Hope For New Haven and CERCLE were selected to manage $1.6 million in ARPA funds on behalf of the City of New Haven in support of workforce development for early childhood educators in the City. The grant is part of a citywide initiative to invest in successful educational outcomes for young children by increasing the number of educators in the classroom and improving learning environments of early childhood programs.

​

Over the next three years, CERCLE will make funding available to individuals and organizations investing in the professional growth and development of teachers. 

To learn more about this opportunity visit our website at https://www.ct-cercle.org/community-grants.

Part 5 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

The mentality I’m speaking of is referred to as victim mentality. There are a lot of misconceptions about what this is, which means so many people don’t even realize they have it.

Just because you have victim mentality doesn’t mean you…

• are a pessimist
• think the world is against you
• have a “woe is me” attitude all the time
• think things will never work out for you
• were taken hostage or some other egregious form of victimization

Truth be told, when you have victim mentality some or all of those things may be true for you. But they weren’t for me. This mentality can be very hard to see in yourself, and that’s especially so when you don’t present as the typical “victim.”

The biggest problem with victim mentality is that there is no impetus to action. If you believe you’re the victim of circumstances, you’re not going to take any action to change the situation. You’ll just accept it as “the way things are.” If we truly believe we’re not at fault, or cause, we are not going to DO anything to change things.

There’s a difference between being an actual victim and having victim mentality. Your inner life is not subject to the whims of other people. You have a choice about how to see things, how to deal with your life, what to focus on, etc. 

Victor Frankl was in concentration camps in WWII, which is one of the most victimized situations a human could be in. He said, “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation” (emphasis mine). He could still choose to help others, and he did.

Even if you have a reason like Frankl did, you don’t have to feel like a victim. Feeling like a victim relegates you to the position of non-action. Nothing will ever change if you think you’re just a victim.

If you’ve ever asked yourself “Why does this always happen to me?” or “Why won’t he ever…or why doesn’t she ever…” these are indicators of this mentality. Some people go through life asking questions like this, wondering why all these bad things keep happening to them. Instead, you might want to ask yourself: 

“Am I allowing situations in life or events to manage me or am I determined to manage them as best I can?” 

You’re obviously not in control of everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react. If you react as a victim (i.e., thinking you have nothing to do with the situation) you’re doomed to be stuck in that position because you see no reason for action. If you truly want a life that is happy, joyous, and free, then you’ll need to take action!

As we say in recovery, “act as if.” That is, act as if you have the ability to change a situation – even if you think you don’t! You’ll be surprised at how things change when you make that one little step toward action.

For most blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

Just under a dozen tents have been cleared from a backyard homeless encampment on Rosette Street to make space for six new ​“tiny homes,” the latest local experiment in providing emergency shelter to those most in need.

Those prefabricated houses, all under 100 square feet each, popped up this past weekend behind the Amistad Catholic Worker House at 203 Rosette St. 

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/tiny_homes_build_on_backyard_encampment

You may be a people-pleaser if you…

• go way above and beyond the “call of duty”
• really want people to depend on you and you’re crushed when you’re not able to follow through on something you said you’d do
• you jump through hoops to make things happen for other people
• you frequently drop what you’re doing to help others who make last-minute requests
• think you’re a nice person because you’re so focused on others and that’s what nice people do
• you always put others before yourself rather than doing what you like
• you sometimes get resentful of others for always asking you to do things for them, but you’d never say anything because that’s not nice
• you decide you’re not going to keep saying you’ll do things that are a lot of trouble for you but then you always cave in and do them anyway
• you think it’s selfish to put yourself first
• you’re afraid people will think you’re a bad person if you say no or don’t help when asked

The thing about being a people-pleaser is that we’re often dishonest with ourselves and each other.

We say yes to things we don’t really want to do. We say no to things we actually want to do because we don’t want to put ourselves first. We’re more invested in people thinking that we’re nice and helpful than we are in actually being helpful. Then we get resentful of others for always asking for help, yet we’ve trained them to ask us for help by always being there and always saying yes.

These are all forms of dishonesty.

