Are you sick and tired of feeling helpless and having things happen to you?
Many trauma survivors find themselves in this position over and over again. They feel trapped in a cycle of falling for new abusive people, experiencing personal disasters and being knocked down by life over and over again. It’s enough to make you wanna give up.
We had a key moment when we read a Facebook quote. It said
„Don’t let the storm happen to you. Happen to the storm“
at that moment i felt something change inside of me and a year later this is still growing.
Human beings are free by nature. With our free will we make free choices. Nobody can stop that. People can limit your choices, but you are still free to decide. People can force things on you, then you are still free to respond the way you choose to. Nobody can force you to react in a certain way.
You cannot be stopped. If you decide to hate someone, they can do nothing about it. If you decide to love someone they can’t stop you. If you decide to forgive, there is nothing they can do. it is because they are ultimately not in control of you. You are.
The storm you experience will certainly influence you, you might get wet and cold. But it cannot control your inner reality or your response to it. You can laugh it in the face if that is what you choose. You can find safe shelter and leave it out there, behind firm boundaries so it can’t touch you. You can collect the rain in a barrel and use it for your flowers later.
To us the revolutionary idea was that we are not helpless victims, we are not even here just to survive all kinds of stuff. We are capable. We can control ourselves. And therefore whatever we have to face is not more than an equal opponent, not a giant, not a force of nature, not that overwhelmingly powerful person. If it is a person we are equally strong, both only in control of ourselves and our choices. If it is a disaster we will have to see if it can keep up with our endurance, creativity and support system. It usually can’t.
we keep this picture at our apartment door to remind us that when we go out there, we need to happen. And expect people to happen back. So we can decide how to happen back to them. We were surprised how much positive influence this had on our relationships.
It quickly reduced shame, social anxiety and feelings of helplessness.
To happen doesn’t mean to become a bully or a troll. It needs to be based on respect and the understanding that people are truly equally strong and control only themselves. If your anxiety leads you to trying to control others you are still in a victim mentality. There is no need to be scared of people’s responses to you. Because they cannot control you. In any given situation you are back to your free choice of how you want to respond.
Their free will is not dangerous. If they decide to do harmful things you can decide how you want to deal with that. It is when you forget about your free will and self-control that you will start to feel helplessness and anxiety again. You might stop responding. And that is how you become a victim again. Dissociation is the ultimate way to stop responding. You can only make choices when you are present. Dissociation is always a loss of control that makes you feel like a victim again.
We have trust issues. Remembering to happen to people makes us feel safe, even without trust. Those people don’t need to be perfect, if they make mistakes or act in harmful ways, we will respond. We can rely on ourselves instead of having to trust people to behave perfectly. It turns out that this creates a balance that leads to healthy and stable relationships.
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