Are you the hero or the victim in your story?

How many times have you thought, “I have such bad luck!”? Or, "I am just not good at it!" Or, "I can never do anything right!" Or, "Nobody ever gives me a chance."

Whether it’s in the outside world or right inside our home, it is easy to think of ourselves as the victim of circumstances. To interpret situations in a way that feeds our victim mentality, and assume that if we didn’t succeed at something, we will never succeed at anything. When we do that, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. We start to believe that nothing is within our reach and we are doomed to fail because everything is rigged against us. We don’t feel like we have choices, so we go on simply existing and blaming society, spouses, bosses, coworkers to name a few, and beating ourselves up for the shortcomings.

But what if I told you that our attitudes about life and circumstances are all about awareness and making choices? Not buying it? Let me explain. At the very core of our existence there are two types of energy: catabolic energy and anabolic energy. Catabolic energy is draining and destructive, and produces hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin, causing us to view situations through a dark lens where there are no solutions, and we are just passive and helpless passengers of life.

Anabolic energy, on the other hand, is constructive and it fuels our brain with endorphins leading to creativity, allowing us to use a different lens and see the situation from a holographic perspective, seeing options and creating opportunities.

How are those lenses formed? We all came into this world with a blank slate, but the moment we are out of the womb we begin to experience the world around us differently from one another depending on who our parents are, what culture we are born into, what kind of teachers educate us, who our friends are, and so on. All of those interactions, and the values and beliefs that come with them, color and shape the lenses that reveal the world to us in both constructive ways and destructive ways, and that translates to anabolic and catabolic energy. It is the catabolic energy that leads to feelings of stress.

Many people react – or overreact – to stress and get derailed from their goals and focus in life. Meanwhile, there are others who take a moment to choose how to react to a stressful situation before making choices. This is called awareness! When you raise your awareness, you become empowered to shift from catabolic energy to anabolic energy, and choose how you want to show up to any given situation.

Are you ready to go from victim to victor?