Self-sacrifice. Why do we sacrifice ourselves for others?

Adviсe

• What is self-sacrifice
• The desire for self-sacrifice
• The problem of self-sacrifice
• Why self-sacrifice is dangerous
• What explains self-sacrifice

The personal quality of self-sacrifice is the ability to devote one’s life to higher goals, to give oneself to a person or something sublime.

What is self-sacrifice

Self-sacrifice is the voluntary sacrifice of oneself or one's own interests for the sake of others. It can be conscious (EMERCOM workers, military personnel in battle) and unconscious (helping people in extreme situations).

But it is wrong to consider selflessness to be the basis of self-sacrifice. So, sacrificing oneself is:

sacrificial, sincere desire to protect others, one's own land, home. Such an intention is the result of a person’s sense of patriotism, his ideals and upbringing. The individual is unable to act differently. Such individuals rush to help without hesitation, this is a spiritual impulse; fulfillment of one's own inner desires. It's worth giving an example here. There are people who strive to get to “hot spots” to save people’s lives there. But why do they need this? You might think that this is a desire to protect the Motherland. But in reality, they strive to receive medals and awards for courage in order to make their loved ones proud of them.

In turn, sacrifice in the understanding of religion is a virtue, which is expressed in a sincere desire to devote oneself to others.

What does the victim really want?

It's hard to believe that someone voluntarily wants to be constantly humiliated. Why do some people strive for the role of victim, voluntarily making themselves a punching bag? In fact, the victim wants:

to receive pity, attention, warmth, care, love, gratitude, empathy, compassion, to be significant, to be needed.

A person with a victim mentality knows only one form of love - pity. So he tries, with the help of others or, feeling sorry for himself, to receive love. The victim is only happy when he suffers. That’s why she always suffers, something is always wrong in her life. It’s not easy to admit this to yourself, which is why only a few decide to fight it.

The desire for self-sacrifice

Humans have a built-in desire for self-sacrifice. This is not a simple sacrifice of some material benefits. This is sacrificing one’s own chosen path, one’s own energy, strength, and time. That is, everything that a person has. The highest manifestation of self-sacrifice is giving oneself to self-awareness, developing the mind, achieving purity of consciousness, as well as helping others achieve spirituality. As a personal quality, self-sacrifice is a manifestation of dignity along with patriotism, selflessness, and kindness.

Self-sacrifice has a feminine nature. The first example of this is unconditional maternal love. The mother becomes the child's well-being above all else. Love as voluntary slavery involves sacrificing oneself, but self-sacrifice does not mean giving one’s life in the name of love. It is an absolute desire to serve the person you love.

How not to be a victim

Learn to take responsibility and solve problems on your own. You need to become the master of your own life, learn to deal adequately with difficulties, and understand that all failures can be solved.

Forget about grievances and complaints. Every incident in our life is an experience. Stop asking “Why me? Why do I need this? and learn to ask “Why do I need this? What lesson does life want to teach me?

The owner of life is a self-sufficient and self-confident person:

• He himself creates events in his life and controls circumstances.
• He does not take on someone else's responsibility and does not shift his own onto anyone.
• He is independent of other people and life circumstances.
• He respects himself and other people.
• He takes good care of his health and life.
• He knows how to resist manipulation.
• He has a positive outlook on the world.

It is almost impossible to get rid of the victim role on your own. Individual counseling and psychotherapy from a specialist is necessary, since the process of rebuilding life involves resolving all conflicts with relatives and friends, identifying and working through childhood psychotraumas (the victim always has them), forgiving all grievances and resolving all omissions. You need to remove all the reasons for the victim's psychology and literally be reborn. The problem is that the reasons are individual and personal in nature, which requires a private approach.

