American culture is Victim Culture. If we feel slighted or wronged, we go to court. If bad things happen to us or our life isn't working, it's usually someone else's fault. We're victims of circumstances beyond our control, and someone is always out to get us, whether it's our boss, our mother-in-law, or the government. And we complain bitterly, telling our stories of victimization to anyone who will listen. Just dial 1-800-POOR-ME.

Victim mentality is the mentality of the oppressed. Who is oppressing us? We oppress ourselves by doing it. By choosing to be victims, we change nothing. We heal nothing. We continue to give energy to our victimhood and thereby ensure that it continues. Like hamsters on a wheel, victims perpetuate their misery and fail to see that all they have to do to end it is to stop running, and step off.

So what is the cure for victim mentality? If it's perpetuating the very problems that we complain of, how does one "step off the wheel"? You have to take responsibility for your life. This means that you have to recognize your role in all of the things that you're complaining about. That means taking responsibility for your role in creating your problems. You, and only you, are responsible for fixing your life.

Your problems may be the result of inaction, or passivity on your part. "Stuff just happens to me, I can't help it," you say. To change this, you must take action and make different choices. Or perhaps you have been taking action, but the results are not what you want. Then it is up to you to make another choice. Continuing to make bad choices that don't produce the results you want is not going to get you anywhere.

Of course, one of the most common ways of avoiding personal responsibility is to blame other people in our lives. It's always someone else's fault. But this is never true. If your marriage is in trouble, it is not all your spouse's fault. Do you have unreasonable expectations of your spouse? Are you trying to control what your spouse does, or to change them in some way? How is your reaction to the situation making it worse? These are the questions you must ask yourself. The burden is not on your spouse to change to suit you. The burden is on you to accept that which you cannot change and to love your spouse unconditionally. The same applies to your children, your relatives, your friends, and your co-workers.

For example, in my previous marriage, I felt stifled. My husband was uncomfortable with my spirituality, and I picked up on this and voluntarily stuffed it in the closet. This didn't work, so after a few years, I realized that I had to pursue spiritual growth. It's part of what makes me happy. At about the same time, I was diagnosed with a goiter. Nothing too serious, but I was 28, and I remember thinking, "I'm too young for this." I began to investigate alternatives.

I went to a practitioner of Oriental Medicine and began acupuncture and herbs. I was very blessed to find the perfect catalyst for me, a very spiritual woman who could help me medically and spiritually. She quickly determined that part of my problem was stuck energy in my throat chakra: I wasn't speaking my truth. This was a pretty confusing diagnosis, since, in my mind, I always spoke the truth. I was an honest person. Right?

It literally took me years to understand what she meant. No, I wasn't a pathological liar. I was always honest to the best of my ability. But in order to speak your truth, your real truth, you have to know what it is. Mine was buried somewhere. For years, my parents had discouraged me from speaking my truth, because it differed from theirs. My husband continued the pattern (I chose the same uncomfortable energy that I was used to when I married him, after all). I knew, subconsciously, what should not be said. What truths were not acceptable. What feelings of mine were not acceptable. So I buried them deep.

I began to wake up slowly. I felt like I had not been allowed to express the real me, and I immediately blamed my parents and my husband. For a time, I was furious with my husband and blamed the goiter on him.

Eventually, after several years of working on this, I was lying on the acupuncture table, meditating, and it suddenly occurred to me: it was not my husband's fault that I was not speaking my truth. He had nothing whatsoever to do with the goiter, or my reluctance to speak. His passive-aggressive behavior was not the problem.

The problem was me. I needed the courage to speak my truth. I alone was responsible for making the decision to follow my heart and do the things that brought me joy. If my husband was uncomfortable with my truth or my choices, then that was something we needed to discuss like grown-ups. And yes, if it meant that we would ultimately part ways, then I had to be brave enough to know that this, too, would work out for my highest good.

In many ways, this revelation was a turning point for me.

Another part of taking responsibility for your life is to tell another story. I'm not the first person to say this. Tony Robbins, and many others, will tell you the same. If you don't like your life the way it is, then stop telling that story. Stop telling the story of your victimization. Tell a new story, in which you are not a victim, and in which you achieve your heart's desire. That is the story you want to give energy to. Telling the painful stories will only serve to perpetuate your pain.

I know a woman who is in her 40s and lives with her mother and young daughter. She is separated from her husband, who is an alcoholic. She continually describes her unhappiness and loneliness to us: she would like to meet someone new and remarry, yet she has not divorced her husband; she would like to live on her own, instead of with her mother; she would like it if her three-year-old daughter would sleep in her own bed, instead of in hers. The mantra is always the same. She knows that meeting someone new will be difficult with a husband still on the scene (they hang out together), with her mother in the house, and with her daughter in her bed—yet nothing ever changes.

I suggested to her that she must set a date for her mother to move out, if she wants her out. Instead, she prefers to passively "wait for her mother to decide to move." Likewise, she is unwilling to initiate a divorce, or to take the motherly role (instead of the "buddy" role) and transition her daughter to her own bed. Yet, the story remains the same. "Poor me, what can I do? I'm stuck."

She's stuck, but only because she refuses to move forward and envision a different story for herself.

Certainly, human beings don't like for things to be their own fault. Taking responsibility for our actions (or lack of action) requires a certain amount of courage. You have to be able to admit things like, "that didn't work out so good." Then you have to follow up with hard questions like, "What could I have done that would have worked better?"

Admitting my own culpability was not easy for me, either. I grew up in a household of people who believed in being right at all costs. There could be a football-field-full of evidence to the contrary, but we had to be right! Our egos demanded that we be right. It was failure of the worst kind to be wrong…

Of course, the need to be right is a function of low self-esteem, as I've written elsewhere. So in addition to acquiring the courage to take responsibility for my life, I had to develop enough self-esteem to be able to survive admitting my mistakes. I had to understand that the simple act of making a poor choice did not ruin my success as a human being. It did not make me a bad person. On the contrary, I have found, with continued practice, that the more willing I am to admit to my mistakes, the stronger it makes me.

Americans hate to be wrong, particularly in the workplace, but I have found that being able to say mea culpa when necessary only improves my standing with my co-workers. I'm not trying to pass the blame. I'm just saying, "Uh-oh. I guess I missed that one, huh?" And no one really cares. I fix the problem, move on, and make a mental note not to screw that one up again, if possible.

Most importantly, however, I understand that I have made the choices—hard choices, often—that have gotten me the life that I have always wanted. I have a loving wife and children. I have a wonderful home. I am fulfilled in so many ways. But in order to get here, I had to take responsibility for my own happiness. I had to move across the country. I had to leave an unhappy marriage. I had to acknowledge to myself that yes, I wanted to be with a woman—this one woman, in particular. I had to say, yes, I do want children, in spite of years of denial. No one could ever have done this for me. I had to do it for myself. I had to take charge.

Don't be a victim. No one can take advantage of you if you don't allow them to. No one in the world is responsible for your happiness, except you. Your spouse and children cannot make you happy if you won't take the steps required to make yourself happy. The bully at work is not responsible for your unhappiness, either; it is up to you to resolve the situation through HR or find another job that will make you happier. It's all up to you.

You don't control your life, but you do have responsibility for it. God gave you the power to make choices for yourself. This is how you create your reality, with your thoughts and your choices. Tell a good story with a happy ending! Make another choice, if you're not happy today! You have the power to change your life. Will you take it?