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WHO IS PULLING YOUR STRINGS?

Written by: Jonathan Payne

Article Overview: If you are constantly sacrificing your goals and your plans to keep someone else happy, then you are living as a victim.

WHO IS PULLING YOUR STRINGS?

Who is pulling your strings? Do you feel that you are in control of your own life, or does it seem that other people are making decisions for you and “hijacking” your life to suit their agenda?
If you are constantly sacrificing your goals and your plans to keep someone else happy, then you are living as a victim.
Back in 1978, Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote a book called, “Pulling your own Strings”. It is such an effective book that it is still in print today. In it he identifies ways in which we allow ourselves to become victims, and he identifies people or groups of people who are only too willing to be the victimizers.
“You are being victimized whenever you find yourself out of control of your life,” he says. “The key word is CONTROL. If you are not pulling you own strings, then you are being manipulated by someone or something else.”
The distinction Dyer makes is clear. Something or someone is in control of your life. It is either you or something or someone else. It sounds obvious, but thinking of it that way brings the reality home. It makes you ask the question: “Who is in control of my life?”
Dyers list of victimizers is a list of types of people to whom we surrender control, sometimes willingly, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes because we just don’t have the stamina or willpower to resist them.
Number one on Dyers list of victimizers is family. He describes typical family controls as: “being forced to visit relatives, to make phone calls, to chauffeur people around, to suffer nagging parents, children, in-laws, angry relatives, to pick up after everyone, generally to be a servant, not to be respected or appreciated by other family members, to spend time with ingrates, to have no privacy because of family expectations.” He suggests that some of us have to teach our families how we want to be treated.
Another victimizer is our job, where we might feel intimidated, forced to compromise, doing eight hours of work we hate but have to do because it pays the bills. Dyer encourages people to remember that they are probably employable in a number of different positions and should not be intimidated into thinking that they have to stay with the job they have.
Professionals and authority figures are also victimizers. It is easy to feel inferior to people who have special titles such as “doctor” or “professor” or “Reverend”. Somehow we allow those titles to put them above question. When last did you try to negotiate with your doctor or lawyer about their fees?
And then of course there are the bureaucracies and institutional machineries which Dyer describes as “complex, multitentacled monsters with endless forms, departments, red tape and employees who don’t give damn – or if they do, are as powerless as those they’re trying to serve.” He suggests the most effective way of dealing with bureaucracies is avoidance!
But in all of this, we are only victims if we allow ourselves to be victims. When we fail to communicate to our families about how we like to be treated, when we complain about our job but look for no alternatives, when we defer to professionals for no good reason and accept the inhumane treatment of bureaucracies, we allow ourselves to be victims.
“If you use your imagination, you will find innumerable ways to victimize yourself,” concludes Dyer. “But by applying your imagination in constructive ways, you can, by the same token, find means to eliminate your victim status. The choice is up to you

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Article Tags: angry relatives, distinction, dr wayne dyer, eight hours, family expectations, family members, ingrates, job, key word, making decisions, parents, phone calls, pulling your own strings, servant, stamina, typical family, victimizer, willpower



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