When had I first taken up the Victim Orientation? I guess it went back to my early family life. No doubt my parents had loved me and did the best they could, but they had unwittingly repeated certain unhealthy patterns from their own upbringing. I suppose if I followed the genealogical map of the Victim Orientation, it would lead all the way back to early humans and the fight, flee, or freeze reactions that had helped them survive to populate the world. And now evolution had placed me at this critical choice point: I had the opportunity to break the Victim cycle, to stop the patterns that passed it on from generation to generation. The prospect was overwhelming.
I was also excited. Something new was about to happen! There was a more fulfilling way of being in the world after all, and I knew that today Ted would give me some clues about how to live it. Or so I hoped. We had left things fairly open-ended the day before. What if he didn’t show up? I had no phone number, no way to contact Ted. I took a deep breath of salt air and let it go. I decided to trust the process.
I closed my eyes and offered a prayer of gratitude. I had found a wise friend, and now I had the time to consider our conversation, maybe even start putting it all to good use. I took a slow, full breath. The salt air and the sound of waves on the shore blended with the calls of seagulls overhead. The breeze brushed my cheek. I felt calm, at peace.
Ted cleared his throat. I opened my eyes and there he was, standing with his staff in hand. I had not even heard him approach. He smiled. I nodded. We were ready to begin again.
Moving Beyond the Victim Story
I tucked my journal under my arm and we started toward the path. Silently we made our way down to the beach, and this time I managed not to fall. As we passed the point where I had slipped the day before, Ted noticed the difference.
“I see you stayed upright—congratulations!” Ted observed. “You walked differently just now as you approached the place where you slipped yesterday.”
“I guess I learned from the experience,” I chuckled. “I was a lot more aware of that spot today, so I came at it a little differently.”
“You learned from your experience. You stayed aware of the lessons of yesterday’s fall, and that gave you the option to choose a new approach just now. That’s what I want to explore with you today. There is a different approach to your life that will serve you much better than the DDT and the Victim Orientation,” said Ted. Then he went on, “What a fine day!”
And it was: clear sky, a brilliant sun, and the tide moving out to reveal the smooth sand that had served as Ted’s blackboard the day before. My pace quickened as we reached the edge of the shore. As the waves lapped and smoothed over the sand, I noticed a woman in the distance who seemed to be looking our way. She waved and started walking toward us.
Ted turned to me and said, “I’ve invited someone to join us, David. Her name is Sophia. A couple of years ago we met on this beach and had much the same conversation that you and I had yesterday.”
Sophia smiled and gave Ted a hug. She kissed him on the cheek, and he held her at arm’s length, studying her face. “It’s been a while, my friend,” he said.
Sophia’s hazel eyes sparkled. “It’s been too long. Not a day goes by, though, that I don’t think of you.” I studied Sophia. Her light auburn hair fell around her shoulders, blowing in the sea breeze. She reached into her beach bag and brought out a baseball cap and an exercise band. In one swift motion, she pulled on the cap to tame her hair and placed the stretchy band around her wrist. Then she turned to me.
“And you must be David,” she said warmly. Before I knew it, she had taken both my hands in hers. With a penetrating look, she said, “You’re a fortunate one to have met Ted, you know. That bench up there is a magical spot.”
“You met Ted there too, then? I think he told me a little about your story yesterday. When did you two meet?” I asked.
“A little over two years ago. I had just split up with my husband, Dan.”
I nodded. “There seems to be a pattern here: marriages and relationships coming to an end.”
“It’s no accident that Ted brought us together today. He tends to do that,” Sofia replied, smiling. “So often people come to a point in their lives where they are ready to make a significant change and it is helpful to benefit from the experience of others who have been down a similar path. For some, like you and me, it is through close relationships that perhaps are no longer working. But Ted has met other people who found their way out of Victimhood for different reasons and in different aspects of their lives. Some were fed up with office politics or had hit bottom in their addictions. Others had breakdowns in their families or while facing death. The ways people arrive at this choice point are as varied as the human experience.”
A young couple walked by arm in arm, oblivious to us on their romantic walk down the beach. I felt an inner tug of envy and a stab of loneliness. “Tell me more about yourself, Sophia.”
“I assume that Ted mentioned my husband, Dan, and how he had an affair,” Sophia answered. “I could say that was the reason we divorced, but that would only be a half-truth, because I was doing the other half of the DDT dance. There was so much hurt and anger in our relationship those last few months. We had created a pretty abusive, toxic environment—a vicious cycle of playing out those same dynamics again and again.
“But I don’t talk about that much anymore,” she continued. “It’s not who I am now, so I rarely tell those old Victimhood stories.” Sophia glanced at Ted.
“Sophia is referring to something of vital importance, David. The way you talk about yourself and your life—your story—has a great deal to do with what shows up in your day-to-day experience. Your thoughts create filters through which you view your life. If you think of yourself as a Victim, you filter all that happens to you through the lens of the DDT, and you find plenty of evidence to support that viewpoint. That’s why the orientation you adopt is so important: it exerts a powerful influence on your life direction.”