People-pleasing is also manipulative because we have a specific outcome in mind: please people. Our goal with these behaviors is to make sure we’re seen as good people by others. For certain, we want to be helpful, but the being helpful part of people-pleasing is not as important as the perception that we’re helpful!

That’s called manipulation.

I used to think I was “nice” and that was why I helped people all the time. I didn’t identify as a people-pleaser until I got into recovery and learned more about codependence and realized, “Oh yes I am a people-pleaser!” It occurred to me that it’s not nice to be dishonest and manipulate people!

That’s why I try to focus more on being kind than on being nice. Kind people tell the truth and directly communicate with others about what’s okay and not okay with them, and what they’re available to help out with.

If you’re just recognizing right now as you read this that you’ve been dishonest and manipulative, you’re not alone. And you’re NOT a bad person. You’ve just developed some unhealthy patterns. And you can change them. Here’s how:

There are two questions I recommend you ask yourself to stop your people-pleasing, dishonest and manipulative ways so you can focus more on being kind than nice:

1). What are my motives? Why am I doing this? If you’re doing it because you want people to think you’re nice, helpful or dependable (or you don’t want them to think you’re a bad person) then it’s probably not a good idea to do that. However, if you’re doing it because you truly want to be helpful and there’s nothing you expect in return, go ahead and do it.

2). Does this serve my highest good? Does it bring me into alignment with my values? If what you’re about to do is not something that serves your highest good (including that it doesn’t deplete) and/or it doesn’t bring you into alignment with what’s important to you, then you might not want to go forward. But if it’s something that serves your highest good, gives you energy to participate in and brings you into alignment with your values, do it!

Part 4 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

The Drama Triangle is sometimes also referred to as the Victim Triangle. It’s a model of dysfunctional interaction first delineated by Stephen Karpman in 1968. It includes the roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer.

When I first learned of it, it explained so much of the dynamics of my life – within all of my relationships. If you’ve had dysfunctional relationships at any point, it will be familiar to you in terms of how it works, if not by name.

That said, healthy people participate in this dynamic from time to time too. They just don’t live in it all the time. I’ll explain these dynamics in more detail below.
The Drama Triangle is a dysfunctional pattern of interaction that perpetuates dysfunction rather than changing it. In the Drama Triangle, the three roles, Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor, represent ways we interact with others. When engaged in this dysfunctional pattern, we typically bounce around from one of these roles to the other taking on the behaviors of each role as we move in and out of them. This can occur in one conversation.

Even though we may alternate between the three roles regularly, most of us have a favored role. That is, you might tend to mostly be a Rescuer, a Victim, or a Persecutor. My favored position is Rescuer, but it was spotting my stance as a Victim that was the biggest paradigm shift of my 12-step recovery.

Luckily for us, in 2006 David Emerald came up with the antidote to the drama triangle which he calls The Empowerment Dynamic or TED. It’s described in his book by the same name. It’s written in the form of a parable, so it’s an easy read. I’ll share briefly about that below as well.

When participating in the Drama Triangle dynamic, we create misery for ourselves and others. We end up creating a lose-lose situation. The trick is to notice this dynamic, and then transform it into a more positive outcome for everyone. This is where Emerald’s TED model comes in.

I’ll now briefly introduce the three roles, then give a sample conversation that most of us will easily identify with, and I’ll point out how each participant in the conversation is moving around the Drama Triangle.

The Victim
When in this role, we see ourselves as helpless and deny any responsibility for our negative consequences. For example, we may believe we’re responsible for all of the good things in our romantic relationships but believe “if only my partner would change everything would be great” (i.e., they are responsible for all the “bad” things in the relationship). This may not be a conscious belief.  It’s classic victim mentality to think you have no responsibility for anything negative in your relationships. Here’s the detrimental part – if you think you have no responsibility for something, then you won’t do anything to change it!

The Rescuer
When in this role, we focus our attention on the Victim. We neglect our own needs, working hard to help other people. When we embody this role, we’re often exhausted, depleted, and perhaps resentful. We constantly apply short-term repairs to the Victim’s problems.

