The Trap of Victim Consciousness
1. Before
When she came into my work in her early thirties, her life was in complete disarray. Within the same season, her marriage ended, she left her job, and her closest friendship collapsed. The structures that had once given her identity and comfort were gone, leaving her adrift.
She spent months spiraling before she reached out, locked in victim consciousness and spinning stories of betrayal, loss, and unfairness. A history of panic attacks — hundreds over the years — had trained her nervous system to default to collapse whenever challenge arose.
Rather than facing her life, she turned to fantasy: convinced she could win the lottery, she sketched out elaborate plans for a wellness center, complete with Canva mockups, while taking no practical steps toward change. It’s not that her dreams can’t happen. They can — but not without her facing herself.
2. The Work
When she entered the container, her patterns quickly revealed themselves:
Victim Loops: Every story circled back to disempowerment.
Fantasy as Bypass: Grand plans substituted for grounded action, while destabilization was framed as “spiritual awakening.”
Addiction & Avoidance: Recreational Adderall use and constant distraction reinforced her instability.
External Validation: She sought out people who affirmed her victim story instead of challenging it.
Our work together focused on redirecting her attention to reality:
Naming the loops that kept her stuck.
Distinguishing what was actually happening from the meanings she layered over it.
Showing her that responsibility is not blame, but power.
Revealing both the false “support” she found for her disempowered thinking and the sensationalized spiritual concepts she absorbed from social media — especially TikTok, where spiritual bypass and collapse were glamorized as something to strive for.
Offering simple practices to stabilize her body and nervous system — including ending her Adderall use.
3. The Turning Points
Realizing her suffering wasn’t only from what had happened to her — it was being fueled daily by how she was feeding the story.
Rewriting the stories of what happened “for” not “to” her.
Seeing that her lottery fantasies and wellness center plans were another way of avoiding reality until she had walked through her own fire.
Beginning to glimpse that responsibility and consistency, not blame, were the path to freedom.
And yet, victim consciousness held on tightly. Despite real breakthroughs, she repeatedly slid back into collapse — taking herself down more than once, even with clear mirrors and redirection. Each fall was followed by the familiar shame loop and the reminder that her nervous system needed steady stabilization to hold new awareness.
4. The Aftermath
The journey was uneven, but not wasted. Her nervous system began to settle in places, her awareness grew sharper, and the mirror of her own patterns became undeniable. She was able to stop all medication and remains medication-free, and she found stable work she genuinely enjoys..
Though she left the work for a time, she has now circled back a year later, ready to enter Phase Two. This return itself shows the truth of the Field: once the mirror has been held, it cannot be forgotten. Even in resistance, the work continues.
5. The Reflection
This journey reveals the true cost of victim consciousness. Left unchecked, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: stories of disempowerment generate collapse, collapse reinforces identity, and the cycle repeats. Fantasy becomes a cage as binding as trauma itself.
And woven into it all is shame — whispering, “You are broken. You deserve this. You’ll never get free.” But shame is not truth. It is part of the victim loop, not the way out.
What made this case even more striking was how much it was fueled by social media distortion. On platforms like TikTok, collapse and bypass were dressed up as spiritual authority, and fantasy was glamorized as awakening. Instead of being challenged to face reality, she was encouraged to see her instability as proof she was “on the path.” What looks like guidance online is often another form of permission to stay stuck.
But the Field doesn’t bend to trends. Even when someone resists, collapses, or abandons the work, the truth they glimpse cannot be forgotten. It waits, calling them back to face what was once avoided.
Victimhood may feel safe, but it keeps the soul small. Freedom begins when we stop feeding the story — including the story of shame. Responsibility is not punishment. It is the path to power.
(This is why I wrote more on leela, karma, and dharma — the teachings that show how victim consciousness takes hold when misunderstood. Read that here.)