someday my prince will come . . . and other victim myths

I have a card by Mary Engelbreit that I keep in my bedroom closet so that I see it each morning as I dress. It shows a ship out on the horizon, and in the foreground is a person dressed in a divers suit. The caption reads, "If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!"

I think I love this card so much because it bucks the trend of our society that portray people as victims waiting for someone else to save them. As children we are read fairy tales with women in the position of a victim whose lives are turned around by the wealthy man who comes to pull them out of their desperate situation. I have often wondered how many girls grew up and subconsciously put themselves in situations that would make them the victim hoping to make them into Cinderella.

Some people live their whole lives as victims. Some live their whole lives as "saviors". I was blessed to learn a very valuable lesson about this quite young in life. When I was about 23 years old I met a woman with tremendous talent and inner beauty. She was in a bad marriage and had a young baby. The marriage turned abusive and she asked for my help to get out, which I gave to her. I then helped her get a job, a car, an apartment, and build a new life.

We remained friends for many years. One day, however, I was sitting and listening to her and I realized that she was complaining about the very same things in her life that she had when I first met her. She had been handed everything to change her life when she left her marriage, but instead she had just repeated the same pattern in her life, just without her husband. In other words, she viewed herself as a victim, so she kept repeating the pattern. She didn't want to change. She wanted to view herself as a martyr and continued to become friends with people who would "save" her.

That was a great lesson to me. We can't change people; they can only change themselves. We can lend a hand. We can give encouragement and support. But, at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own destinies. Maybe we all do have a prince out there, but his job isn't to "save" us from our lives. That is our job.

Inside of you is everything that any fairy tale prince possesses. You have the knowledge, the strength, the resources to "save yourself" from any situation you face. What you may lack is trust in yourself and faith in God or the Universe to help you through the situation. Fortunately, trust and faith are like muscles that strengthen with use.

Today, make a list of things that you have gotten through in your life that you never dreamed that you could. For me, those things include graduate school, a serious car accident and subsequent surgeries, a broken relationship. Yet, I did survive, and more importantly I learned. The person I am today is a direct result of working through those difficult times when I could not rely on anyone but myself.

As most of you know, my husband is recovering from a serious illness. Prior to that, he had never been sick a day in his life. He didn't even have the normal childhood chicken pox and measles. As a result, he had no frame of reference to help him through those first few weeks. He was angry and frustrated. During that time, I could only hold his hand when he was sick. Tell him I love him. Encourage him that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The thing about being sick is that you have to get through it yourself. No one can do it for you, not even your doctor. They can help, but you are the one that has to live the day-to-day fight.

What have those things been for you? Make a list, then write what you learned, how you grew from those experiences. I guarantee that you are much stronger than you ever gave yourself credit for.

*** If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe to Tera's online newsletter!
Click HERE to subscribe. It's free!***