The Choice
“suffering is universal. But victimhood is optional. There is a difference between victimisation and victimhood. We are all likely to be victimised in some way in the course of our lives. [...] This is life. And this is victimisation. It comes from the outside. It’s the neighbourhood bully, the boss who rages, the spouse who hits, the lover who cheats, the discriminatory law, the accident that lands you in hospital.
“In contrast victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimisation. We develop a victim’s mind- a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries. We become our own jailors when we choose the confines of the victim’s mind.”
“I also want to say that there is no hierarchy of suffering. [...] If we discount our pain, or punish ourselves for feeling lost or isolated or scared about the challenges in our lives, however insignificant these challenges may seem to someone else, then we’re still choosing to be victims. We’re not seeing our choices. We’re judging ourselves.”
“We cannot choose to have a life free of hurt. But we can choose to be free, to escape the past, no matter what befalls us, and to embrace the possible. I invite you to make the choice to be free.”
-Edith Eger, The Choice, 2017.
A book everyone should read.
This is the choice that I will make in 2019. This year is going to be better.
🖤🐜🖤