Sometimes we use guilt to get our way, perhaps saying things like, “After all I’ve done for you, how could you…” We see the Victim as hopeless and helpless and in need of our assistance.

The Persecutor
When we inhabit this role, we blame the Victim and criticize the Rescuer for enabling the Victim. However, we don’t typically provide any guidance or solutions to the underlying problem. We’re usually pretty critical or unpleasant when in this role, and we’re good at pointing the finger and finding fault.

Underneath all of this, we may feel inadequate. Therefore, we exhibit controlling behaviors like threats, being rigid, and sometimes being a bully.

This dynamic keeps these roles in place because the Victim depends on a Rescuer who yearns for someone to take care of. Persecutors need a scapegoat, and so the dynamic continues. Keep in mind that healthy people will perform these roles occasionally. However, pathological role players actively avoid leaving the familiar and comfortable environment of this “game.” The only way to escape the Drama Triangle is to not participate in the “game,” which is where Emerald’s TED comes in.

An illustration of moving around the roles of the Drama Triangle

Here’s an example of parents Jose and Tawanna and how they both move from one role to the other within one brief conversation.

Jose says, “I can’t believe you burnt dinner. That’s the third time this month.” [Persecutor]

Tawanna replies, “Little Antonio fell and skinned his knee, it burned while I was busy getting him a bandage.” [Rescuer]

If Jose then says, “You baby that boy too much” he’s Persecuting Tawanna for taking care of him. Then perhaps Tawanna jumps into the Victim role and says, “You wouldn’t want him to get an infection, would you? I’d end up taking care of him while he was sick.”

If Jose jumps back into the Persecutor role he might say, “He’s big enough to get his own bandage” to which Tawanna might reply, “I just didn’t want him bleeding all over the carpet.” [Rescuer].

If Jose says, “That’s the problem with these kids, they expect you to do everything.” [Persecutor] then Tawanna may say, “That’s only natural honey, they’re young.” [Rescuer].

Perhaps then Jose might say, “I work hard all day at my job…’ [Persecutor]

That snippet of conversation should have given you enough of a taste of what bouncing around the Drama Triangle might look like within one conversation. Now let’s talk about how to get out of it. Using TED, we learn to shift from reacting to life’s events to choosing our response to life events (which I call Living on Purpose).

In TED, instead of taking on the role of Victim, you become a Creator. Instead of being a Rescuer, you become a Coach (which explains why I became a Coach, given the well-worn groove of being a Rescuer). Instead of being a Persecutor, you become a Challenger.

Victim >>> Creator
To shift from being the Victim to becoming a Creator, you shift from reacting to choosing Creator behaviors like taking action toward your desired outcomes. You become okay with taking baby steps to get there. You take responsibility and make choices.

Rescuer>>>Coach
To get out of the role of Rescuer or hero and shift into the role of Coach, instead of telling people what to do, ask what they want or what they think about something. Use curiosity and inquiry to help others develop their own clarity and vision. This is more likely to empower and develop them so they can acquire skills rather than doing things for them. When they stumble you might say things like, “I know you can do it.”

Persecutor>>>Challenger
The way to shift from the Persecutor or villain role to becoming a Challenger is you shift from putting down to building up. Challengers inspire others to take action (which is what Creators do, they take action).

The point of The Empowerment Dynamic is to get everyone to see themselves as a Creator, and to become Creators ourselves.

That’s what it looks like to go from enacting the Drama Triangle to enacting The Empowerment Dynamic. If you’d like a copy of a handout about moving from The Drama Triangle to The Empowerment Dynamic, email me here with the subject “Drama Triangle handout” and I’ll send it to you.

For most blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

In November, City Gallery presents The Other Part, an exhibition of mixed media art and clay work by Sheila Kaczmarek. The show runs Friday, November 3 - Sunday, November 26. The Opening Reception on Saturday, November 4 will feature live music from 2-5pm by Mike Reinhauzen and Len Kaczmarek.

Kaczmarek’s haunting work looks at the unusual or other side of things — the shadow, the tracks left, or the smoke residue. She tries to present an aspect which may not be the obvious, that makes the viewer look twice and wonder.

