In this week’s session with my business coach, I entered the meeting feeling ashamed.
I hadn’t hit my goals for the week. And I was being hard on myself about it.
My coach asked me if I was making it wrong that I didn’t hit my goals. Definitely, I said. I have limited runway here. I need to be making progress.
But, he reminded me, there is much more going on for me right now than I am really acknowledging. I’m going through divorce proceedings right now, for example. The emotional charge I’m carrying from that alone is a lot.
I was choosing not to acknowledge a hard thing I’m going through, and instead to further whip myself for not being on top of other areas.
This persistent feeling of being unworthy until I prove otherwise with productive action … it’s been there a long time. It’s a habit of mine, to be self-critical, rather than self-compassionate.
And in that self-criticism I become frozen, not daring to put a toe out of line, lest I catch more of my inner critic’s wrath.
My coach said I was currently deep inside the Victim Triangle.
The victim triangle is three parts of me that feed off each other:
Victim: the part of me that feels I’ve been given an unfair situation
Bully: the part of me that beats me up for not overcoming my unfair situation
Hero: the martyr in me that soldiers on despite my unfair hardships
And here’s what that looks like for me right now (paywall ahead) …
In that self-criticism I become frozen … lest I catch more of my inner critic’s wrath
I’m hard done by because reasons (victim of: childhood neglect, being autistic, the world isn’t built for me, etc.), but I won’t reach for help or give myself compassion (bully), and yet I pull it together to be a great dad and show up for people in my community (hero).
My coach drew me a diagram of the victim triangle, and we labeled each vertex with the ways these parts of me act and feel:
I’m bouncing around this triangle all the time, and it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to be a victim, powerless and lacking control. It’s exhausting to bully myself and to be bullied by myself. And it’s exhausting to be the hero, bravely forging ahead despite all this unfairness.
In recognizing this ever-unfolding dynamic, I’m left wondering … what is the alternative???
What happens when right now I make a different choice? Instead of whipping myself for not sending out marketing emails, or doing my taxes (still working on this one), what happens if right now I choose to acknowledge the large amount of internal work I’m doing to stay regulated during my divorce proceedings?
I feel less need to bully myself, because it makes sense to me that I would have less productive capacity in a time of high emotional charge.
I feel like less of a victim of my circumstance, and more like I’m choosing how to respond to my circumstance.
And my hero doesn’t need to white-knuckle it so much, because I’m not whipping myself so hard for being lower capacity right now.
Maybe the triangle is shrinking a little bit. Each side becoming a little less prolonged. A few less reasons to be the victim, the bully, the hero.
A few more reasons to accept and honor my efforts, including the ones I’m having trouble acknowledging. Because I’m always doing my very best, aren’t I?
Interesting, it's been a long time since I'd read about the triangle and now that I am where I am in my own journey it makes me think too "what's the alternative?" I did a google search and the TED model came up but I don't like it lol. I think I would replace roles of Victim to Compassion, Bully to Accountability, and Hero to Bravery. The former (victim, bully, hero) are all fixed roles/identities, whereas the latter are actions. Also instead of splintering ourselves, we focus on seeing ourselves as a whole that's working toward a positive/productive outcome.