The Choice - Victimization vs Victimhood

How to live the one precious life that we each have been given.

“All the days of Sara's life were equally good” - which could seem like a stretch. She had lots of challenging things happen in her life. For one - twice she was passed off as Avraham's sister instead of his wife and put into the royal haram. “All of the days of her life were equally good” speaks of the days she was living in her interior (pnimius) life.

In Edith Eger's book " The Choice" she makes a distinction between victimization - what happens to you - and victimhood - how you respond to what happens to you. I am awed by the super-human effort and inner work she went through to achieve this state of Da’as Elyon.

This is what she says about victimization - We are all likely to be victimized in some way during the course of our lives.  At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction, or calamity, or abuse caused by circumstances, or people or institutions, over which we have little or no control - this is life. 

Victimization comes from the outside.
In contrast victimhood comes from the inside.

No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happened to us but when we choose to hold onto the victimization that happened to us, we develop a victim's mind. a way of thinking. 

Our foremother Sara Imeinu too had this understanding about her life. She did not define herself fro her outer circumstances and so all the days of her life were equally good!

Thank you, Carol Berlin! Freedom with Yoga