A Mission 22 Blog Series on Relationship Healing, Divorce Recovery, and Healthy Vulnerability.

Part V: Ownership vs. Victimhood

In our final installment of this series, we’ll look at a topic we could have just as easily started off with, that of mindsets. Namely, the mindset of the owner compared to the mindset of a victim. 

The way we relate to and form attachments to others has much to do with the way we see ourselves when it comes to being an owner versus being a victim.

If we are always in the victim role, our tendencies will be to manipulate, pass blame, and abdicate our own actions in how they affect the quality of our relationships. 

The victim role, in many ways, is a child-like coping strategy that we can actually understand well why someone would adopt it. Meaning when we were very young, and caregivers may have treated us harshly, it’s true that we were victims at some point, and that the world “out there” needed to change in order for us to be secure “in here.” Is that not the role of organizations like CPS? 

But as adults, remaining in that victim status robs us of our birthright to mature into an adult owner. Staying in the victim role means that we are constantly waiting on circumstances to change before we are willing to—that may be well and good for a six-year-old who doesn’t know better, but for someone who desires to step into the best version of themselves, they know that this way of thinking must be replaced by something else.

Considering Agency

An important word to consider here is “agency.” Agency describes the degree to which one has control over things that really matter to them. In the coaching world, we call this “self-efficacy,” meaning we are helping someone establish a greater beachhead on the “I-have-what-it-takes-to-do-this” front.  

It’s a process of moving from “I don’t think I can” to “I think I can,” to “I know I can, and I have evidence,” to “I did and will do it again.” Moving to the latter takes a conscious decision to exercise agency by adopting the owner mindset. Problems are there for me to do something about, not as an excuse for why I can’t move forward. In other words, problems, my problems, are a result of me, not a result of the world “out there.” 

We can tend to avoid the realization that “if there is a problem, then I am the problem” because it might feel too humbling to admit that the problem is us. Or, indeed, being taken too far can lead to endless self-depreciation, which we’ll speak about in a moment.

But at the same time, how much more liberating is it to realize that all the problems in your life are the results of how you exercise your agency?

You Are in Charge of Your Response

Ok, I can already hear the protests. “No, they have caused all my issues. It was my parents who set me up for failure when I was completely innocent.” On and on. 

While you may not have been the cause of a parent or caregiver or ex-lover’s abuse, you are the cause of your response to it and the world you generate on the inside. And if your liberation from that past hurt is entirely in their court, then you have zero agency to change anything. 

One of the reflections of holocaust survivor Victor Frankel was that no matter what was being done to him “out there,” he could always choose to exercise his agency when it came to his attitude “in here”—the internal reality, one’s mindset, being the most important reality there is. 

That’s what we mean here by “If there is a problem, I am the problem.” The most important problem to solve is the one we can actually do something about; I can’t do anything to compel a past abuser to ask forgiveness and reconcile with me, but I can do everything about whether I choose to forgive, confess, and move forward into the best version of myself I can imagine. 

I hope you’re seeing that this mindset, far from being accusatory and self-degrading, is actually freeing. 

The Problem and the Solution; Taking Ownership

For if I am the architect of my own problems, that means I’m also the solution. That doesn’t mean you won’t need help from your community or God; it means that you can practice your agency to start turning in the direction you truly want to go regardless of circumstances. 

How can we identify when we are taking ownership versus falling prey to the victimhood mindset? How can we detect the owner or victim within ourselves?

An owner, when faced with a task, will see it as something they choose to do, something they want to do, and something they believe they will do. 

A victim is supposed to do things, is obligated to work, or only does things because they feel like they should, being only motivated by external sense of obligation. 

An owner commits to something from a place of exercising personal agency, whereas a victim only commits based on their in-the-moment feeling.

When faced with the challenge to change, the owner asks him or herself, “What kind of person do I need to be in this situation? I can adapt and become a different, better version of me to face the challenge.” A victim asks him or herself, “What can I do differently to change? Why am I the way I am?”

Owners tackle long to-do lists in a focused way and see “being swapped” as just an interpretation. A sense of perpetual business is seen as a choice. Their responses to requests from others come in the form of a clear yes or no with no ambiguity. 

Ownership vs. Victimhood

Victims are perpetually “too busy,” “swamped,”  or they see themselves as constantly trying to crawl out of this lingering sense of productivity debt as if they must work a certain amount in order to justify their existence. When given a request from something else, the response is something like, “I’ll try,” nothing more than a lukewarm “yes.”  

Faced with challenging situations, owners see the situation as happening for them and choose responses from that place. Their happiness is not dependent on circumstances, on people, on places or on things. 

Victims allow circumstances to dictate their attitudes and behavior; challenging things in life are always happening to them. They usually see life as stuck and unchanging. 

Owners have more fun because when we exercise our agency, the odds that we are living out our human life value, our purpose, and our sense of making a difference in the world is much higher. 

Adopting the ownership mindset allows you to create a vision of something that hasn’t happened in your life before, like allowing yourself to trust again, to open up where appropriate, and to relate to people in a way that builds lasting, healthy relationships for life.