2024 Year in Review. Pt.8

Welcome to this year end review of Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host Ralph Owens along with Terry Baylor. In this reboot episode, Terry and I review the role of the persecutor in the dreaded drama triangle. How the persecutor and the victim roles are symbiotic. The impact of taking the victim experience into various scenarios and the opportunities we face every day to change our perspective.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty. I'm your host, Terry Baylor, along with Ralph Owens. Today, we'll answer questions about the persecutor and their role in the dreaded drama triangle, how carrying the victim persona into opportunities impacts thinking and decision making, and identifying systems that leads one to believe I am the victim and the stories repeated in the mind which reinforce that belief. Enjoy the show.

Moving on to the next role in the dreaded drama triangle, we have the persecutor. And the persecutor is perceived, to cause all of the victims woes. So I'll read a little bit more of the book here to you. It says that persecutors and victims are symbiotic. One can can't exist without the other.

According to the dictionary, persecute means to harass in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict or to annoy with persistent or urgent approaches as attacks, please, or, in opportunities. And then it also says, but whether a person condition or a circumstance, the persecutor gets the blame for causing the victim's feelings and grief of despair and hopelessness. So here we are. We started off with the the role of the victim. All these things are happening to me.

There's nothing I can do about it. It's just my line in life. Again, a choice in how that person's viewing themselves. And in order to be a victim, you have to have a persecutor. It's either someone or something or some circumstance that is causing your pain.

Right? So, we've heard so many times, oh, the man got me down. There's nothing I can do about Right? Or you have some people, you can take it this direction. A person may have a sickness and because I have this disability then I can't be this or I can't be that.

There always has to be a persecutor whenever you have a victim. And the fun part about learning this revelation is when you think of yourself as a victim, you can always see who plays the role of the persecutor. Right? Somebody cuts you off in traffic. You know?

Right. Now you're mad because you're the victim. Right? Because this person cut you out well, the person who cut you off track in traffic is the persecutor. Right?

Terry and I told our story very transparent about it. We had a boss who unfairly did us wrong. We could have easily taken the victim role and made that person the persecutor. Terry, are thoughts on that?

Yeah, you know it's funny you say that. How many times do we take those ideas and experiences into a new experience, right? And so now someone who really may not be intending to do you any ill will but there may be a similarity, right? There may be, remember, Ralphie, you're gonna laugh at this. And remember there was a certain VAR that would come into the room and we had first met the individual and we realized, man, I might've suffered some trauma because when I look at this person, all I can see is that individual.

Yes.

The person looked so much even to the point where it actually almost conjured an emotion. It was weird. I'd never experienced that before. Would I'm like, Ralph, did you?

I remember that. Remember having the exact same feeling, exact same feeling.

So we have to be very, very, very cognizant Of how we see those situations, see those events because you have to be very purposeful and very intentional, right? Yes. Because life is gonna happen. We cannot, life and chance happens to us all. What does that mean?

It doesn't mean that it's a Russian roulette, it doesn't mean that it's, we're like in Florida and one minute it's raining and the next minute it's sunny. No, what that simply means is an opportunity is gonna come your way. The question's gonna be, are you gonna be prepared for it? Now, whenever we think of opportunity, we always think of it as something that's gonna be a reward. Right?

There are all kinds of opportunities. There's opportunity to show the right attitude, right? There's right opportunity to stand against the opposition of intimidation, to stand against the opposition of fear, right? To stand against the opposition of weary. So there are all kinds of opportunities that are gonna come your way, right?

And so what we are trying to promote and trying to encourage us, right? Even ourselves is to practice a certain way of thinking about ourselves, understanding, seeing the situation, right? Because I can't wait Ralph until you get to the third part of this equation which this is where we as human beings, we wanna operate in this space, let's say 90% of the time, let's say 85% of the time because you're human, we have a wide range of emotions. And we're not asking you to be a robot, we're not asking you to be not true to yourself. Understand what it is you are feeling or experiencing but to Ralph's point, now there's an opportunity.

An opportunity for what? To make a decision.

Yes. Yes. When you understand that your perception is a decision, that is one of the most powerful and freeing concepts you can ever learn because you realize you realize a couple of things. You realize that I get to choose how I perceive my situation and other people don't really control me. Right?

Because we'll think and how many times have we said this? Well, why'd you get mad? Well, they made me do it because they said this. You chose to do it. Right?

And taking that ownership is a very powerful thing because then you can change the direction of your life. Right? Should you choose to take that ownership? I I finished the part on the persecutor with this. It says when the persecutor is an actual person, the one who adopts the role tries to dominate others through blame, criticism, and or oppression.

These people are often authoritarian and rigid in their views, exert power over others in an effort to keep others from having power over them. Persecutors may act grandiose and self righteous to master own insecurity. They can be manipulative and defensive, often launching preemptive attacks for persecutors. All situations are win or lose. Their motto is win at any cost.

So here's here's the crazy part about this triangle. A lot of people, everybody wants to believe that they are the victim in some perspective. But I guarantee you there have been other perspectives to where for somebody else you've been the persecutor. Right? We always think about what someone's doing bad to us but have you ever thought about when does other people think that I'm the one doing bad to them?

Right? Because you can't have a victim without a persecutor. Right? So maybe you made an ugly look at somebody or you snapped off at somebody because of something that you were going through and now they perceive you as the persecutor.

Right, hey remember especially during COVID folks didn't wanna be on camera. I said, hey, when you're on that camera, make sure you're looking at yourself.

That's right.

We've been in some meetings, man and folks are, I don't think they know what they look like right now.

Yes, yes

So and the power to see yourself, right? And so, Ralph, I wanna throw a little curve ball in on that in terms of sometimes we as individuals, we are the persecutor and the victim to ourselves. Some of us are so hard on ourselves.

That's so true.

There are some things that we think about ourselves, you should have did this. You should have did it that way. Now granted, part of that that could be coming from a past experience, some environment that you were in that didn't necessarily promote you or didn't show you value. And so now you've taken on the persecutor's thoughts about you and now you are persecuting yourself.

That's heavy man. That's heavy. That's heavy because in in the piece that I'm going to get to eventually is there have been certain systems created to lead you to think that you are a victim.

And

even though the persecutor is long gone, the persecuting replays in your mind over and over again to keep you in a certain place. Right? I've heard it say it this way that what happens to you is not more powerful than the story you tell yourself in your mind about what happens to you. Because what happens to you only happens once. What you tell in your mind, you tell that story millions of times.

Wow.

So it's like just re ripping off the band aid every single time, every single time, every single time. We'll do more damage to ourselves replaying what happened to us in our mind than we do than than the damage of the actual incident itself. So, yeah. No. I I agree with you 100%, Terry.

Thank you for being with us today on Leadership Sovereignty. Stay connected with us on X, formerly known as Twitter, and on Instagram by searching for Leadership Sovereignty. And just like this podcast, let's all collectively grow as we go. God bless.