She works with mixed media, including clay. Her interest lies in both the process of layering and in stripping away surfaces. Her work with clay involves both high and low fire clay and pit firing and Raku. Her clay surfaces sometimes incorporate paint, metal and encaustic wax. Most recently, she has been intrigued by the complexity and unexpected nature when assembling multiple organic forms like fungi and mushrooms.

Kaczmarek studied art at St. Martin’s School of Art, London; UCLA, California; and the Academie des Beaux Arts, Brussels. She apprenticed in the ceramic studio of the Guilford Art Center for five years. She has taught art for over 20 years to both children and now to adults. She worked with a collaborative group of women artists for 8 years, resulting in multiple shows in Connecticut and New York. She is a founding member of City Gallery, president of the Guilford Art League, and served on the Board of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club for many years.

The Other Part is free and open to the public, and will be on view November 3 - November 26, with an Opening Reception on Saturday, November 4 featuring live music from 2-5pm by Mike Reinhauzen and Len Kaczmarek. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12pm - 4 pm, or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Towns in Connecticut that issue more permits for housing are not only bringing in residents and jobs and encouraging employers to locate there, but they are also delivering to their residents a lower rate of real property tax growth than towns which issue fewer permits...

https://ctmirror.org/2023/10/13/ct-housing-units-property-tax-rates/ ;

When Kilynn Johnson walks out the door of the house her parents bought in 1972, where she grew up and lives to this day, she steps into the warm embrace of a community where neighbors feel more like kin. Her home sits across the street from Stinger Square Park, where Johnson passed long days of her childhood playing alongside her siblings and cousins and friends. But by age 8, diagnosed with asthma, she spent more time sitting on the sidelines, watching the other children tumble on playground equipment or rip and run through the park. Once in a while a neighbor, Ms. Sylvia or any number of Black mother figures whom Johnson and everyone knew never to call by just their first names, might come by and check on her. “You doing all right, Kilynn?” they would ask the quiet little girl.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/magazine/pollution-philadelphia-black-americans.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

The New York Times recently took a culinary trip over the border to Connecticut, examining tomato pie, the Northeast staple influenced by Italian immigrants that's a mainstay at New Haven's most famous apizza restaurants.

https://www.ctinsider.com/living/food/article/new-york-times-new-haven-tomato-pie-18419507.php#photo-24169335

More than 119,000, or about 19%, of young people in Connecticut between the ages of 14 and 26 were “at risk” or “disconnected” in 2021-22, according to a new Dalio Education report released Wednesday morning.

The report, which compiled data from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, Department of Children and Families, Department of Labor, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the state Department of Education, concluded that more than 63,000 young adults were disconnected and 56,000 students were at risk between 2021 and 2022...

https://ctmirror.org/2023/10/11/ct-young-adults-at-risk-disconnected-labor-force/ ;

Then we have a newly created position you may be interested in!!!!

Who We Are Looking For

Are you a talented early childhood professional looking to increase access to high-quality early care and education programs across New Haven? Are you good at supporting program directors to help them be the best they can be? Do you like finding new ways of engaging families and community members in the work of expanding early care and education opportunities?  If you answered yes to the questions above, this position may be an opportunity for you to use your talents as a force for good in our community! 

United Way is seeking a School Readiness Liaison who is enthusiastic and organized to work with the 22 early care and education center- and school-based programs that receive School Readiness funding in New Haven. This person will work as part of a team with the School Readiness Education Coordinator (housed at United Way) and staff at New Haven Public Schools who manage the contracts and payments for this grants program. Salary is $75,000-$80,000/year, commensurate with experience, and includes benefits.

