blame shifting, helplessness, this negative focus, so a focus on problems and injustices, often without considering potential, potential solutions, um, self-pity, avoidance of responsibility and, for me, a really interesting one a fixed mindset, so a belief that circumstances are unchangeable and this real aversion to considering change or something else might be true. This was something I was incredibly guilty of, and the victim mindset can become self-perpetuating because you focus on negativity and blame then often leads to further disempowerment and frustration and isolation.
Speaker 1:A lot of the time, no one wants to be around that person and, apart from the obvious that we can deduce from this, let's talk about why living in this victim mindset or having it as a default way of thinking when something goes wrong in your life, can be very dangerous and block any happiness from coming into your life. By the way, there are so many ways that adopting a victim mindset can be harmful to you as well as others around you, but I'm just going to outline these main ones, if you like, or the ones that maybe resonate most with me and what I think will resonate most with you too. It's basically my wish that, after hearing this, what I'm about about to say, that the next time you feel yourself wanting to give up, thinking the world is against you, that there's nothing you can do to change anything for the better, that you'll stop and realize that that is not the case. So why is it dangerous to be in a victim mindset? Firstly, you have lost all personal power and control. You now possess these self-defeating beliefs where you constantly see yourself as a victim, and makes you feel powerless to change anything in your life. What this then does is reinforce the idea that outside forces dictate your life, and this leads to learned helplessness. Notice how I said learned helplessness because you shifted all responsibility onto something or someone else else, and you can see how this makes it incredibly difficult to take control of your own life and make any change, as you feel.
Speaker 1:The problem always lies elsewhere. Secondly, you're putting yourself into a perpetual stress response. Think of the chronic stress and anxiety you are submitting yourself to. Feeling like a victim keeps you in this chronic state of anxiety, triggering that fight or flight response. Even in non-threatening situations you might even notice you feel headaches, frequently digestive problems, a weakened immunity. This is the effect that stress has on the body. Guys. Fact Stress causes illness in the body, it can cause disease. And how mad is that can be? Coming from your mind, all from your mind, from the way that you think. And what else is it doing. It's leading to emotional exhaustion. You'll constantly feel drained, overwhelmed or stuck in cycles of negative thinking, and this kind of emotional toll can lead to burnout, even depression. I've been there. It ain't fun, trust me.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, what do you think this victim mindset is doing to your relationships? It's not going to be doing them any good. The main feeling it creates is blame, but also resentment, and there's always a tendency to blame others or blame specific circumstances. And this always leads to frustration when you expect others to fix or change your problems, as you're constantly placing control of your own life on external things and worst case scenarios. When it comes to being the victim. You can actually manipulate others emotionally, whether that's just seeking sympathy or attention, by casting yourself as this perpetual sufferer, but this behaviour is going to push people away over time and very possibly lead to your own isolation. But think about it, guys. Then what happens when you've pushed everyone away but you still believe that your happiness is dependent upon others? Not much is it, because no one's around anymore. Fourthly, is that a word? Fourthly, I'm going to roll with it. Stay confident, jenna.
Speaker 1:You are putting yourself in some serious stagnation when it comes to your own personal growth. Now, I can pretty much guarantee that a person who lives in a victim mindset won't even be attempting to grow, whether that's spiritually, emotionally, professionally and I mean this in a way that emphasizes that it isn't a truly personal growth journey, because the focus isn't on themselves. But more than this, there will be a guaranteed avoidance when it comes to challenges. Undoubtedly, you'll be avoiding taking risks or stepping out of your comfort zone, no matter how big or small. Fear of failure will be huge and it will prevent you from pursuing personal goals, whether that's in your career, your education or your relationships, and you know what? There'll also be a severe lack of problem solving. When you are constantly focusing on the problems rather than the solutions, you're stuck. You're stuck in a cycle of negativity and here you are missing all the opportunities for learning and for growth which always seem so much more scary than they actually are.
