Martyrdom

When you are on a journey of self discovery, you tend to sit back and observe the world from a different angle. I have been on an eye opening spiritual journey for the last 12 years, and it has given me a lot of insight into the subtle nuances of trending behaviors in humanity.

Something that I’ve been watching for quite some time now, is how it has become fashionable to be a victim of something. And worse, how that gets exploited by people as a “fast track” system to some form of supposed “fame”.

Life is a journey of growth, a journey of evolution. In order to grow, we need to meet some resistance. Something to make us think, expand, something to act as catalyst for our growth. Now, when you are met with the reality of some of these unsavory events, you have one of two choices:

a. become a victim of what happened with you

b. face the reality of what happened and grow from it

The latter for me, being the ultimate show of character – it’s a testimony of the amazing being YOU are! But think about it, if you gained growth from the negative experience with this person – does it require any revenge? Isn’t that where forgiveness comes in? Is holding on to your idea of getting justice, worth you carrying the weight of both your pains? Is seeing someone “pay” for what they’ve done to you, the only way you will get peace or deal with the trauma?

In my younger years (before social media), one would often hear of people who lived through adversity and they would then turn their experience into a book. Next step – they would start to travel to small little towns across the country – with lets face it, often the most naive audiences across the country in South Africa. Their presence and the halo of having met a “famous” person, often blinded these audiences and it created an almost “cult like” following of the travelling nomad’s journey.

This was often done under the noble guise of wanting to inspire others to overcome the adversity they face in their life. But at what price? Not making your own new memories, but having to tell people your trauma over and over and over again, keeping you in a cycle or loop of trauma. Not able to move past, heal and move on? That sounds a lot like self abuse to me?

With the power of social media available at the tips of our fingers, it seems that every second person who have faced a challenge, is trying to turn their opinion, their recollection of their trauma into a book or something to make them “famous”. And the subtext of that text is often: “I am a victim of so and so’s behaviour”. If you being a victim has made you into a public prosecutor, surely you are not as much of a helpless victim as you want the world to believe you are? We all go through MAJOR trauma in our lives! We all have to learn to overcome at some point in our lives. It’s a given – you will face adversity, its part of the contract to come to earth!

What I struggle to understand is: why do you want to keep replaying that cassette over and over into your future? Why do you want to drag that pain (legit or not) with you and let it determine what you are going to do today, next week and the week there after? Why do you want to monetize that pain? It makes no sense to me?

The sad part for me is that often this is often not handled as a private discussion between two parties. One party turns to public persecution, which always comes at the cost of someone else’s reputation. People who don’t know what truly happened, tend to hear a vague outline of a story and assume that the person(s) are guilty because “where there is smoke there is fire”. I’m sorry but there is no legal justice system in the world that would accept that argument. Good, hardworking people (who are often leaders/public figures) are black mailed by unknown adversaries because once a story/stigma is out there – it is out there. People just jump online and basically start gossip streams to try to capture the ears of an discerning audiences. Like rallying up a number of voices behind them to manipulate people to assist them in their revenge. Be careful who you lend your ears out to! Be careful who you put your weight behind!

I can’t tell you what to do, but I can recommend that you always act with wisdom: listen carefully to the victimhood and martyrdom in someone’s story. Because they normally don’t have just one story about where they were done in. It becomes a theme. And they NEVER have hurt someone themselves. They are always very noble and without blame. Again, I can’t tell anyone what to do but, one day – who knows, you might feel what it feels like to be falsely accused by someone. You (and your family) will live and feel the agony of the false prosecution and see what it feels like to live in a world where people don’t care about your side of the story, as long as it sells their papers, magazines and television programmes.

With victims I’ve seen – it’s almost like they subconsciously feel that their message to the world is not strong and catchy enough and they have to add trauma and victimhood to spice up the pot. In that process, multiple versions of the initial story gets told, facts get distorted and it ends up hurting people. This behavior ends up accumulating negative karma for the victim, therefor attracting more traumatic experiences. It creates a self perpetuating cycle of negative karma.

Personally, I never got the concept of riding your martyrdom to fame. It never appealed to me. Why do I want to write a book about my deepest trauma as a child? Why do I want to publish it for the world to see and worse, to remind me of that trauma that took place many years ago? It’s giving the perpetrator way more credit than what he/she deserves! I can’t even justify it to myself as “being a service to others who have gone through the same pain”. I don’t want to work with people by trauma bonding only? I want to work with people because I CARE and I SEE THEM! I want to work with people who want to be healed and move FORWARD with a healthy, happy, content life!

Every one’s situation is different and everyone’s lesson is different. It’s done, it’s over, it happened and I have whatever memory I can have as an 8 year old child. I learned from it can be that: it helped to keep me safe from unwanted sexual advances as a young adult. It helped me marry the right man. What the person did wasn’t right, it wasn’t necessary but it served a purpose in my life. End of story. Done!

Why do I want all the new people who meet me, to know that I am for instance “that famous author/public speaker with the XYZ trauma story”? I don’t want to be defined by my trauma! I want to be defined by my LIGHT! My joy, my smile, my courage, my service, my gifts! That is what I want people to see! I don’t want to be my story of hurt! I want to be my story of how I came to empowerment and when I am empowered, I don’t need thousands of voices behind me to make me stand tall. my voice alone will carry the authority required to bring justice in this world. My voice and love for myself is enough to lead me to a place of forgiveness and also, to look at places where I’ve hurt other people in my life. A big trap of this martyrdom is the halo effect it ignites in the victim. Everyone have hurt someone at some point. It’s easy to be blinded by your own pain so that you don’t see how you are hurting another. Approaching life from that moral high horse is never going to work out well.

I don’t want all of that to follow me around, forcing me to make certain decisions in order to upkeep a certain public persona! Listening to a person’s story might be interesting and “entertaining” once, perhaps twice but then humans move on. The general concentration span or engagement of humans in the same story is very short and your story/trauma just get’s something for people to move on from! Then you’ve put it out there, you’ve exposed yourself and you can never take it back!

I am not what happened to me, I am the beauty I chose to create in this world! If you are ready to stop re-reading the old hurtful chapters of your life, pop me an email or message and we can arrange for a warm cup of tea, a chat and a hug! It’s time to move on Brother/Sister! It’s time to create your new life!

Love and Moonlight,

Leonie