MARTYRDOM (part 4): Al-Anon's 4 M's of Relationship - Mothering, Managing, Manipulating and Martyrdom: A Journey towards Soul Recovery

Are you constantly playing the martyr in your relationships? We've all been there, trapped in the cycle of self-sacrifice, resentment, and exhaustion. But guess what, there's a way out, and this episode is all about guiding you to that exit. We're going to dissect the entangling webs of codependency and victimhood that often give birth to martyrdom in our relationships. Even more, we'll be sharing effective strategies to break free, establish healthier boundaries, and reclaim your happiness. This is your invitation to find balance, respect yourself, and start prioritizing your needs.

For more information about Rev. Rachel Harrison and Recover Your Soul- visit the website www.recoveryoursoul.net  use the code TRYASESSION for 40% off your first Spiritual Coaching session when you book on the website.

Soul Recovery Support Group on Zoom -The 1st Monday of the Month, 6PM Mountain Time. This is a drop in support group where we can come together to explore, connect and support each other on our Soul Recovery journey.  Visit the website to register and receive the meeting invite.  Free to attend- donations appreciated.

Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly

Ready for a weekend of Soul Recovery, deep healing and Transformation?!?!?! Join Rev Rachel on June 8th and 9th in Lafayette Colorado for 2 full days of teachings, meditation, group work, journaling, connection and sound healing and Soul Recovery with others in the community.  Use  this coupon code at check out for $50 off!  RYSJUNERETREAT$50 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:47

Here we are on the fourth episode of our four week series on Al-Anand's four Imms of Relationship Mothering, managing, manipulating.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:56

And here we are on martyrdom. And martyrdom in the context of relationships refers to a self sacrificial attitude where one person consistently puts their needs last and sacrifices their well-being for the sake of others. But what we're learning is that this martyrdom leads to resentment, it leads to exhaustion, it leads to an imbalance in relationships, and so in this episode, we're talking about how to break free from this trap. We're learning how to establish boundaries, learning how to have healthy relationships, learning how to respect ourselves, love ourselves, take responsibility for our part, but not take on other people's stuff and not play the victim. We're learning how to take our power back. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:46

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing, positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome back to Recover your Soul. I'm Reverend Rachel and I am so glad that you're here with me today. Welcome to Recover your Soul. If you are new to Soul Recovery. Welcome, I am so glad that you found this podcast and community. If you are returning, thank you for being part of this incredible group of humans who are here learning to turn the attention to ourselves, follow a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life and letting go of the need to control or fix others to let others have their own experience. Welcome for us to be okay even when they're not okay, when the world isn't okay. It's a big task and we're doing it. We are really doing it. The amazing emails that I get, the interactions that I have with people both online and in person, the just transformations that are happening just warm my heart. I just feel so grateful to be part of this community and to be able to be a leader and a teacher of healing for all of you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:26

We are on the final episode of our four-part series, where we are talking about the four aims of relationship. We've gone over mothering and managing, which were so fascinating and wonderful. This concept of really opening up to those best qualities. How can we be living from our best qualities of the divine feminine energy of support and love and connection, really holding space for people and being empathetic in a healthy way, and managing, which is taking charge and making decisions and making sure that things run smoothly, but not controlling and learning how to be our best aspects in both of those and release all of the unhealthy aspects of both of those qualities? Those episodes are available for you to listen to. And then last week we did manipulating, and manipulating and martyrdom are two of the Ems that we're learning how to let go of completely. These are not things that there are positive ways of being an M. These are places that we come from when we're in pain, when we're trying to fix, when we're trying to control. These are places where we're coming from unhealthy belief systems, patterns and learning how to let them go, and also recognizing how other peoples, manipulations and martyrdom affect our lives with the negative, and how we can come and stand in our soul, recovery integrity and let go of the attachment that it has on us to make us feel a certain way. We're learning how to let people have their own experience If you're ready for soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:15

As a spiritual coach, I can support your healing to help make real changes that will bring you a life of peace, happiness, connection and abundance. You can also work in smaller groups by taking a deep dive in a Zoom workshop or with me in person at a retreat or an event. Join others on the Soul Recovery Path once a month for the free Zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about soul recovery dates that are coming up and how to register for those groups and workshops. To support the podcast and the community, check the links in the show notes to make a small monthly donation or a one-time donation of your choice. That will make a huge impact to support this community and the Soul Recovery mission. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:11