 What You Will Do

• Serve as the staff to the New Haven Early Childhood Council, an appointed group of volunteers who make decisions about the School Readiness grant from the Office of Early Childhood and serve as an advisory body on early childhood issues to the Mayor and Superintendent. Tasks will include preparing agendas and materials for meetings, providing orientation to new members and encouraging member participation, helping to gather and analyze data about the needs of young children, their families, and providers, and providing leadership that supports implementation of Council priorities.
• Manage the School Readiness and Quality Enhancement Grants, including designing and implementing the annual Request for Proposal process, including submitting the community application to the Office of Early Childhood; gathering and analyzing data about School Readiness and Quality Enhancement usage, effectiveness, and reach; and supporting new programs that seek to become School Readiness-funded programs. You will also work closely with staff at New Haven Public Schools, which serves as the fiscal agent for these grants, to ensure that contracts and payments are accurate and timely.
• Conduct regular site visits and classroom observations of early childhood programs that receive School Readiness funds to ensure compliance with School Readiness grant regulations. You will also review records and other documentation provided by the programs to ascertain program quality.
• Organize and facilitate monthly provider meetings for School Readiness programs. Meetings are intended to be a forum to share information and best practices, review and clarify policies, assess needs and set priorities, problem solve, share resources, and provide technical assistance on policies and practices related to the School Readiness quality components.

• Serve as the point of contact for the CT Office of Early Childhood (OEC). You will attend OEC liaison meetings and respond to OEC requests for information.  
•  You will work as part of a team. You will report to the Vice President of Education and supervise the School Readiness Education Coordinator, working as a team to support early childhood programs in centers and schools throughout New Haven. As a staff member at United Way, you will have supportive colleagues who are working on a variety of initiatives to improve lives in our community.

What You Need

• Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education, Child Development, or related field; Master's degree preferred
• 5+ years of relevant experience directing early childhood programs and/or serving as a program coach or manager
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills
• Thorough understanding of early childhood development
• Strong computer skills, with a preference for proficiency in Microsoft Office applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Community minded with high-level active listening skills and the ability to connect with people of different economic and ethnic backgrounds
• Ability to analyze data and develop concise, accurate reports
• Personal qualities of integrity, credibility, and dedication to the mission of UWGNH 
• Local travel is required

About United Way

United Way of Greater New Haven brings people and organizations together to create solutions to Greater New Haven’s most pressing challenges in the areas of Education, Health, and Financial Stability grounded in racial and social justice. We tackle issues that cannot be solved by any one group working alone. We operate according to these organizational values.

In accordance with organizational policies, this position requires a criminal background check as a condition of employment.

United Way staff are currently working hybrid, with at least two days per week in our office in New Haven.

United Way is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Don’t check off every box in the requirements listed above? Please apply anyway! Studies have shown that marginalized communities - such as women, LGBTQ+ and people of color - are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. United Way of Greater New Haven is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!

 To apply:  Careers | United Way of Greater New Haven (uwgnh.org)

Part 3 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

1. Realize you have victim mentality
This mentality can be super hard to see because it's deeply entrenched. Having this mentality  doesn't mean you're bad or weak. You've internalized a mode of thinking that was useful to you at one time, likely because you were victimized somehow.
If you continually think, “If __ would just __ then everything would be okay” you likely have victim mentality. In thinking like that, you act like you can’t do anything about the situation or don’t have any options. But everyone has options, they just might be shitty options.

“Victims” act like things are happening to them, they’re not just happening. That means you’re unlikely to take action because you don’t feel you have agency.
 
2. Stop blaming
If you constantly blame others or circumstances, you likely have victim mentality. When you stop blaming, you can start to take responsibility for your life. This doesn’t mean no one has done anything or that circumstances don’t suck. It just means that it’s your responsibility to change things if you want them to change.

Actively search for the things you can do to change the conditions you’re not happy with. Maybe you’re in a relationship that hasn’t been working for years. It only takes one person to change a relationship. Most of us know that, but we believe that the “one person” is our partner, not us!

You’re the only one you can control. So stop blaming your partner (or the circumstance) and waiting for things to change and take the reins yourself.
 
3. Become proactive instead of reactive
This is another way to say that you feel as if life is happening to you, it’s not just “happening.” When you feel like that, you react to life as opposed to acting on life.
Many of us develop this pattern because we’ve been in fight or flight mode for much of our lives. That means physiologically, we have no access to the frontal lobe of our brain where reasoning occurs.  The “lizard” brain takes over because it senses danger, and when we’re in that state, we’re not supposed to think; we are supposed to fight or flee.

