Do You Have to Accept Being a Victim?

What if I’m the one to blame for my own difficult circumstances?

That could be pretty hard to accept if you are one who was hit by the drunken driver, harder still if you look at the circumstances of someone who was abused at the hands of a stronger person, one who clearly lacked the ability to defend themselves at the time.

So, let’s shift the question from blaming someone else for my circumstances, to:

Who’s to blame for how I experience my circumstances?

Now, this one could be really interesting, especially for those of you who like to keep raising the red herring of "blaming the victim."

Anyone who has ever worked with victims of various tragedies will know that there is a great deal of difference between what happened and how the person responds to what happened. You may not have chosen the circumstances, but sooner or later you are going to have to accept responsibility for your responses and choices that come after the fact.

(An important caveat here: I am definitely not addressing those who may have been truly incapable of choosing or responding differently. For example, I am not addressing those who have become brain injured. However, I am addressing those who continue to bemoan their fate rather than get on with what’s left.)

There are thousands of examples around us every day of people who have gone through hell and chosen to rise above what has happened to them. Some will say these are superheroes, and, I suppose they are in a way. What makes them super, however, has precious little to do with gifted abilities; it does have to do with the mindful awareness and courage to accept that if anyone is going to do anything about my problems, it’s probably going to start with me.

My favorite example is Mitchell, as he prefers to be called. Mitchell was horribly disfigured in a fiery motorcycle crash many years ago; after many surgeries and a lengthy recovery, he then found himself paralyzed as a result of a small airplane crash. As he is fond of saying,

"Before I was paralyzed there were 10,000 things I could do. Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I’ve lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left."

Read his book, It’s Not What Happens To You, It’s What You Do About It, and see for yourself what could happen if you truly do choose to accept responsibility for your next steps.

Can Acceptance Be The Key To Lasting Change?

This opens an important question in terms of creating life in a more fulfilling and uplifting way – the role of acceptance.

Continue reading on The Huffington Post