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Student vs Victim...what are you? · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's Doc David, and today we're going to talk about students and victims.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, by the end of this podcast, you'll be able to figure out which one you are listening.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, here we are.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: David Simonson, Doc David, as some people call me.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: David Simonson.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Husband, father, get called all those things at one point in my life, and probably been called worst things as well.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So hey, so I apologize.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't uh this is more or less a one and sometimes two-man show.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when I take a vacation or when I get busy with life, um, podcast suffers.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So please bear with me as that happens.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I haven't been I haven't done a podcast for about uh a week and a half or two weeks.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today is the first day of fall, and I was just thinking, man, I actually don't mind, you know, some people lament that summer is gone and that fall is upon us, and then you have the people that are so excited because all they do on social media is post how many days away from Halloween it is, how many days away from Thanksgiving, how many days away from Christmas.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, this is the sweet spot.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was just outside this morning and it wasn't too cold, it wasn't too hot, it just kind of there's this crisp crispness in the air, and it's just such a great feeling.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I guess I guess if someone asks me what my favorite season is, it would probably be this time right now.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's an in and in anticipation of longer nights potentially, starting a fire at the fireplace.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do have a actually have a wood stove and uh doing that.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um I I want to talk today about students versus victims.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is actually a difference between um these two categories of people or kind of thinking mindsets, and a lot of times what I do is you know, I get questions from people, but I also as I'm scrolling through social media and stalking people and kind of reading news stories, I get ideas for um things.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so this this um podcast or this blog, it's a blog post up on my um up on my blog, David Simonson.net.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's your shameless plug.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd love you to go there and and like my um Facebook page as well, that'd be great.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so this was inspired by I don't want to get too descriptive because I don't want to identify the people, but it was inspired by um somebody who I know, a family that I know, and kind of recurrent patterns that I see happening in their lives, and um and so I really you know I I had an interaction with them and I went away from it and kind of came up with this idea of you know, and it's not a new idea, there's other people that have talked about it before, but we these are my thoughts on it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we can either be a student of life or we can be a victim of life, and a lot of times in the field that I am in, um, counseling, marriage, family therapy, psychology, a lot of times people come to me because they're stuck in their life, and a lot of their stuckness has to do with being um seeing things through the lens of a victim.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a victim, so I'll I'll differentiate between a victim and a student.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, a victim, they often think about uh the injustices that they've experienced, they blame others for the consequences of the choices they make.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um they sometimes feel sorry for themselves, they believe their situation is is unique to them and no one else can understand.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um they tend to have a bit more of a negative or pessimistic view of the world and kind of their experiences.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: They often don't they often don't listen well to others, um, and they continue to repeat mistakes of the past.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So so if any of those fit you, you you you potentially are looking through the world through the lens of a victim.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a student, here's what a student does.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: A student tends to learn from their choices, they tend to be a bit more optimistic and hopeful about the world.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um they actually do listen to others for new options to old problems.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um they tend to be fairly intentional about choices that they make, and and that's based, I think, on um learning from their past.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for example, if if a woman consistently gets in a bad relationship, at some point she can either be a victim and say, Why does this keep happening to me and continue to not make better choices?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I often say that her picker is broken, um, or she can look at that relationship that that last dysfunctional relationship and think, okay, what do I need to do to get out of this kind of pattern that I'm in?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And make different choices.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they study, and that that's another example of a student, they study what led them to a place so they don't go there again.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that um and there's probably lots of more lots of other different differentiations between students and victims, but those are kind of the ideas that I have between the two.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, sometimes I think in my own life, I can play a victim, I can be the victim, but I think what I'm thinking in terms of I'm thinking in terms of kind of a lifestyle, a kind of a per a consistent way that you view the world, because there's times that I've been a victim and there's times that I've been a student.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not a one-time thing, it's more of what does your what does your life look like generally speaking?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do do you fit in the category of victim or student?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you look, if you think about those ideas, what is the one um that seems to fit with you most based on how you act most of the time?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so the um I I came up with four uh different things to maybe uh step back for a second.