“I’m very clear about not wanting to live my life from the Victim Orientation anymore,” I said. “But you’ve got to tell me: what’s the alternative? I stayed awake for hours last night contemplating everything we talked about. There’s got to be an alternative to the DDT and the Victim Orientation.”
Now Ted and Sophia were both smiling at me.
“Well?” I said, a little impatient.
“The opposite of Victim is Creator,” said Ted.
I did a double take. Ted’s answer echoed the response I had heard from within myself just the day before. Had I imagined it? Just what was going on here?
CHAPTER 6
The Creator Orientation
Did Ted know that I already knew? The opposite of Victim is Creator. That insight had reverberated within me just yesterday as I sat on the bench praying for answers. Those words had burned themselves into my mind only moments before I discovered Ted sitting beside me. Probably just a coincidence.
“The change Ted is pointing to, moving from Victim to Creator, is a fundamental shift of mind,” Sophia said. “To explain, let me share just a bit more about what happened in my marriage to Dan. As our relationship headed into a downward spiral, I began to feel as if nothing I did was ever enough. I had quit my dance class, which I really loved, to spend more time with him. But then he objected when I brought work home or relaxed with a book. He wanted more attention than I could give, I guess. It turned out that the way I naturally behaved in our relationship just wasn’t what he wanted or needed. I was despondent about the whole situation. The day I came to sit on that bench, I was trying to get a handle on my life and my future direction.”
Sophia paused and looked out at the rolling waves, reliving the moment.
“Once I met up with Ted and we began talking about the DDT,” she continued, “I saw how deeply I believed I wasn’t enough. Cycling through the DDT and Victim Orientation over and over again reinforced this belief for me. Now, this is where the Creator part comes in: Ted helped me to see
that whatever I hold in my mind tends to manifest itself in my life. What we believe and assume creates most of our reality and our experience, David. I’ll bet you and Ted talked about some of your core beliefs yesterday.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yesterday I came face-to-face with an old belief of mine: that I’m a problem and that people will always abandon me. I’m pretty sure I know when it all started . . .”
Smiling, Sophia listened for a few minutes as I described the situations that I believed had led to my clingy fear of abandonment, my pattern of lashing out, even my persistent weight challenge. After a little while Sophia put one hand up, signaling she’d heard enough.
“I don’t mean to be rude, David, but you know what? It’s not so important to me to hear the stories of your past. I’m much more interested in thinking about the new stories you’re going to create when you begin using what Ted’s going to show you today. Once you have this knowledge, life will never look the same to you again. Tomorrow will be like a fresh canvas on which you’ll paint your unique contribution to your world.”
I turned toward Ted. He reached out toward my journal, which I held in my hand. “May I?” he asked. “There’s another Orientation I’d like to draw. Let’s walk back up to the rocks we were on yesterday.”
“Are you going to toss me another FISBE?” I grinned.
Ted laughed. “Yes, but it’s miles apart from yesterday’s FISBE. It has a different Focus, a much different Inner State, and leads to a whole new set of Behaviors.”
The three of us settled comfortably on the rocks near the bluff. Ted opened the journal and turned to the page next to the one on which he had drawn the FISBE and Victim Orientation the day before. He drew yet another set of three circles.
“The focus in the Creator Orientation is on a Vision or an Outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions toward creating what you most want to see or experience in life. Sometimes the vision or outcome may be completely clear to you. At other times it may be vague, only a general idea about where you want to go.”
As he spoke, Ted wrote Vision and Outcome in the top circle of the FISBE.
“For the first few months after I met Ted,” Sophia interjected, “my vision was solely to live each day from the standpoint of the Creator Orientation. In a practical sense, I didn’t really know what this was going to mean. I just knew that it was the direction I wanted for my life. Placing my attention on outcomes rather than on problems has made a world of difference. That one choice has had a powerful impact on every single area of my life.”
Ted added, “One of the fundamental differences between the Victim Orientation and this one is where you put the focus of your attention, as Sophia mentioned. For Victims, the focus is always on what they don’t want: the problems that seem constantly to multiply in their lives. They don’t want the person, condition, or circumstance they consider to be their Persecutor, and they don’t want the fear that leads to fight, flee, or freeze reactions, either. Creators, on the other hand, place their focus on what they do want. Doing this, Creators still face and solve problems in the course of creating the outcomes they want, but their focus remains fixed on their ultimate vision.”
I recalled a quote from the Bible that someone had recently shared with me. Something like, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” As I stood with Ted and Sophia, I felt the importance of this concept. I was quite clear that I didn’t want to live from the Victim stance anymore, but I was not yet clear about what I wanted to create. Growing up, I had learned all too well how to focus on problems. It seemed that was always the focus in my family: not enough money, not enough time, my parents arguing, relatives who were sick or struggling. . . . After a few moments of silence, I looked over at Sophia and Ted.
“I find that I know all too well what I don’t want in my life. I’m not sure how to get clear about what I do want,” I said.
