Stuck - Swamps or Rivers - Victims by choice

I went for my last hypnotherapy session yesterday I came out feeling really wonderful.  It is not meant to be a magic cure for secret pain and suffering just a way to relax and focus on where you want to be instead of where you have been.

I know where I have been and I do know when I am at my worst what I am saying to myself.  Mostly all problems stem from not being enough.  Whether that is at work or in my personal life if I am not meeting the expectations of the people around me or worse I am not meeting my own expectations.

I use to think of myself as a good person.  In every situation I would think "what would a good person do?"  Don't get me wrong I didn't do this consciously it is the way I was raised in the church.  We also believed that turning the other cheek was what we should do and it is sometimes. 

I have always done the right thing even if it meant I took the brunt of the pain and suffering .  I was more comfortable being the sufferer than watching someone else suffer. I was comfortable being the martyr and in the end it got me a lot of sympathy when I had been trampled on. Woe is me once again jilted by someone that loved themselves better than they loved me.

I know this seems really harsh but it is true. As Christians we were raised that it is our place to be persecuted.  It is also convenient to dismiss our part in being left maybe no one wants to live with a doormat. I threw in the the christian part because that is how I was raised.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  I do live by this most of the time without being a doormat.

Jesus was not a passive man if you are using him for the christian example.  He broke every rule of his time and he ultimately died for it.  He questioned every standard set by the rule makers and the passive way that everyone went along with them. I like the idea that he was a radical.

Back to my own experience.  I have learned that being the victim and being mad at the other person for choosing themselves is a  dead end street.  I had to get over feeling like somehow I was a better person for staying way too long and ultimately feeling grateful that the other person had the guts to leave. Harsh again.  People have a right to choose themselves.

As a repeat victim I felt comfortable in the role.  I don't see myself as a victim anymore and if I participate in something it is because I want to do it and not because a good person would do it. If it starts to take a toll on me then I have to stop.  I have to take care of myself and expect the other person to do the same.

I know I am bringing up Jesus again but I realized that most of the miracles he performed he did ask the person to have some skin in the game.  They had to show their commitment to their own healing. by their faith or every doing some ritual they thought was beneath them. Sometime he made the state the obvious "I am blind." Then he would perform the miracle. Maybe a sacrifice of humility.

Lately I have felt on the extreme giving side without appreciation. First my job is like that daily and then in my personal life too. I have withdrawn to take care of my side of the street. This way I can know my own motives and stop expecting something in return.

My therapist remarked that I needed to get things moving and stop be stagnant. My neighbor said the same thing to me today.  Talking about her family she said "they needed to get out of the stagnant swamp and back into the river."  I love metaphors as you know so that really stuck with me and will help me get un-stuck.