But some general recommendations on how to get out of the victim role can be given:

• Learn to make your own decisions. Start small: what to order in a cafe, what book to read. As a rule, the victims are constantly controlled by someone. Learn self-management.
• Find a passion you enjoy and allow yourself to enjoy something other than failure.
• Stop doing anything out of a sense of duty. You owe nothing to anyone but yourself.
• Study, get a job, move up the career ladder (depending on the specific case). Be financially independent.
• Learn to value yourself. Get rid of anxiety and self-flagellation, forget about self-humiliation. Sometimes victims get so into the role that even in small things they cannot behave differently: they do not accept compliments, eat leftover food for family members, do not eat at all, give up their hobbies. You have a responsibility to meet your basic needs and have every right to small everyday joys. Especially if you decide to stop being a victim.
• Accept and love yourself. Realize your own freedom and value it. Also start with the little things: take a full bath, read the desired book. Every time you plan to do something that you like, say: “I love myself. I am a strong and free person. I have the right to..."
• Form the habits of successful people. Learn to respect and value yourself. Never compare yourself to anyone or put yourself lower than others.
• Stop asking for advice and permission. Do as you see fit. Of course, we are talking about something that concerns only you. For example, you want to skydive. It’s worth talking to loved ones, but in the context of “how do you feel about this.” Leave the final decision to yourself. And if we are talking, for example, about the exchange of goods (where this is permissible), then forget about the questions “Can the goods be exchanged?” This is your right, so you can safely say “Hello. I would like to exchange the goods."
• Instill confidence in yourself: walk with a straight back, speak in a clear, clear voice, look into the eyes of the interlocutor. The role of the victim is visible a mile away through gait, posture, facial expressions, and gestures. The victim always looks like an offended, dejected person, “driven into a corner” and asking forgiveness from the whole world for the mere fact of his existence.
• Stop just complaining and start taking action, solving problems, changing yourself and circumstances.
• Be prepared to part with your current life, people, work. After all, you are probably surrounded by tyrants and saviors, but it is not a fact that they will also change. In this case, your paths will diverge.

The victim is characterized by emotional and personal immaturity, infantilism, poorly developed self-awareness and consciousness. The child inside you is responsible for everything that happens in your life now. To stop being a victim, you need to meet yourself as a child and solve old problems.

The problem of self-sacrifice

It is believed that the willingness to sacrifice oneself uses love as a basis. Powerful feelings force people to perform feats: some devote themselves unselfishly to their significant other, others devote themselves to their favorite work. But experts are confident that such a theory is wrong.

The problem of self-sacrifice is the unattractiveness of the reasons that give rise to this desire. In life, the desire to sacrifice oneself gives rise to other feelings: fear and doubt. The latter cause a loss of feeling of strength and confidence. Such people are sure that their personality means nothing, they are not ready to commit actions, and therefore live with the problems and achievements of another person. In addition, they are confident in personal failures, therefore they believe that leniency is not available to them. The result of such an opinion is self-sacrifice. In this way people try to gain favor and recognition.

For this reason, often the meaning of self-sacrifice is not a sincere desire to neglect one’s interests, but simple manipulation of people to achieve an internal goal. Fear, in the form of the main motive for sacrifice, appears due to the fear of loneliness.

There are many examples from life: children who escaped from the stifling care of their mother forget about her; wives who have refused to realize themselves for the sake of their family find themselves lonely or suffer disrespect from their husbands. You can often hear complaints from such individuals that they did everything for the sake of others, but in the end they got nothing. But they were not asked to make such sacrifices; their actions were their own choice.

Conscious self-sacrifice is a person’s understanding of the sacrifice, its essence, purpose and value. A soldier, when he protects others or goes against the enemy, realizes that this will cause his death, but his actions will save others. It is this self-sacrifice that is called heroism.

The sacrifice is not too dangerous if it relates to one family or group, because... its harmful influence is not very global. But if it concerns the interests of an entire country or society, then the result will be disastrous. Often the basis for the actions of suicidal terrorists is the problem of self-sacrifice. Their arguments are based on love for the Motherland and religion.

The path of development of emotions

A person, like an animal, has four basic desires - to eat, drink, breathe, sleep. But unlike an animal, he has additional desires, which make him human. The desire to create emotional connections, which made it possible to limit hostility between people, appeared in the visual vector. And the reason for his appearance is fear for his own life.

The skin-visual woman, experiencing horror and fearing for herself, stood up for the skin-visual boy in front of the leader, achieving a ban on ritual cannibalism. This limitation of hostility between people became the beginning of culture - a new condition for human coexistence, which made it possible for humanity to develop further.

