If the level of involvement of a person who has an empathetic attitude towards the other is excessive (either by intensity or frequency), he risks what some authors call the “messiah trap”: loving and helping others, forgetting to love and helping themselves.
The messiah trap feeds on people who are excessively involved in the suffering of others, following the motto: “If I don’t do it, no one will. ” In this sense, if we take into account only opinions, desires and emotions. for others, coexistence will become unequal.
- From this point of view.
- Putting yourself in each other’s place cannot be confused with becoming in each other’s place.
- Somehow this journey of empathy is necessary to understand the other.
- But it can also be really dangerous when trapped with others.
People who believe that the needs of others always take precedence over their own, allow others to condition their actions by neglecting themselves. The problem is that this ina lack of attention cannot be supplemented by the care others provide, or the person will need others to give you much more important attention so as not to notice the lack. Something that, on the other hand, rarely happens.
We don’t need the help of others as much as trust in this help
For those who have fallen into the messiah’s trap, compassion becomes their way of offering love, no one forces them to care for others. They tend to get along very well with people who seek care or need treatment, repeatedly entering into unbalanced personal relationships and feeding addictions.
At this point when our lives begin to be the last thing we care about, because we are still waiting for the lives of others, we end up facing situations of real internal conflict, feelings of confusion, constant suffocation and, in some cases, even states of depression not being able to handle everything.
In order not to enter these negative emotional states it is worth remembering that the needs of others must first be met by themselves, and although there is nothing wrong with helping if it is in our hands, it is they, in the end, must do so and that responsibility must fall on them. Also, if you want to offer real help, it’s critical that you take care of yourself, otherwise you won’t have enough strength to be really useful.
Every time we forget about ourselves, we stop doing something we want to do something that others want. What drives us to always be waiting for the needs of the people around us: love, fear of rejection, the need to reaffirm or be recognized, to feel guilty?
Trying to get along with everyone, putting others’ ideas before our own, doing favors we don’t want to do and that we even have a good reason not to do, never asking for the help of others so as not to disturb, and taking care of others People, but not ourselves, are behaviors that manifest themselves when we care for others out of fear , feelings of guilt or need for recognition. It is at this time that we fall into the “messiah trap” and that we can suffer considerable damage during this fall.
A monk, imbued with the Buddhist doctrine of love and compassion for all beings, found on his pilgrimage a wounded and hungry lioness, so weak that he could not even move. Around him, newborn lions moan as they try to extract a drop of milk from their dry nipples. The monk fully understood the pain, helplessness and helplessness of the lioness. Not just for her, but especially for her little ones. Then he lay down next to her, offering to be devoured and thus save the life of the mother and the calf.
Buddhist history clearly shows the risk of excessively engaging in the suffering of others in interpersonal relationships, a visible risk in this heavy burden carried by people who rarely look inward and listen to their own requests for help. to love and have nothing for themselves, until that same emptiness gradually ends with them, without being able to identify very well what makes them suffer.
“Help your fellow men carry your weights, but do not consider yourself compelled to carry it for them. -Pythagoras-