Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [36]
Another excellent example of victor versus victim is told in Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, which chronicles his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and describes the reasons he continued living. Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who had incredible insight and a fierce determination to survive while imprisoned. Even under atrocious circumstances—he was starved, kept in freezing conditions, endured brutal beatings, and lived with the presence and promise of death throughout the years he was imprisoned—Frankl found meaning in life and used it as a mechanism to survive.
Frankl recorded his findings and wrote about his observations after he was freed from the concentration camp. His theory was that finding something to live for gives us meaning in our lives. After spending years watching others give up, watching prisoners die every day, it got to the point where Frankl was able to determine who would make it and who would die among new groups of people who arrived at the camp. He could tell from their initial stimulus response to the Nazi camp leaders which prisoners had the mental strength and toughness, the reserve, belief, and faith that no matter what they had to do, they would survive.
Your life is your own story, so if you have the proper tools to handle adversity, you will have absolute control over how you respond.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
—Viktor Frankl
The responsibility falls on us to find meaning in our lives and make them worthwhile. Those who cannot find real meaning or purpose will chase gratification with desperate energy, as if they’re trying to fill the emptiness inside their body, mind, and soul.
When people enduring hardship come to me, I try to get them out of their negative mind-set as quickly as possible by turning their thoughts toward creative, positive uses. When you feel good about things, you are free to create and express yourself. When you feel miserable, stuck in your addiction to drama, you’re crippled with fear, panic, worry, and a sense of worthlessness. Think about it this way: When you are making lots of money, you feel as though you can catch a tiger by its tail, right? But what happens when you suddenly stop earning big bucks? If you’re like most people, you stop feeling good, lose your creativity, and can barely get your head off the pillow in the morning. You may even be feeling this way right now.
The bottom line is this: How you feel determines your attitude. Your attitude then determines your actions, which ultimately determine the outcome. We don’t act in our own best interests when we feel uncertain and insecure, when we feel that the world is ganging up on us. Are you one of these people? If so, consider, my friend, you’re an addict.
When you live in drama, you’re coming from a place where you have been living as a victim. There is nothing positive that comes out of that way of thinking. All you do is propagate negative energy into the universe. Keeping negative energy out there all the time, whether through dialogue, gossip, unnecessary conversations, self-talk, body language, attitude, or mind-set, is the epitome of living by default.
Why do so many people seem to feel comfortable in this place of conflict? There’s a perceived benefit to being dramatic. We get attention. Our needs are being met because we are connecting with others. We get to be part of a clan because we can get everyone around us involved in our chaos. While all of this emotion is stirring, our need for interpersonal connection is being met by the person who calls to tell us some juicy gossip, by the person who brings up stories of the past, or by an email from a best friend who can’t stop complaining about her abusive or empty