Last week, we talked about how there are “no victims in the Kingdom” and unpacked the difference between experiencing something painful and allowing a victim mindset to determine your identity.

Recognizing victim thinking is one thing. Knowing what to do when you catch yourself in it is another.

This week, we’re moving from understanding the problem to something much more practical: What do you actually do when you recognize a victim thought, a victim story, or a victim pattern operating in your life?

There are three practical things you can do starting today that when used together can form a direct path to freedom from the victim mindset.

Aggressively Heal Your Wounds

The first step is not pretending the wound isn’t there, but in taking the healing of it seriously.

Consider the cost of allowing known heart wounds to remain unhealed. When you do not heal your wounds, you suffer, but the effects can also reach the people connected to you.

The heart is like a factory that produces love. When part of the heart remains wounded, then that part of the “factory” is offline, limiting the love you have access to give from that place.

This is where inner healing really becomes a stewardship issue, that asks: How aggressively do we pursue healing the wound?

Many people have experienced horrific and harmful things, so this is not about minimizing that or denying what happened. The challenge we are faced with is to stop making the severity of the wound bigger than God’s love, goodness, and ability to heal.

One revealed truth or perspective shift can bring significant freedom, so don’t remain casual about healing.

Aggressively Take Every Thought Captive

Healing the wound matters, but the thoughts and beliefs around it can keep a wound “safe and entrenched.” That is why this second step is equally as important.

A lie is a perversion of reality. When something has been believed and rehearsed long enough, it can become difficult to separate the story from what is actually true.

People begin pulling circumstantial evidence through the lens of what they already believe, reinforcing the narrative and becoming increasingly certain of it. Thoughts create feelings, not the other way around.

Breaking that cycle requires humility. Instead of immediately defending the thought, create enough room to ask: “What if this isn’t actually true?”

Then ask another revealing question: “Who would want me to believe this?”

Is this a thought God would want shaping your life, or would the enemy benefit from you continuing to believe it?

That gives you something practical to do when the victim-like feelings surface. You may not be able to grab a feeling any more than you can grab the wind, but you can identify and examine the thought underneath it.

Take 100% Responsibility

Finally we need to move to a place where the victim mindset cannot continue to grow…and that happens when we learn to take 100% responsibility.

To clarify…this does not mean what happened was your fault, or that you were somehow to blame for it. Someone may have betrayed you, lied about you, abused you, cheated on you, or done something you had no control over.

“It may have not been your fault, but it is now your responsibility.” -Pedro Adao

Responsibility takes the focus off of what happened to you then, and puts the focus back on what belongs to you NOW…

Your life, your future, your actions, your thoughts, and the decisions you make going forward.

The victim identity cannot grow in that soil because victimhood places control outside of yourself, while responsibility requires you to own what you can actually do from here.

The question that matters most at this point…

Are you willing to give up your right to ever be a victim? Are you willing to turn in your victim card instead of holding on to it in case you need to use it someday?

If you do not want to play the victim card, then there is no reason to keep carrying it.

Freedom begins when we do all three of these things.

  • Heal the wounds you have been living around
  • Question the story you have been rehearsing
  • Decide that even though what happened to you before may have been horrific, harmful, wrong, and not your fault, you can still choose to take responsibility for what happens from here.

“Choose to take responsibility for what happens with your life from here.” -Pedro Adao

If conversations like this challenge your thinking and help you uncover the beliefs shaping how you actually live, this is what we do every week inside Kingdom Seekers.

We go beyond hearing Kingdom principles and create space to examine them, apply them, and grow in the wisdom to live them out. Join us here.