Your system wasn’t built to stay in fight or flight mode. In that mode, it’s  very hard to think clearly, so you react with your lizard brain as if you were in danger. When you can't think clearly, you can't live proactively.

Learning to pause is by far the most important tool that you can use to stop being a reactor and become proactive. When you pause and take deep breaths to calm yourself, it lets your body know you’re safe and it’s ok to get out of fight or flight mode. This increases your chances of thinking clearly and being proactive.
 
4. Making decisions ahead of time
When you’re clear about what’s important to you (i.e., your values), it’s easier to live your life in alignment with those values. Then you can make decisions ahead of time based on those values. When situations arise, you’ve already made your decision and it doesn't matter so much what's going on in the moment. That’s because what’s important to you is important to you, no matter what’s happening. Of course, shit happens sometimes, and you might be required to make a decision at the moment, but most of the time that’s not the case.

Here's a basic example: you decide you’re going to exercise three days/week. The decision has been made so it doesn’t matter how you feel when it comes time to exercise. You made the decision when you were thinking clearly with your rational brain. This makes it much more likely that you’ll live in alignment with your values. You won’t be reacting to life like a victim, you’ll be acting on life proactively.
 
5. Reach out for help
It’s important to seek help from people who are willing and able to help you. Before recovery, on the rare occasions when I did ask for help, it was from people who’d often burn me. If you’ve been reaching out to the same person for years and they've been unable or unwilling to help you, stop fucking reaching out to that person! Find somebody else to reach out to.

If you’re looking for a coach or therapist, talk to their former clients or read their testimonials. Find out if they can help you in the ways that you want to be helped. If you don’t see some improvement in a certain period of time, move on to someone else.
 
6. Set boundaries
Most people think of boundaries as something we do in response to others’ actions. That’s the case for very few of our boundaries. We decide most of our boundaries ahead of time. That is, we decide the standards for our lives (that’s my definition of boundaries) and then live that way.
 
Boundaries help us understand what’s ours and not ours, who’s in charge of what. Most people with victim mentality have very poor boundaries. They think they’re not in charge of anything to do with their life. They may blame others for walking all over them. Meanwhile, they haven’t set any boundaries!
 
7. Make choices 
Victims don't perceive choice. They often say things like “I didn't have a choice.” It may feel like you don't, but you do. If you stay at a job you hate because you need to support your family, that’s a choice. You're choosing your family over contentment.
 
Once you see that, you come out of victim mentality. Perceiving choice means you recognize what it's costing you so you can decide whether to take action. If you choose not to take action, that’s fine, but recognize going forward, “This is a choice I’m actively making. I’m choosing to stay in this job I don’t like because it allows me to support my family.” Then stop complaining about it because you chose that.
 
There are many benefits of coming out of victim mentality. Primarily, you get to live like a mature adult who lives their life the way they want.

For most blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

Part 2 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

If you have the mentality of victimhood, you likely got it from being victimized in some way. For me, it was from growing up with the dysfunction of my childhood. It wasn’t something egregious like being kidnapped; it was the continual drip-drip-drip of emotional invalidation and abandonment I experienced. When you internalize victim mentality, it permeates every area of your life and just about every decision you make.
There’s a difference between actually being victimized and internalizing the mindset of victimhood or victim mentality. This is not a value judgment. It’s a description of what happens to us and its effects. Below, I’ll share about how to get out of that mentality.
Even if you were egregiously victimized, you don’t necessarily internalize victim mentality. Two notable examples of people who were horribly victimized but didn’t take on victim mentality were Nelson Mandela and Victor Frankl. It didn’t define who they were.

Someone who has victim mentality is stuck in victimhood, it’s like an identity they’ve internalized. I know because I had victim mentality and didn’t realize it until I was in my 50s!! I didn't appear like, or act like the kind of person that you probably think of when you think of someone stuck in victimhood. The most telling sign of my victim mentality was that there were many areas of my life where I didn't recognize I had choices.

Here's why that matters: when you believe you have no choices, you will not see the choices available to you. You’ll truly believe, “I have no options.”

