Finally listening to John beyond my ego about what is possible with the kitchen bench top.
I had an awesome time explaining ‘listening beyond ego’ on my first radio appearance on The Stepmom’s Toolbox Radio Show about Death to Martyrdom. It is a show all women should listen to as the ego plays havoc with the listening of martyrs. By saying all this I am surpassing my ego who says; “Oh stop showing off.” However my heart centered self is proud and very grateful to Peggy and Erin for this chance to speak up! Ha, take that ego!
It is amazing that we are doing ‘it’ all the time and yet we know so little about what we are doing when that ‘it’ is listening.
At least that is my personal impression and from your comments this week to Monday’s post; Listening beyond what your ego wants to hear it is your impression as well.
You all had various takes on my declaration that:
The ego doesn’t actually listen. The ego judges and projects. Do not be fooled, the ego will never be capable of any quality listening. Never and thus we hardly ever access the wholesome ‘what is so’ of the people around us.
SuZen acknowledged; “I have many stories of my ego’s talent for taking over my thoughts to the extent that I hear nothing else.” Oh SuZen your ability to observe is superb and probably the death of that overbearing ego behavior.
In situations like this I do listen to the wholesome 'what is so'.
Getting to the wholesome ‘what is so’, relies on quality communication which in turn relies on quality listening.
Quality listening relies on going past the censorship of our ego and that is where most of us get checkmated.
Although I talk about listening, the ego doesn’t actually listen. The ego judges and projects. Do not be fooled, the ego will never be capable of any quality listening. Never and thus we hardly ever access the wholesome ‘what is so’ of the people around us. Quality listening is being able to see and understand the situation from someone else’s position, truly understand it, and going beyond projecting our own Little Voice’s (ego) thoughts as to what we think they think.
It is in the listening for the bigger picture that we can progress from an awkward situation to a win/win for everybody.
Our ego listens through massive filters, causing us to get stuck in awkward situations which quality listening would have solved in no time.
"Yeah, yeah your food is coming", but soon all this demanding work will be all over for this mother. Lucky her.
This is our second week of talking about martyrdom and I’ve still got plenty more to say on the skills required to become martyr free.
You certainly could see my point in this Monday’s post; How to kill of martyrdom, that children are takers and they will get their way with a martyr every time.
However children being takers is not the issue, they are only one of the many daily challenges that recovering martyrs have to face up to.
Diantha explained this clearly for us with her comment;
You are right about children (and husbands) taking until one is just a puddle on the floor. For years I thought it was THEIR fault until I wised up and realized I PLAYED INTO IT! Gulp. Truth can be a hard teacher…
Yes Diantha, the critical first step is to own up to the truth that we martyrs play into it. We allow children (and husbands) to take advantage of us. It is easy for us to look external to ourselves for the cause of our troubles. It is much tougher and requires honesty to recognize and acknowledge how we are the cause of our troubles.
I’d like to add, if you have martyr, people pleasing, doormat tendencies, you will play them out everywhere, not just within the family, but at work and with your friends as well.
How we cause ourselves to be treated as doormats is invisible to us. This is where we need gentle friends to support us and reflect back the wholesome ‘what is so’ of our martyr behavior.
No prolonged martyrdom here. After 17 days baby left home!
Despite my great mom I have been a martyr.
The first time I really got to see how ugly and stupid my martyrdom really was, I was in a state of shock.
I could not stop crying.
Real martyrs are effective and courageous while being a stand for a cause they firmly believe in.
True I did believe in a cause, a happy, close knit family but instead of a courageous fighter, I saw that I was a whimpering doormat, suffering to arouse sympathy with my feeble and ineffective attempts.
Oh to see that hard cold truth was incredibly confronting. Seeing I was an ineffective whimpering doormat shook me to the core.
I hate to say this, but most of us are whimpering doormats instead of courageous martyrs taking a firm stand for a happy family.
A family can only be guided to happiness by a strong happy basecamp.
I as a surrogate martyr – a doormat- only ‘keeps the peace’ at all cost, MY costs at MY expense.
‘ Keeping the peace’ is not about happiness but indicates a state of war and is about adversary.
Adversary drains us as just as much as living in a war zone does, so no wonder martyrs are tired.
Think about that!
Non ego-based strong base camps, nursing alpacas.
It is great to be back and seeing everyone getting back into the swing of things with the contributions to this Monday’s post on ‘Is martyrdom dead yet?’.
In your comments there was plenty of evidence that martyrdom is still alive and well with Kristie and SuZen recognizing it in their mothers; SuZen even attributing ‘PHD’ status to her mother’s martyrdom. Does that say something or not?
Peggy recognizes only too well that stepmoms are a special case as;
They are sucked into being a martyr – because they think they have to give up everything and give their all to eradicate the cultural stereotype that stepmothers are wicked, evil, nasty vile creatures. Stepmoms beat themselves up, second guess everything, put everyone’s needs in front of their own and seethe with resentment and anger.
Joy observed; “Martyrdom is so alive and rampant–I hear talk among my friends and they are burnt out, exhausted..”
Then went on to observe about herself;
… in all honesty I was falling into my own martyrdom trap, waiting on someone hand and foot because I felt obligated. This helps no one, erodes good, and puts negative energy out there. Once I recognized it–quite quickly–I stopped it.
My mother's ring, oozing my mother's self care and self worth.
Is Martyrdom dead yet?
You wish now we have dishwashers, education & careers and the word ‘equality’ in our vocabulary.
But is it?
Are we confident providers, do we set ourselves up to be a well resourced basecamp capable of supporting everybody without depleting ourselves, losing out on fun in life and avoiding being resentful?
Hmm.
Although we all have great intentions to be the best basecamp for our families, we are NOT getting the importance of keeping basecamp strong, of looking after ourselves.
Most of us still go for martyrdom, most of us still tragically lose ourselves under the strain of all we have taken on.
We become grumpy while our guilt increases when having nasty thoughts about everybody and everything.
Many women still are drained and reluctant basecamps that are not much fun for anybody.
We all have seen people walking around as if on eggshells, afraid to trigger us off, haven’t we?
How many of us are sick of hearing our own nagging voices?
Haven’t we all heard partner’s or children exasperatedly asking us to please, please do something to bring our old smile back?
OUCH! and until all that stops and our complaints are no longer showing up in the bloggosphere, martyrdom is alive and well I am afraid.
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