Victim to Hero

Hi, guys. My name is Donny Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life Victim to Hero. In any experience, we have two choices. We can play the victim or we can play the hero. And there is a very fine line between the two. Now, you might have something happen to you, and it might be against your will, but by being the hero, you're choosing how to interpret. You're choosing the story of how that you're representing that in your head. And I'll give you the inspiration behind this podcast and how this actually putting into practice caused me to come on here and want to share this with you. Last night I went for a walk around my neighborhood, which is a really, really safe neighborhood. And while I was on this walk, I was coming down this hill where there's. There's a cut through. So if you imagine kind of like three streets, right? One's a straight line, one's perpendicular, and then another one, a straight line. Now, the second straight line is the street I live on. So as I was coming down to this cut through point, I noticed that there was a car behind me slowing down. It kind of pulled up on the side of me, opened the windows and was, hey, are you okay? I was a little bit thrown off by it because I'm like, well, yeah, I'm fine. Not really sure what, you know, I was talking to a friend on the phone. So it kind of weirded me out, the fact that someone. First, that someone was following me because he wouldn't have. He had to have followed me from before that because that street, it's just a long hill. He wouldn't have seen me on the street and followed me down the street. It was. Someone was following me well in advance. And then secondly, I didn't know what he meant by the question. He pulled into a driveway, backed out and started going up the street. And I went through the pass. And while I was there, I was kind of standing behind the bushes, just kind of peeking out, and I saw him literally floor it around there and speed off. My gut said something along the lines, I know what's going to happen. He is going to swing around, he's going to try to cut me off and intercept me on the street. So I cut through. I'm on the street now, walking down towards my street, and I hear the sound of his muffler, his exhaust. It was very loud. And as he starts pulling, I was smart to bend down and look at the crest of the hill. And I saw headlights coming up there. I was like, okay, let me. Let Me run over to my street, and then I hear the car coming. And as I turned on my street, the car had passed, and then it stopped and it reversed around to come to the street. I was wise enough to run over to my neighbor's apartment, my neighbor's house, and I knocked on the door of one neighbor. They didn't answer. And I knocked on the second neighbor, and they answered the door. At the time they answered the door, the car drove by, reversed, turned around, came down, turned down the side street, and then literally peeling off. Just flew down the street. And all you could hear was, like, the loud sound of the exhaust in the distance. I was a little bit frazzled by this experience. And I noticed when I was telling the, like, how I was relating to it internally was from a place of fear. I was like, well, my God, it's not safe anymore. No place is safe anymore. Like, how can this happen in this neighborhood? Meaning it could be an isolated incidence, and I was playing the role of the victim, putting myself in, like, a helpless mode, saying, like, well, this is what happened. And I ran. And then, as I was working out today, that story just kept playing over and over and over in my head. And having just done some work around trauma, like how to transform trauma, I said, okay, well, this could clearly be a traumatic experience, right? There's intense emotion, something that had never happened to me before. And, like, so now I'm throwing all this meaning that it's not safe around my area and all. I'm just piling it on. I did two things. First, I said, all right, well, first, what else could this mean? Yeah, I was walking down a street in some neighborhood, and, yeah, the guy was kind of creepy, but maybe he lived nearby. You know, maybe he lived nearby, and he was just trying to figure out, who the heck is this person walking at night down the street because no one was out. You know, it's. That was one possibility. And then he sees me cut through the trees. Like, who the hell is this guy cutting through the trees? That's a possibility. I don't believe it, but it's a possibility. And then the second thing was reframing that story and changing the viewpoint. So seeing that I was portraying myself as the victim, I said, all right, well, what happened here? Right? We have, you know, this guy came over. He's following me. Okay, what was my reaction? What was I feeling? I was like, yeah, I was scared. You know, I went across. I mean, part of me feels like I maybe could have should have confronted the guy and said something. But I didn't. And then I said, all right, well, is that something? Does that mean I'm weak? Is that what that means? And I thought about it. I was like, well, no. Who in the right mind would stop and approach somebody who was chasing them and following them in a car? No one would. And then I started to reframe it. I said, well, let me replay everything I did in that moment. And I did. And I thought about how, like, he was starting to go back up. And I kind of paused in the brush looking out to see him go away. Like, you know, to go swerve around, go around the streets. And then I was listening. Like, I was. I knew enough