Speaker 1:And fifthly, fifthly, let's just say lastly this is the last dangerous thing about being in a victim mindset that I want to cover before I go into how I got myself out of this mindset for good and how you can too. And this is all about your self-perception because, let's face it, it's not going to be great. You're going to have a pretty low or negative perception of yourself. Deep down, you will be full of self-pity and have severely low self-esteem. Constantly seeing yourself as a victim reinforces low self-pity and have severely low self-esteem. Constantly seeing yourself as a victim reinforces low self-worth. You will feel unworthy of success or happiness, which is so dangerous because you can perpetuate this cycle of self-sabotage. And you know what else? The last thing which is really scary, which I can see from my previous self you'll have this really high dependency on external validation. So you will thrive on seeking validation from others, and this can only lead to one thing, and that is emotional instability.
Speaker 1:Emotional instability and a lack of inner confidence because we cannot control what others think of us, what they feel about us. So when we don't get this praise or validation from another person, which we really believe that we need to feel good, we feel bad. When we don't get it, we feel awful. How we feel is now completely out of our control and subject to others and their words and actions, and that's just something we have zero control over. So that's where this instability in our own emotions comes in. They're all at the mercy to other people and other things. So when happiness doesn't come from within, we have this emotional instability, which isn't fun. So staying in this victim mindset traps us, it keeps us operating on this very low level of vibrational frequency and it's going to negatively affect every single aspect of your life. But, guys, the good news is life. But, guys, the good news is we can absolutely break free from it. And here is how I did it. So I've broken this down into how many have I got? Six steps.
Speaker 1:First one recognise it. The first step is always awareness. We often do not realise we're stuck in this victim mode. So pay attention to thoughts like why does this always happen to me. I can't do anything because of this person or this situation. I'll only be happy when this happens or that happens, or I achieve this. But once we identify these patterns that we're stuck in, we can then start to shift them. So first, recognise it. Awareness Secondly is own your power. We are never as powerless as we might feel. The key is shifting from the I can't thoughts to the I can. While we can't always control what happens, we can control our reactions, our choices and our mindset, the way we think. And taking responsibility doesn't mean blaming ourselves. It means understanding that we have the power to choose our response and the direction that we now take. The direction that we now take.
Speaker 1:Number three is change the narrative. So it's really important that we reframe the story that we're telling ourself. So, instead of viewing challenges as these unfair burdens, try seeing them as opportunities for growth. What can I learn from this? So, for example, instead of saying I'm stuck in this job because my boss is awful, or not because my boss is awful, but I'm stuck in this job and my boss is awful, however you want to think it, instead of this you could think what can I do to improve this situation or create new opportunities for myself.
Speaker 1:So in this situation you can either take steps to find a new job if it really is that bad, or if that option really isn't accessible. You have to change the way you think about it. For whatever reason, you might have to stay in this job so you can either continue to feel bad about it, only focus on the negative, which will make everything about your job, your whole day, even seem worse, and you will feel worse. And you know what? After a while it'll even start to affect things like your morning commute, your evening commute home. Then it might even start spreading into your time at home with your family, maybe even start eating into your weekend. The stress will keep growing. So if you really can't leave this job or you really want to stay you love the job, it's just this horrible person then you have to reframe the situation.
Speaker 1:So, yes, my boss isn't very nice, but I can't change that. What do I like about my job? What are the parts of my day that I really do like? What can I do to make myself the best version of myself possible so that when my boss isn't very nice, it doesn't affect me? You can't control what your boss is like or what they say, what they do, how they behave, but you can control how it makes you feel when they act in that way. Imagine working on yourself, your self-worth, to an extent where your boss could be so incredibly mean or horrible that it wouldn't bother you Because you know yourself, you know your own worth, so it doesn't matter what they do or what they say. That is an incredibly powerful place to be in.
