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Are You A Spiritual Martyr?
Copyrighted 2001 by Frederick Zappone
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A spiritual martyr is someone who dies for their beliefs. Although we do not
have martyrs in our society, in the biblical sense, we do have martyrs, in
the spiritual sense, who are dying on the inside. They are dying from
mental, emotional and spiritual poverty, hanging onto erroneous and outdated
beliefs that do not serve them or the people they profess to love. They are
dying from loneliness by staying in or tolerating unfulfilling relationships
that are dysfunctional.
Do you know the definition of a dysfunctional person? A dysfunctional person
is anyone who is committed to taking the fun and joy out of your life. In
order for a person to take the fun and joy out of your life you have to
cooperate with them, you have to become their spiritual martyr. Spiritual
martyr's are some of the nicest people I know, always smiling on the outside
while seething with hurt, pain, resentment, anger and rage on the inside.
Are you like a sponge, are you an absorber of other people's hurt and
inappropriate behavior? When something isn't working in your relationships
(personal, business or social) do you take on all the blame? Are you a
doormat? Do you allow people to treat you with disrespect and insensitivity?
Do you let people roll over you and take anything they want from you? Do you
suffer in silence? Do you play the role of the peacemaker no matter how
unfairly you have been treated. If you do, you are a spiritual martyr.
In my family, my dad was the peacemaker and I idolized him for taking on
this role. In watching his example, I made the decision that if anyone was
going to experience hurt or suffer in a relationship, it would be me and not
them. After many years of suffering, I had a conversation with my dad, about
this "peacemaker role" that wasn't working for me.
I remember clearly the conversation with him. We were walking, in a cemetery
together, where many of our relatives are buried. It was a beautiful sunny
day and we were talking about the subject of anxiety. My dad said to me, do
you remember the religious beatitude; "Blessed are the peacemakers for they
shall inherit the kingdom of heaven". I told him I did. He said, based on
his experience, if he could change it, it would read this way; "Blessed Are
the peacemakers for they shall suffer great anxiety."
It was right then and there I realized that I had been spiritually arrogant
most of my life always attempting to save people from themselves by playing
the role of the peacemaker. In playing the role of the peacemaker all I
ended up with was massive doses of anxiety. I don't play the peacemaker role
any more. I can't depend on my inner peace being a result of other people
getting along with each other or being responsible for people getting along
with me, if they do not like who I am. I can only be responsible for my
inner peace.
Today, when someone hurts me or treats me with disrespect, I no longer
absorb it as the peacemaker. I express my upset to the person who harmed me.
I do it with compassion and allow them to be responsible for the
consequences of their actions. To do anything less diminishes the other
person and allows them to escape the consequences of their own karma to
their spiritual detriment and our own.
We have the mistaken belief that to be a spiritual person means we must
always be sweet, nice and polite. While this might be possible, if we didn't
have a very human side to us, it isn't realistic in this dimension of living. People, from time to time, are rude, insensitive, greedy,
manipulative, controlling and selfish and anytime we allow someone to act
out those kinds of behavior on us, we are being a spiritual martyr.
Some people measure how spiritual they are by how much they suffer. Their
life, in this dimension, may not be very fulfilling but with humble arrogance they can say to themselves with pride, look how spiritual I am,
look how much I have suffered. To put it plainly, as precious son's and daughter's of God, we weren't put on this earth to suffer. We were put on
this earth to rejoice and celebrate our humanness with each other and to
learn how to harmonize our differences so we can be there for each other
without being a victim or martyr.
In order for that to happen, we have to give up looking good and become
authentically honest with each other. We all have a human side and a divine
side. Our "divine side" can withstand and tolerate all forms of human
disrespect and abuse. On the other hand, our human side is fragile and needs
to be treated as such.
We need to treat the human side of ourselves like we would treat fine china,
with care, concern, appreciation and respect. If we treat fine china poorly,
it will break, crack or splinter into a thousand pieces. The same thing can
happen to us if we do not treat the fragile human side of ourselves with
self-love, self-appreciation and self-respect.
If you wish, you may email your thoughts and comments about this article to
the author. His email address is: frederickzappone@hotmail.com
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Frederick Zappone, a former vice president of a national corporation, has
spent most of his adult life observing, writing about and sharing with
people his spiritual insights about the human condition. Mr. Zappone has
appeared as a guest on numerous radio and TV talk shows including the Oprah
Winfrey show. If you would like to download and read his powerful and
compelling "Free E-Manuals" dealing with " important "life issue" we all
must face on a daily basis, visit his site by clicking here:
http://www.prismnet.com/~fzappone
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