So today is the final episode in this series around martyrdom, and martyrdom is that self-sacrificial attitude where one person consistently puts their needs last and sacrifices their well-being for the sake of others. This is another actual definition of codependency where we put our needs last, that other people's lives and needs and what's going on for them is the first thing that happens and that we're last but in martyrdom. What we're looking at is it can be a good part of us to be caring, considerate and to see other people's needs, but chronic martyrdom leads us to resentment, exhaustion and imbalance in our relationships. This concept of martyrdom is also victimhood that we can see that the world is doing to us right, and in martyrdom we feel like there's an exhaustion around. I'm the only one doing it here. You know I'm the one who's putting in all the work. I'm the only one putting the work into this relationship. Why aren't you putting any in? Or at work, being in a situation where other people aren't doing their part, why aren't they doing their part?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:36

So let's dig into this, because it's actually a really helpful piece of this continued journey in our soul recovery, where we're looking at ourselves, we're turning the attention to ourselves and we're looking at letting go of other people needing to be a certain way for us to be okay. And so many of us have walked into the door of soul recovery and into this podcast and into this community through the doors of Al-Anon that's how I got here and through the doors of co-dependence. Turns out, I was a super codependent person, relying on my husband and the world around me to really give me what I thought I needed in terms of emotional, physical, financial and psychological and spiritual elements. I was looking outside to find what it turns out was inside. Now I want to come to this aspect of martyrdom from a place of compassion, because in soul recovery and I know we repeat this over and over, but I just can't say it enough this is a place where there's no judgment.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:47

We're not saying anything that happens in our lives is right or wrong. We're not saying people are right or wrong. We're not saying that someone's guilty or not guilty. What we're looking at is starting to experience our experience with clarity and coming to the knowing that how we feel, how we feel is telling us something, telling us something really important.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:16

And if you are feeling like you're a martyr, if you are feeling like you're a victim, there is some really important aspects of what those feelings feel like that are trying to tell you something and they're giving you a sign that something within you needs to grow and needs to be opened and needs to change so that you can stop having this weight of the world on your shoulders and feeling like you're in pain all the time, that you can't have what you need, that you can't have what you want, and so much of what that feels like comes from the outside. It comes from this belief that we're supposed to be getting what we need from somewhere else, that somebody, that something, that some situation, that some circumstance is going to fill us up, and when it doesn't fill us up, we feel like we're being attacked. We feel like we're being let down, we feel like somebody is doing to us these things and there's no power in that. That's the definition of in soul recovery, of taking our power back. If I need the world to be a certain way, if I need a relationship to show up a certain way, if I need somebody's emotions to be a certain way, if I need their life to look a certain way, for me to be okay, I will never be okay Because they're just out there having their own experience. They're their own souls, their own human beings, their own human being a human. And being human is hard and complicated.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:02

And I'm being brought to talk about the Four Tenants of Buddhism. Again, there's the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and for those of you maybe you're here for the first time. I was raised Tibetan Buddhist and now I'm a metaphysical minister and open to whatever it is. For you, spirituality is a broad opening of just connecting to the universe. But these Four Tenants of Buddhism, these Four Noble Truths, are so powerful because martyrdom is around suffering.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:31

So the first Noble Truth is life is suffering, life is complicated, life isn't easy, life will always have difficulty. I think that we, somewhere in it, think that it's not supposed to have any problems, that we're not supposed to bump up against anything. And I have episodes that talk about this fairy tale that we thought that we walked into, that we were going to get married, it was going to look this certain way, we thought we were going to have the certain kind of career or when we were little, we envisioned our lives in a certain way. I don't know very many people who envisioned their life a certain way and it went that way, without any bumps in the road, and they feel completely confident and secure and happy within themselves. Even if your life goes the way that you thought that it was going to go, there is still suffering, there's still pain, there's still complexity, there's still issues that happen.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:29