Culture became more complex and grew along with humanity, passing through four levels of its development - inanimate, plant, animal and human. At the inanimate level - appreciating the beauty of forms, at the plant and animal levels - complicating the emotional connection with the entire living world, at the human level - putting forward humanistic ideas of the highest value of human life.

This happened gradually: from the first rock inscriptions to worldwide manifestos for the protection of the life of laboratory mice. Art, architecture, creativity - these are all the achievements of visual people for all humanity, as well as the development of the emotional sphere. Now representatives of all vectors are able to experience emotions, and even a muscleman can confess his love to his chosen one. The only difference is that the strength of emotions in the visual vector is orders of magnitude greater than in others. After all, it is through emotions that viewers comprehend life.

Why self-sacrifice is dangerous

The first thing that comes to mind when pronouncing the word “self-sacrifice” is something sublime. This is a denial of oneself for the sake of higher goals, a sacrifice of one’s own interests in the name of something more valuable. But Leo Tolstoy said that the most offensive expression of egoism is self-sacrifice. Why is it dangerous? What did Tolstoy mean?

Self-sacrifice is inherent in the Slavic people; we are not individualists. In addition, we are encouraged to sacrifice ourselves. But it happens that self-sacrifice is a style of existence; it takes on unusual forms.

It is believed that sacrificing oneself in the name of a loved one is an indicator of good form. They give us the example of the Decembrist wives, but parents are left with no choice at all - they are obliged to do everything for the sake of their children, subordinating themselves to their desires. Yes, love is not selfishness, but why would anyone suffer? Are sacrifices really necessary?

As already mentioned, the basis of self-sacrifice is not always love. Often it is based on fear and lack of faith in one’s own strength. A person is sure that he is not worthy of recognition and love, so he wins them. Self-sacrifice becomes an element of manipulation. A person considers himself not so good that his other half will remain next to him just like that, therefore it requires a remarkable effort. And the fear here is that the person for whom the sacrifice is being made will leave.

But this is not the only negative thing; the further a person goes in an effort to give himself away, the more terrible the story ends. There are many examples around of how people do not appreciate such sacrifices. But you cannot call them traitors. If another person voluntarily refused something, then sooner or later he will hear the question of why he did it, who asked him.

For these reasons, self-sacrifice is considered selfish. A person behaves in the way he considers correct, without taking into account other people’s opinions about it. But he also demands gratitude for his actions. Not receiving this, he feels offended. As a result, hatred arises towards the one for whom the sacrifice was made, for whom it turned out to be unnecessary. A person needs to have the right to choose whether he needs this sacrifice or not, to refuse it or accept it.

But what about altruism, self-denial? Self-sacrifice, of course, has the right to exist. After all, everyone decides what to do and how to behave. The main thing is not to expect recognition for your own actions, then you will not commit actions aimed at satisfying internal needs at the expense of others.

Negative interpretation of the concept

Selflessness can be a bad quality when it is excessive or when it is a manifestation of infantilism. This destructive form first appears in adolescence and can remain habitual until the end of life. A person is not ready to take responsibility and can endure any hardship just to avoid what he is afraid of.

Animals Can Show Selflessness

For example, when a woman is regularly beaten by her husband, and she does not want to get a divorce, this does not indicate her great love for him. She is simply afraid of being left alone or of depriving herself of the resources that the rapist provides her with. He considers himself right in any situation only on the basis that he feeds his family. There is no selflessness here, this is a manifestation of selfishness, albeit such a perverted one.

Also, selflessness can be imaginary, when a person thinks in this way: “today I will do this for you, and tomorrow you will do that for me.” Often this logic is not realized. If the other party refuses to help, the person becomes offended.

Overprotection of mothers is often considered selflessness. A woman sacrifices her health, youth, dreams and desires for the sake of children, who often do not even respond with gratitude. She can give them money, pull them out of life’s difficulties, constantly cover them in difficult situations, considering this her responsibility. In extreme cases, mothers help their children get drugs, causing harm to both themselves and them.

Women are very often selfless

The motives of such women may differ. This is the famous “glass of water” that a woman dreams of receiving in her old age as gratitude, and the desire to feel needed by someone, and the fear of losing children, and the fear of meeting herself. There is little real dedication here. If it is true, a person sacrifices himself simply because it pleases him to do good to someone.