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you are stuck in that victim place, and and I'm good, I'm suggesting that being stuck in the victim place is not a great place to be stuck.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's not healthy usually.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: People don't want to be around victims.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Victims have unsatisfying lives, there's discontent in a victim's life.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so to that end, I've come up with four ideas that maybe if you find yourself as a victim, that you can um consider integrating into your own life, and then maybe it might change some of your perspective or how you view things.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the first one is just simple gratefulness.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's studies that show that um the the poor in the United States are rich in comparison to the poor overseas.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the one of the most simple things that we often take for granted that we don't realize that we have that is just easy to have access to is water.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um my wife and I were at a fair uh last weekend, and we came out of the fair and there was a vendor pushing a cart, I don't know where she was pushing it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: But as we walked up to her, she said, Hey, you want a bottle of water?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, hey, we like free things, sure.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we we took some bottles of water that she offered us.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I took this water, I was just thinking about the places in in the world that don't have access to free bottled water like we just had been given.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's something as simple as that.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you can change your mindset to be thinking about the taking you know simple things not for granted, running water, um, huge grocery stores, ease of communication and the services that you get.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I've been overseas enough to see that like garbage pickup is not a common thing, and we take it for granted here.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, we pay for it, but it's something that we just we put our garbage out and it disappears every week.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what a great thing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in other countries, they just kind of they often leave their garbage out and it doesn't disappear and it just builds up and it creates um issues in that community.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think um there's things that we can be globally grateful for as you know we live here in America, and then there's smaller things that we can be grateful for, you know, ease of transportation or good relationships or or things like that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So gratefulness is the number one thing, and and these aren't in any kind of order and of importance, but I think they're just all important.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the second thing that is a way to kind of get your mind off being a victim is forgiveness.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of times what I've found is that when people are stuck, they help they have grudges that they hold against people, and you know, there's that cliche phrase life is too short to fill in the blank.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have regrets, hold grudges.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Life is too short to um not try, not be adventurous, you know, fill in the blank.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I I'm saying here in this instance, forgiveness is something that is so important in with being a victim versus a student, because there are people in your life that have wronged you, um, but chances are they've moved on with their lives and you have stayed stuck with bitterness, hurt, disappointment, um, you know, negative, negative feelings.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, at some point, you can either continue to nurse that hurt, bitterness, or disappointment, and and be resentful and be angry that the other person has seemed to move on with their life, or you can choose to forgive them even if you think they don't deserve it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, even if is in all caps.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because a lot of times what I I'll give a suggestion to somebody, and and they'll say, Well, what about this?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if they did this, and I say, even if this person did this thing for peacefulness in your life, forgiveness is a huge thing.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that would be number two is in in a way to start the process of becoming a student rather than a victim.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, number three is uh changing your focus.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, victims tend to focus on themselves and their own problems, and so they kind of stay internal, and they seeing the problems of people outside of yourself uh and and helping those people with problems is a great way to change your perspective because you are not the only ones, the only one with problems.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's others who have it way worse than you.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look what I was saying earlier about you know, a majority of the world having less um wealth and living in you know sewage and and garbage infested areas.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about your life and where you live.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you live in an apartment, yeah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I want to be a homeowner or whatever, but that's that's still a better place than most of the world, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so then there's that changing of your focus, because if you change your focus so that you're not the center of your attention, it gets easier to be less of a victim.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So here in my own life, I had a uh my two-year-old several years ago um got leukemia, and so we had to go through um chemo, and you know, we're we're in and out of the hospital for several months.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So her last round of chemo, she uh she got an infection.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was a common cold basically, called the human metanumavirus.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that you know, uh we who have healthy immune systems, we get this.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: We may feel a tickle in the back of our throat, and a couple days later we're better because our immune system is you know able to take care of it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: She had no immune system, and so what that meant is that she got put on this this life support machine called it's called ECMO, it stands for something.