Speaker 1:Or even consider working towards number four practice gratitude. Here it is again, guys gratitude. It's a really powerful tool for shifting out of victim mode. So when we focus on what we have rather than what we lack, we create a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. Take time each day to acknowledge the good things in your life, even if they seem small. I know that practicing something like gratitude, even for the small things, the insignificant things, the mundane things, may seem silly, but I promise you it's not. These small moments of appreciation are reshaping your mind and rewiring the way your mind works. It's the start of building more positive neural pathways and the beginning of a road to a more happy, more resilient and more fulfilled life. Just trust me on this one gratitude has to be a part of your day, even if it's just fleeting moments.
Speaker 1:Number five is take action. You know what I've come to realise? Nothing shifts a mindset faster than taking action. Even small steps toward change can give you this huge sense of control. Whether it's learning a new skill, setting a boundary or simply just choosing to have a more positive outlook, each action you take helps break the cycle of helplessness. Because that's all this mindset is this victim mindset. It's a cycle you've gotten stuck in. It's a learned habit that learned helplessness that we talked about earlier. So when you take action, and take action in a new way, maybe even an unexpected way this habit is, it's disturbed, and it's much more likely that you'll break this habit for good. Last one, number six, is surround yourself with empowerment.
Speaker 1:The people we spend time with influence our mindset. This is going to be another topic for happiness blockers in this little mini series, because it's massive. Who you spend your time with influences how you think. So if you are surrounded by negativity, it can reinforce your own victim thinking. So seek out people who inspire you, who uplift you and challenge you to grow. Maybe this means spending less time with people who complain all the time, for example. You know those people, the ones who just talk about how badly things are going you know it's never their fault. Something or someone else are always to blame. And I'm not saying that complaining is always a bad thing actually always a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Actually, when it's done in moderation it can be quite effective in offloading negative energy. It can almost be like the first step to reframing. You get out all of the bad instantaneous things that you think. When you feel rubbish or something bad has happened, you offload it. So only so long as you then pick yourself back up, you offload and you get back up, you reframe, don't stay being the victim. So when you start surrounding yourself with people that think positively, you are much more likely to follow suit, especially if you're on the journey of self-discovery and growth.
Speaker 1:And what's really interesting something that I've noticed, comparing myself now to how I used to be if you aren't actively looking to grow, if you're still in this place of victim mode and negativity, and if you're even unaware of it being around these more positive and empowering people, it can feel uncomfortable, it can almost feel draining, because it's highlighting the different levels that you are both operating on. It's highlighting that difference. It highlights their abundance and your lack, your scarcity, it might not feel relatable to operate how they do. So notice, how does it make you feel when you find yourself around positive and empowering people. Let that be a guide, people, let that be a guide, an indicator to where you might be right now.
Speaker 1:And remember that awareness is the first and most important step in reshaping the way that you think, the way that you feel and the way that you operate on a daily basis. So, guys, breaking free from the victim mindset is about realizing that, while we cannot control everything, we have the ability to shape our reactions, to shape our mindset and our future, our reality around us. So, by taking responsibility for our own growth, when we reframe our challenges and step into our power, we move from being these passive participants in our life to these active creators. You move from the mindset of life happening to you and you make life happen for you. So if you are feeling stuck or powerless lately, remember you have more power than you think you do. You really do. You have so much more power than you think.
Speaker 1:It is time to step out of the victim mindset and into a space of empowerment and do not wait for it. Don't wait for the perfect opportunity, because I promise you it's never going to come. The perfect time, the perfect place, the perfect circumstance, the perfect situation is never going to come, or what you think might be the perfect timing, the perfect place, the perfect experience, it won't be. Even if it arrives, you will still not feel ready. So do one thing for me, not for me. Do it for yourself. Do it for you. You have so much more power than you think. Step out of the victim mindset and into a space of empowerment. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 1:I will be back here next week with the next little episode from my mini series of happiness blockers and how we can overcome them to achieve more happiness in our day-to-day lives. Thanks for tuning in, guys. See you soon. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's, please share with your friends and family to continue spreading that positivity. You can find me on Instagram at thehighvibeguide. Get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Thank you.