The selflessness of radicals has a negative connotation. A typical example is suicide bombers. They believe that their death is necessary to achieve goals that they consider good. The same goes for nationalists.

Important! The main reason for infantile selflessness is codependency. This is a negative state in which one personality is completely absorbed by another

Most often this term is used when talking about relatives of alcoholics and drug addicts. But there are much more codependent people.

The emotions of such a person are completely dependent on the actions of the object of addiction. Therefore, for the well-being of others, the codependent is ready to sacrifice his own. In addition to dedication, this phenomenon is characterized by the following signs:

1. Low self-esteem.
2. Guilt. Even normally, if a person feels guilty, he tries to smooth out the experience by sacrificing himself. But when this state constantly accompanies a codependent person, she will show amazing selflessness, the root of which is neurotic.
3. Anger that is not realized by the person himself. Internally, such a selfless person is angry that he has to sacrifice himself. Therefore, such self-sacrifice cannot be considered true. This is not an act of good will; a person feels obligated to do so. He doesn't feel joy in helping someone.
4. Depressive moods.
5. The predictor effect. Codependent people believe that they know what they need better than others. As a result, they do what others do not want, sacrificing themselves in the process.

Selflessness is cultivated gradually

Important! Codependency does not represent true selflessness. An example from life that confirms this thesis is a mother who deprives herself of something good so that her child can party all night long.

Such actions will only be harmful. A reasonable parent would sacrifice their money for the sake of their child’s education at a foreign university.

In general, true selflessness does not exist at all. All people pursue their own interests, even unconscious ones.

What explains self-sacrifice

Psychology experts note that not every person is capable of self-sacrifice. What explains the phenomenon of self-sacrifice? Researchers are confident that this quality is transmitted at the genetic level. In other words, such a desire to devote oneself to others is laid down by genetics.

In addition, education contributes to the development of this personal quality. The child, seeing the actions of the parents, considers them correct.

But often a lack of love at an early age becomes the reason that pushes one to sacrifice oneself in adulthood. People who were “disliked” in childhood are able to sacrifice their interests for the sake of recognition and the pride of their parents.

So self-sacrifice is explained by the desire to receive praise, to prove something to society, to gain recognition, celebrity. In addition, spiritual impulses to save another person, a natural desire to protect the weak, selfless impulses to help others also cause the desire to sacrifice oneself.

The Origins of Sacrifice

Thanks to a multi-thousand-year development path, a person with a visual vector has learned to transform fear for himself into fear for others. This became a prerequisite for the emergence of such feelings as empathy, compassion, sympathy, love.

Having reached the highest point of his emotional amplitude - love, a visual person becomes able to put the life of another person above his own. This is where the origins of sacrifice lie – the main virtue in culture.

We observed examples of the highest degree of sacrifice during the Great Patriotic War, when skin-visual nurses, fragile girls, carried the wounded from the battlefield to the whistle of bullets and the roar of shells, forgetting about the fear for their lives. They were driven by the desire to save someone else's life, the life of their neighbor.

Today we see the manifestation of sacrifice in the volunteer movement, when people with a visual vector take care of socially vulnerable segments of the population - orphans, the elderly, the sick - absolutely voluntarily and free of charge, at the call of their hearts. They strive only to love and give this love to others, receiving the greatest fulfillment of their desires and realizing the highest realization of visual properties.

Just kindness or...

If you and those around you think that the desire to give everything to people without taking care of personal needs is simply natural kindness, you are wrong. This is a form of neurosis.

It is impossible to cure neurosis on your own in the same way as filling your own tooth or cutting out your appendix.

As I already mentioned, the price for self-denial can be deterioration in health: after all, externals also do not think about their own body, and the dominant “I live for others” often provokes the thoughts “I am taking someone else’s place.” One of the most common diagnoses for external patients is cancer. They very rarely ask for help (after all, they don’t need anything for themselves. Not even treatment. Even peace and happiness), so the question of diagnosis and treatment should be faced by relatives close to the external person. They can look at a person's behavior from the outside and think about its consequences.