“That is quite often the case when we’ve been sleepwalking through life in the Victim Orientation,” Sophia responded. “When we lack vision for what we want in our lives, seeing only what we don’t want, the unique contribution that we’re here to offer seems to vanish. In that dark place we often can’t see our way out. We hardly know which way is forward. Those first few months that Ted and I talked, all I could focus on was the Creator Orientation itself. I also spent quite a bit of time exploring what I most wanted to contribute to others. Later we can talk more about discerning our life’s meaning and purpose. But first I want Ted to finish outlining the Creator Orientation. Ted?”
“Thanks, Sophia. I really like hearing your story, especially what’s happened for you in the last couple of years. It makes my heart sing! David, this ‘singing of the heart’ is the quality of the Inner State of the Creator Orientation. As you focus on your envisioned outcomes, you connect with forgotten or seldom-felt emotions: passion, love, a sense of your heart’s desire.”
Ted wrote Passion in the center of the second circle in the journal. He said, “When you focus on those things in your life that hold meaning and purpose, your passion just naturally flows.”
“Can you remember a time in your life when passion, desire, or love just naturally arose?” Sophia asked.
I thought for a moment. “Well sure,” I said. “Before my wife and I were married, when we were dating. We spent a lot of time just hanging out together. Back then I only had to look at her, and those feelings just began washing over me.”
“Hmm,” said Ted. “You may not want to hear this David, but that feeling may actually be more related to your experience in the Victim Orientation than to what we’re after here. I would bet the feelings you identified then as love were also the result of your having found your next Rescuer. Do you see how that might be possible?”
I frowned. I felt a tug at the pit of my stomach. “Yeah, I guess so. But being in a relationship is what I really wanted.”
Sophia added, “David, Ted’s making an important point. Of course you wanted a relationship. People naturally seek out intimate relationships. But wanting a relationship to chase away your loneliness is very different from consciously envisioning the qualities and characteristics of the kind of person with whom you want to create a partnership. In my own case, as I approached dating from the Creator Orientation—after many, many months of healing after my divorce—I became much more discerning. I spent a lot of time clarifying, with the help of a coach and mentor, the qualities and characteristics of the kind of person I wanted to be in a committed relationship with. When feelings of love and passion began to emerge with my new partner, Jake, I knew those feelings had come up not because Jake was ‘the right partner,’ but because I was consciously choosing to see in him the qualities I most wanted in a partner.
“So, David,” Sophia continued. “Let me ask again: Can you think of a time in which passion or desire arose naturally, aside from the early stages of a relationship? Take a few minutes and look back over your life.”
I remembered my first job out of college. “Right after I finished college I got a really exciting job helping to build a public access cable television studio and operation. We built the whole thing with our own hands. I trained volunteers how to use video equipment and edit programs. We had in-studio programs to educate and reach out to the public, we taped area events, and we all felt that we were helping to build real community. We won national awards for our efforts. I would wake up every morning eager to get to work, to begin the day’s new creations. It didn’t pay much, but it was one of the most fun and exciting jobs I’ve ever had.”
Sophia smiled and said, “If you could only see your eyes right now, David. Your lights are on and burning brightly. That’s how passion looks and feels in the Creator Orientation.”
“When you tap that passion to create the outcomes that matter to you, it provides powerful energy to take action toward your heart’s desires,” said Ted. “The Behavior that moves you in that direction is taking Baby Steps. Taking a Baby Step means doing the next logical thing in
front of you—making a phone call, having a conversation, or gathering information. Each step you take either moves you closer to your vision or helps you clarify the final form of your desired outcome.”
Ted wrote Baby Steps in the last circle. “It is the Baby Steps you take, the everyday things you do, that eventually lead to the manifestation of your outcome.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “I did that same thing again and again when I worked in the cable television studio. I used to love the editing process. We’d usually record more than twice the amount of footage we would need for a final videotape. Then I’d sit in the editing room for hours putting the program together one scene at a time, like a video jigsaw puzzle. I never thought of calling it Baby Steps, but that is definitely the process we were using to produce TV programs.”
Three Big Differences
“Whether you’re creating a television program, building a house, or beginning a new relationship, the basic process is the same,” Sophia said. “The Creator Orientation is a powerful and simple—although not always easy—way to think and act. It has become very important to me, thanks to Ted.”
“You’re welcome, Sophia.” Ted smiled. “There is definitely a different AIR about you since you’ve adopted the Creator Orientation. I can assure you, David, that people who know you will soon begin to notice a different AIR about you, too, if you commit to the Creator Orientation as your primary stance in life.”
“Ted’s hinting at the three things that make the difference between the Victim and The Creator Orientation,” Sophia added, chuckling. “Ted, stop being a goofball and tell David what AIR stands for!”
Ted winked at me. His smile activated little creases in his face, and his eyes glistened. “AIR stands for three big differences between the Victim and Creator stances. The first is where you place your Attention. As the Victim, your focus is on what you don’t want: you think, speak, and act on the problems in your life. As Creator, you place your attention first and foremost on what you do want: your envisioned outcome.
The Power of Ted Page 5