So that first tenet, the life is suffering, and the second being that suffering is created from our attachment, from our clinging, from our desire for it to be something other than what it is. So if you look at the first one, what we are really saying is life has emotions, life is complicated, there's pain, there's joy, there's excitement, there's heartbreak, there's despair, but it is. And the second one is that we have our suffering, our pain, our non-happiness comes from this belief that it should be different, it should look different, it should feel different, and to me, that's martyrdom, that's the victimhood, that's the piece where we get really attached to the belief that it is happening to us and that we want it to be different. And then we get really attached, we really associate deeply with our wounds. Now we all get wounded and we need to actually come from a place where we're willing and ready to look at the wounds from an entirely different way, not from this happened to me and therefore I am broken.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:59

But these are the experiences that I had, these are my emotions that came around these experiences. This was my belief that came out of this experience. These are the patterns that were created from these experiences. What can I see new and different? What was my part. How can I validate how I felt in those situations and what did I learn and how can I grow from it? How can I expand from it that has energy and power in it, versus the restriction, the contraction that comes from. This happened to me and I am now a victim.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:39

I'm now a martyr in this, and you've been around people who complain and complain and complain and complain. Maybe you're the person who complains and complains and complains and complains. If their husband did this, their wife did this, their kids are like that, their friend did this and you can feel their energy that gets attached to. This is happening to me and they're looking for either somebody to join on their team and be with them saying, yeah, that was terrible, he's a bad person, he's not a good husband, or you're right, you're right, you're right. And when we get that fed within us, it feeds that victimhood, it feeds the woundedness within us, not from the healthy place, because you can also experience and express what happened to you from a place of power, from a place of awareness, from a place of recognition that is really going in and witnessing and feeling your feelings and have someone say I see you. That must have been really hard, very different energies around it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:01

If you had an experience where your husband cheated on you and let's say it's been years, and this happens quite often in long-term relationships that somebody steps out your husband or wife, it doesn't matter, I'm a wife, so of course I pick a husband, but the other person, or husband and husband and wife and wife, I don't care. Whatever it is. Your relationship where somebody steps out, either physically or emotionally, there's a lot, a lot of emotional affairs that happen. That is a big deal. That is a big disruption in a relationship.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:39

And if we're in our victim and martyrdom state this happened to me and it needs to be rectified and it needs to be amended and they need to pay for and they need to make right this behavior and we can get so caught up in that energy that we are feeding ourselves with pain. We are taking away our ability to feel the despair, to feel the loneliness, because we're covering it with this energy of being a martyr and being angry, which really is holding vigilance at the door of our true pain. But instead of just feeling the pain, we're holding on to this exterior that keeps us from letting it move through us, and that pain is generally attached to a lot of other pain from a lot of other experiences of being deceived or being hurt, and we all have these pains. So the third noble truth is that there is a way to move past this attachment, that there is an answer, that spirituality can indeed help us to learn how to let go of the attachment. And the fourth noble truth in Buddhism is the Eightfold Path, that is, the Buddhist offering of how to do that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:16

Now, everybody has their own spiritual path, whether it's a standard religion, whether it is a spiritual practice like mine. There is a solution that allows us to let go of this need for us to hold our pain behind these doors of martyrdom, victimhood, resentment, anger and grievance. So recovery, for me, has become my fourth noble truth the path, the ability to work, this process of soul recovery, process of looking at our lives and turning it over to a higher power, greater than ourselves, to use the steps that were gently held and guided by the 12 steps of AA and Al-Anon but encompass a larger metaphysical perspective of being able to look at our wounds, to look at those aspects of ourselves that were real, our feelings that are real, and to give them voice and to take our power back and our energy back in terms of learning how to attend to our inner self and not needing all of the outside world and relationships and people to be what fills us up. That my number one connection is with something greater still, with my higher power, and through that it's allowed me to let go of that part of me that used to stomp around my house and say I'm the only one who does the dishes, I'm the only one who does the laundry, I'm the only one who cleans the house, I'm the only one who does this, and be so angry, so angry that my life didn't look and turn out the way that I wanted it to look and to turn out. Well, it didn't turn out that way, and I'll tell you what. I still do the dishes, I still do all the laundry, I still do all the cooking, I still do all the cleaning, but I have switched how I see it, I have switched how I show up in it, I have switched how I feel about it, and that has so transformed my life to not be in constant bitter, martyrdom, victim mentality, so that if I do need help, I can ask for help and it doesn't come from that backhanded way of asking for it. That is really what we talked about in the last episode manipulation of really passive, aggressive behavior. And the truth is it doesn't bother me anymore because I can see it and feel it a different way. And when I do need help, I come from that place that says I'm an adult asking, I'm a whole person asking, I'm not a victim asking.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:16