The choices you have available to you may all be shitty, but you still have choices. So often when we say, “I don't have a choice” what we really mean is that if we don’t do the thing that we feel is the only option then something bad will happen.
The belief that we have no choice can have far-reaching effects on the future. One of my clients was reflecting on when her children were little. She was divorced, had her own business, and worked constantly. She told me, “I worked constantly because I didn't have a choice.”

I challenged her on that. It may have felt like she didn’t have a choice back then, but she did. There may have been really shitty options to choose from, but she did have choices. While we were talking, I rattled off some choices she could have made. Mind you, I did this with no forethought:

• close the business and work elsewhere
• partner with someone else on her business
• hire someone to grow the business to cover their salary and take over some of her responsibilities

Now, if I spent zero time thinking about it and came up with those options, imagine what she could have come up with back then if she’d put some time and effort into it. But she didn’t. Because that’s what victim mentality does to us - we devote ZERO time to thinking about other options.

That client grew up in a family that owned that same kind of business, so she watched her dad run his business and work constantly. This was modeled for her as “what you do” so she was taught, “There are no other options.”

It was bad enough that back then, she felt like she had no choice. But the fact is that now, decades later, she still feels that she didn't have any other choice but to work so much back then. That mentality is affecting her now and will continue to affect her future if she truly believes she had no other choices back then.

This is why I’m doing this series  - look at the untold years this woman spent believing she had no choice. And all the possibilities she could have created with her children if she’d spent more time with them when they were young.

Victims use language that implies no choice, (e.g., never, always, everyone). They think things like, “I will never be able to do to X” or “Bad things always happen to me” or “Everybody hates me.

So, how do you move past this mentality?

What we need when we have victim mentality is a new perspective, so start to actively look for choices. When you find yourself in a situation that feels like you have no choice, force yourself to brainstorm a bunch of options. Then evaluate the choices. You can also talk to others to get their perspective on the choices they suggest.

Even if you don’t choose any of those new options, there’s a relief, a freedom, that comes from having choices.  When we feel like we’re being forced to do something (i.e., have no choices) it can be very hard to take. But when you feel like you have a choice, it changes how you experience that thing.

One of the greatest freedoms of my recovery has been the freedom of choice. And for me, by far, the greatest is the freedom to choose what to think.

I choose to believe I have choices.

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Part 1 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

This is part 1 of a 5 part series on what victim mentality is and how to get out of it. In this essay, I’ll share how understanding “your part in things” (as we say in 12-step recovery) brings you out of victim mentality.

If you’re not familiar with victim mentality, it’s a way of thinking that’s so deeply internalized that we don’t realize we have it. You might call it a paradigm, which is a framework for thinking that includes some basic assumptions about what is taken to be “true.” For example, the idea that the world was flat was a paradigm that informed many areas of life. There was a paradigm shift when it was understood that the world was a sphere. There’s often a lot of resistance to shifting paradigms because the assumption that the original paradigm is “true” is so deeply embedded.

That can be true of victim mentality as well. That was definitely true for me! This mindset shift was the most important one of my recovery, and I continue to come out of victim mentality to this day. The thing that helped me the most was doing step 4, where we take a “searching and fearless moral inventory”, or in plain language, come to understand “our part in things.”

In other words, we start looking at the things we’ve been doing in our lives that have created chaos, drama, and unmanageability. Instead of assuming all the bad shit in our lives was because of someone else, we start to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, I had something to do with the muck and mire of my life.

When you have victim mentality, it means you’ve internalized the belief that you don’t have anything to do with the fucked up things happening in your life. The biggest problem with that mentality is that if you think you have nothing to do with it, then there’s no impetus to change.

If you really think the shitty things going on in your life are the fault of another person, group of people, organization, or public institution, then you’re not going to do anything to change them. The problem with that attitude is if everybody else is really the problem, you’re fucked! Coming out of victim mentality means you start to realize you actually have choices.

One clue that might help you see if you have victim mentality is this: if you think you’re responsible for all the good things in your life, and someone/something else is responsible for all the bad things, you might have victim mentality.