to listen to the sound of that muffler. And I heard it off in the distance. And I was able. Had the cutie to hear it actually coming closer. And then peer down, like, as I'm walking, peer down to see the headlights come, like, shine up over the crest of a hill. And knew enough to know that, well, that's the car, and it's coming this way. I ran across the street, knocked on a neighbor's yard because I couldn't make it up to my place, and I knocked, went to the next one. So, I mean, when you think about what was going on in my mind at that moment, like, everything was very calculated. It was very smart, a very intelligent way to act. You wouldn't want to go confront somebody because you don't know who the hell they are. You don't know if they're crazy. So when I reframed that, I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then what I did was I started sharing that story the same way I'm doing it right now. I started sharing it with people who I was speaking with at the gym as well as over the phone, friends on the phone. I told the story as it happened, and I said, but I was smart enough to realize that he was probably coming around to. You know, to peer down to listen to see the. You know, look at the crest of the hill, to see the lights kind of shining at the crest of the hill and run across and knock on the neighbor's door. And I kept saying. I said that several times. It's probably been maybe five times. But more in my head. I've said the story over and over. And I'll tell you what it does. It changes the. It changes the. The emotion. It goes from being something completely negative to something positive, saying, you know what? I had the brains to look at this situation, to assess the situation, and to make smart decisions. I hadn't viewed it like that before that moment. So one left me feeling helpless. The other one left me feeling empowered and smart. Which one is the better of the two? Both are valid. Depending on which way you're looking at it, both are true. The one that feels good is the one you want to go with, the one that's going to empower you, the one that's going to make you feel more confident, not one that's going to strike you down, put you in fear. So at any given point in time, in any. Any experience, we have the ability to choose what we get out of that. And the very fact that we're learning something that in and of itself, I was thinking, well, you know what? Now I want to take some martial arts. This way, if I have to do something, I could subdue someone. There's a lot of things that could come from it if you're willing to look for it. What are some things in your own life? This episode kind of goes similar with the transforming trauma episode, which I don't even know if I've released that yet. I think it's in the queue. But when you look at the event that took place, think about the story. Because sometimes you're not even going to be aware that the story you're playing is making you out to be the victim. I wasn't. When I was just telling this story, and as I was saying, I was like, well, you know, it doesn't make me feel good. I keep saying this, but it's like it doesn't. I feel like it makes me feel helpless. And then when I changed a few words, like, you know what? I was smart enough to do this, that and the other thing, all of a sudden it shifted. The way it felt felt much lighter. And like, to believe one of the rules is that, like rules of thumb, like spirituality wise is when it feels heavy, it's the. It's false. When it feels light, it's the truth. Because the truth was that it was. It was an intelligent thing to do. Who the hell would go to up to a car of some crazy person who's approaching you in the dark? Nobody. So that is it, guys. So again, looking at your own life, what's an experience that you've been replaying over and over and over in your mind that you've been telling, you've been verbalizing? And by verbalizing, you're literally giving it more power. You're giving it legs to stand on and reframe it. See, you'll know how it feels if you're playing the victim, how can you reframe it so that it empowers you, that it picks you up, even if the situation was out of your control? Maybe it's something you learned along, you learn as a result, and you're like, yeah, but because of that, now I blank. Fill in the blank. And that just means that now you learn something. You're taking that you've transformed that experience. That is all I've got for you guys today. If you enjoyed this, or if you have any comments, feel free to put it in the comments section. If you liked it, please share this episode and this podcast with your family and friends. You can message me directly if you have any questions at D O N N Y R A U S via Instagram and this coming January January 9th, I'm going to be hosting my first Live youe One Life workshop. Now, the point of this workshop is to help you plan to create a year of magic. To create a year where you're doing the things that make you feel alive, not the things you feel like you have to do. It's breaking down those social norms and saying it's putting the stakes in the ground. And say, this is what I plan on doing and I'm committed to doing this year. Maybe it's traveling, maybe it's spending more time with family. Maybe it's just spending more time by yourself and reading and doing the simple things that you enjoy doing. But we're going to make it real. So again, you can check that out. If you want to sign up, it's at www. O n n y r a u s.com again-o n n y r a U s.com that is it, guys. God bless. Thank you for tuning in and I will see you next week.