Here's a book recommendation that can help you
This week ushers in a new angle to my regular writings - a motivational book review. Over the years of steering myself on a personal growth path, books have frequently been the light that guided the way. The reading of some stand out as highly significant change points for me, and it just one of these change promoting books that I'm profiling today.
Wayne Dyer's "Pulling your own strings" is a book offering insights that would have prevented my 'kissing green grocer' (of last week) from striking more than once. And whilst the book is over 20 years old, don't be put off - good ideas don't have a sell by date.
The book is written to help you take control of your life and steer it the way that pleases YOU. It shows you how to put paid to victimising situations - such as keeping quiet whilst some stranger kisses your children, giving up your Sunday to have lunch with family members who you don't even like, or feeling guilty because you take a lunch hour whilst your colleagues slog on.
More often than not, when we face these seemingly unavoidable situations, the last thing we think to ourselves is 'I am a victim'. Yet according to Dr Dyer, the moment we compromise our personal goals, needs and values, is the moment we become a victim. "Victims are people who run their lives according to the dictates of others. They find themselves doing things they would really would rather not do, or being manipulated into activities loaded with unnecessary personal sacrifice". By this definition, I reckon the majority of SA women become victims on a daily basis, and, from what I can gather, many men too. I once wrote an article stressing the importance of saying "no" to excessive demands. That week my phone rang off the hook!
Because South Africans are so powerfully conditioned to please the people around them, everyone is operating in victim mode to some degree - hardly a healthy national situation. On the list of situations which point to playing out the victim role are such things as feeling upset or nervous if you have to confront someone, or are afraid you'll hurt someone's feelings if you do what you want - sound familiar?… then the book's for you.
The opposite of being a victim Dyer says, is personal freedom. However he says that life will not offer freedom on a platter. "You must make your own freedom." Dyer is not proposing that we become selfish, reckless and irresponsible, but rather that we become strong enough to honour ourselves.
Dyer details examples of the many situations that victimise, and then goes on to tell you how to jump out of the cycle. Reading the book revolutionised my own thinking years ago, and helped me to stand up for myself in a way that I had never done before.
The bottom line is this: Behaving like a victim is letting your life slip by. If your life is not working, it is not because of what others have, or have not done to you, or that life's unfair - but rather because of all the excuses you have bought into, and disempowered behaviour you have acted out. 'Pulling your own strings' gives you the tools to change.
© Catherine M Glennie