When you take a searching and fearless moral inventory of your life in step 4, you’re forced to look for your part. And guess what happens when you’re forced to look for your part? You find stuff! You find out that all that shit was NOT always someone else’s fault! It doesn’t mean nobody did anything, but it also means YOU did something to create drama and chaos, or at least make the existing drama and chaos worse.

And this is GOOD news! It’s good news because, when you know what you’ve been doing that’s been creating the dysfunction in your life, YOU CAN THEN STOP!

You can stop doing those things. You have choices about what to do in the future. You have a sense of agency in your life. Having agency means you realize you have the capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior. You become an actor in your life rather than a reactor. You come out of victim mentality.

When you look for your part in things and see what you’ve been doing, you start to ask yourself “What could I do differently in the future? Where can I make change and have an impact on my life and the lives of those around me?” This takes us out of victim mentality because victims don’t feel like they can have an impact.

Keep in mind that most of us with the victim mentality have been victimized in some way or other in our lives. So it makes sense that you have this mentality. It came from somewhere. But you don’t have to stay in that mentality. I’ll be addressing how to come out of victim mentality even when you’ve been victimized in a future essay, so be on the lookout for that.

For most blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

The Community Foundation welcomes the third cohort to the program that is building a pipeline for new, more diverse leadership in Greater New Haven’s nonprofit community.

New Haven, Conn. (Oct. 4, 2023) The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (The Foundation) welcomes the third cohort to the Nonprofit Management Program for Emerging Leaders of Color. The career development program was created in early 2021 as part of The Foundation’s Stepping Forward commitment to supporting the recovery from COVID-19 and advancing racial equity.

"This program is strengthening the pipeline of leaders for Greater New Haven nonprofits and helping to ensure that the next generation of leadership will be more diverse and more representative of our community," says Jackie Downing, senior director of grantmaking and nonprofit support at The Foundation. READ MORE

If you’re constantly pissed off at things like the barista getting your coffee order wrong or that there’s traffic on the highway, you might need to learn acceptance.

That was my problem for most of my life. Once I started to understand that lack of acceptance was my problem, things began to change. I came to understand that it wasn’t the coffee order or the traffic – it was my thinking was the source of all my problems.

It became clear that my difficulty was because, deep down, I had a belief that these things SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!

That thinking IS the problem!

We don’t get to decide if something SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be happening. It IS happening. What we get to do is decide what we’re going to do about it.

Acceptance means focusing on what is actually happening, not what you think SHOULD BE happening.

“You cannot solve a problem by condemning it” is a quote that comes to mind here.

When you get pissed off that you got the wrong coffee or that there’s a lot of traffic, you’re condemning these “problems.” But the problem is actually your thinking.

Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like it. But it does mean you stop resisting what’s happening.  

Perhaps you’re like me and you’ve heard these sayings before…

“Don’t take a snowstorm personally, put on boots.”

“Better to put slippers on your feet than to carpet the world.”

I had no fucking idea what those sayings really meant until I got into recovery and really, deeply learned the meaning of acceptance at how to do it.

They’re basically reminding you to focus on what you can change and accept what you can’t as the Serenity Prayer says. You can focus on the world around you – or –  you can adapt yourself, adapt your thinking.

If you resist the situation, then you won’t do anything about it. But if you accept it, you have some hope of affecting the situation because you might actually take action. If you’re busy fighting against what is, it’s hard to take meaningful action.

A couple of areas in which acceptance has been really profound for me are emotional acceptance and self-acceptance.

Our emotions build on each other. If I felt worried, then gtt angry that I was worried, those emotions combined and my worry was multiplied.

But…. if I feel worried and accept that I’m worried, then I only have the original feeling without adding additional emotion to it. So if you’re worried, just be worried. It will pass. Emotions are energy and they will morph and change.

The most important kind of acceptance for me has been self-acceptance. Remember, you can’t change something by condemning it. When you learn something about yourself that you don’t particularly like, remember – it’s info, not ammo!

You’re never going to beat yourself up into being a sane, rational, functional mature person. If you accept that you have certain traits or you did that thing instead of fighting it, it will allow you to face reality and work toward the kind of life you want. Starting right now, in the present moment.

For most blog posts like this, go to FridayFragments.news