And you know, when you're around people who it just feels like it's just a black vortex of their constant feeling like the world has done to them, and what that is is its pain. What that is is it's there. You don't feel their wholeness, they don't feel their truth of who they are. And the beauty of looking at these four aspects of the four m's in relationship mothering, managing, manipulating and martyrdom is it's bringing us back to our whole self. It's allowing us to see that of course we set up defense mechanisms that are based on our previous experience. Our previous experience is all we have that as human beings, as animals, as sentient beings in the world. That's how we've learned how to survive. But we're moving out of that place and into an awareness of our consciousness. That means that we can live past our archaic, primitive brain and move into our more developed, complicated, higher thought parts of our brain that can connect to our spiritual center. We're learning how to live in a healthy way of our four bodies our intellectual self, our physical self, our emotional self and our spiritual self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:56

And the more that we do this work around soul recovery, of gathering information, looking at our self in complete honesty and without judgment, seeing where we've shown up in our negative and unhealthy behaviors. Why are we showing up from our unhealthy self? Why are we utilizing the way of speaking from passive, aggressive or from snarky ways? What is it that we're protecting? What happens that we're in a relationship where people are being unkind to us? What is going on within ourselves?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:37

How can we move out of being a martyr? How can we stop manipulating? How can we stop managing from an unhealthy place? How can we stop using our unhealthy mothering in every aspect of our lives? And how can we turn to ourselves and start to release the energies around our pain, witness them, see them for what they are and what they were in each of those moments in our lives, and not discount them, but to give them voice, but to release them and to be able to be in this moment, right here, right now, having learned and grown and awakened and opened and taking responsibility for our part, our way that we show up, our interactions, our responses, in every single thing that we do, choosing love over fear, choosing love in every aspect of our lives, which sometimes means that we let other people fall. We let other people experience real difficult times. We let them have their experience, their soul journey, and we hold on to this, knowing that we are all being held by something even greater still, and we follow our spiritual path.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:11

Whatever that is for you, whether you're doing soul recovery along with whatever your other way of connecting to higher power is. We're here to grow, we're here to expand, we're here to live our happiest and healthiest life and through that, we don't stand in martyrdom, we can't be a victim. We stand in our power and our strength, with our energy intact, with our souls intact, remembering that we are whole, that we are loved, we are lovable, that we are enough, that we are perfect, beautiful children of the universe and that we can stand strong in the midst of anything, that life is complicated and that we can do it. Thank you so much for being here for these 4Ms in this particular series. Thank you for being part of the Soul Recovery community. If you have any desire to work on any of these issues, to work on the 4Ms. Soul Recovery is expanding and growing.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:21

What it means my working with people as a spiritual coach has a holding within the 9 steps the process of soul recovery, but you can also just come for a session or two and we can work on a certain situation. You don't have to be wanting to do the whole thing with me because you're doing it here right now. I'm just here to be a support, however I can. So thank you, thank you for your support. Thank you, thank you for being here. Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening to the Recover your Soul podcast and if you loved what you heard here, every Friday we have a bonus episode and you can access this by becoming a subscriber through Apple Podcasts for only $3.99 a month, or become a Patreon member and on this platform you can choose $5, $15 or $25 a month to show what you want to support the show with, on both of these subscriber platforms is an entire catalog of back episodes intended to inspire and support you on your Soul Recovery journey.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:27

I really want to invite everybody to attend the free once a month, every first Monday of the month support group. This is on Zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend and by giving a like or a review and sharing this with your friends and family really helps us to share the Soul Recovery message with even more people. We are on social media. We are on all the platforms. I am on TikTok. You can listen to guided meditations by Rev Rachel Harrison on Insight Timer. I also want to extend an invitation to everyone to join on Facebook on the Soul Recovery community private page. This is where we can ask each other questions, really inspire each other with our Soul Recovery process. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for being part of the community. To find out more about Soul Recovery and everything that's being offered, visit the website wwwrecoveryoursoulnet. Together, we can do the work that will recover your Soul.