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, it was pumping her blood, and she was on a ventilator, and the doctors said, Yeah, it's there's a pretty good chance that she's not gonna make it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were heartbroken because here's our three-year-old daughter, then, who just you know, so small and tiny on this machine, and we didn't want to lose her.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so she, you know, after lots of prayers and um and well-wishes and good thoughts from people all over the world, uh, she pulled through and she's a healthy five-year-old today.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what that what that did for me, it really changed my focus on the hurt and the sadness that's in the cancer community with children, for example.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of the kids that we were an inpatient with, they passed away because they didn't win their fight with cancer.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it actually did something interesting because when I was going through that, and even after that, I'll I'll go on Facebook and see people complaining about their bed being uncomfortable or oh, their shoes are too big, they need to go get they have to go run back to the store.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it changed my focus to show me that those things that people normally complain about on Facebook are so insignificant.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that was a good focus change for me.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was a good focus change for my wife.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the downside of it is that I'll see people's comments on Facebook and I want to be snarky and rude to them and say, Oh, really?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so-and-so just died yesterday, so put that into your perspective of needing different shoes.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't do that because I like to have friends, so I I try not to do that.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the the point of number three is change your focus, because if you can change your focus, you again aren't the center of your attention.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So here's some so this number four is pretty important.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I guess if I did place these in uh a priority of you know, in a uh level of importance, I would say this is probably the number one thing.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the number number four is don't run.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it I know it seems counterintuitive because I think a lot of times victims they're in a bad situation and they're thinking, I g I I just am so discontent, I'm not happy, I need to leave this situation.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and that initially sounds like a good idea because I think if I can just change my situation, then everything else is gonna change.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't, if you're not a forgiving person, if you can't change your focus, if you are not grateful for the things that you have, but yet you run and move up to another place, you're taking yourself with you, duh.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And all these things that you think are location specific, well, I guess they are location specific.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're location specific to you.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so running is not going to solve this problem.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I often see people running, and we see it in the relationships all the time, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like this relationship wasn't good for me, and so they break up for a week and then they're in another relationship and it's not good, and they're just bouncing back and forth.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, specifically to this topic, when you when you are experiencing you know challenges, don't run from them.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should embrace them and figure out, okay, why am I experiencing this challenge?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's an all these negative things that you experience are all learning opportunities waiting to happen.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't learn and run, if you simply, I'm not gonna learn and I'm gonna run, you'll you'll continue to have this pattern in your life that uh of focusing on these negative things, but never solving these negative things.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I'm suggesting that facing the negative things with the help of a friend, family, a therapist, or whatever pastor, priest, um, can really give you good insight to maybe change how you respond to them.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And with the with the birth of social media, you can see it clearly with there's always that one person in your feed, in in your Twitter or your Facebook feed that is has that perspective that their life is miserable, and so is their life really miserable or do they make their life miserable?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna suggest that they tend to make their life miserable based on the choices that they make.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you find yourself as a victim, hopefully the these four things can be helpful to you in kind of changing your perspective on um being a victim and and move it towards being a student because wherever you go, unless you deal with being a victim, you will continue to focus on the negative things.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And doing that will continue to make you stuck in in your life, and you will continue to be unhappy and discontent.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here so if you know that about yourself now, it's an opportunity to create a new story by acknowledging positive things in your life and and forgiving those that believe have hurt you, forgiving those that you believe have hurt you along the way.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you start doing that in your life, your life will change dramatically.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, that's it.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you have an email that you want to send me, send it to headshrinkinc at gmail.com.
• 17:38
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• 17:40
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• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I'm gonna start doing is in my intro, I I realize it's kind of a lame intro.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I want to do is if you have a catchphrase that you want me to say, I'm gonna start saying catchphrases that you guys send in to me.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that you know, hey, I'm recognizing that you are a great listener, and I'm gonna say your catchphrase.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the catchphrase may be different every week if I get lots of emails.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if I get one email, that's gonna be the catchphrase.
• 18:09
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• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this has been Head Shrink Inc.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Look forward to uh talking to you next time.