Chronic Self-sacrifice: Learn To Value Yourself

Chronic self-sacrifice can cause you to lose yourself. You are a human being, and it is normal to want to invest your time and energy in other people and things. However, you must understand that even if you mean well, chronic self-sacrifice will wear you out.

If you think you will definitely sacrifice your beliefs and personal values ​​because of what others want or say, think again. Do not take it lightly to forgive your ideas and deny yourself because of other people.

What is chronic self-sacrifice?

Sacrificing yourself for others and devoting yourself completely to one cause can mean two things:

• The need to overcome a value conflict. Your own and the person or people you sacrifice yourself for.
• Accepting to give up on yourself. To give up your ideas, needs or desires.

Sacrifice comes when you have to give up your well-being or stop caring for your own needs for someone else or something else. Self-sacrifice goes beyond this. It’s about giving a part of yourself.

Since self-sacrifice consists in denying yourself certain needs or personal desires, it essentially means giving away an important part of yourself. It consists in letting go of your dignity and even your identity at times.

Although people tend to value altruism, it can be taken to extreme lengths when people sacrifice themselves. Also when the person who sacrifices himself loses part of his well-being.

Therefore, self-sacrifice can sometimes be disruptive or dysfunctional for those who give up everything.

When self-sacrifice becomes pathological altruism

The list of examples of self-sacrifice is endless. Some examples are the people who sacrifice themselves without thinking about a certain situation. The parents who live for their children and the people who surrender themselves completely to their partners, who give up their own happiness and well-being.

The problem comes when someone sacrifices themselves to a pathological level. These people risk losing their essence.

Self-sacrifice is synonymous with underestimating yourself. If this means a change in value and the person believes that they are worthless, this can become a pathological situation.

Chronic self-sacrifice can become pathological altruism, in which the person believes they are not worthy and stops respecting themselves.

This loss of essence can lead to them never satisfying their own needs and instead putting the opinions of others above everything else. This can lead to negative thoughts.

In practical terms, this can put people in a state of complete disrespect for themselves. In addition, they may lose their values, not be able to think rationally and have low self-esteem. In short, chronic self-sacrifice can remove the qualities that make people who they are.

How do you know if you’re giving too much?

Some signs can help you discover if you are giving too much of yourself:

• When you help someone, you realize that you do not have enough time, energy or resources to spend on yourself.
• When you put other people’s needs above your own, you begin to feel guilty.
• Sometimes you feel empty inside. This suggests that you are not satisfying your own needs for love, care and attention.
• You constantly feel the need to make some kind of sacrifice to keep people happy.
• Your self-sacrifice has become a chore, whereas before it was something you did voluntarily.

• You often find that you say yes when you know you should say no.

Authors like Ayn Rand suggest a strategy to counteract the tendency to sacrifice yourself: Strengthen your personal and moral ambition. Basically, this means that you have to convince yourself that you deserve the right to feel worthy. Think aloud about yourself and that no one is more important than you.

In short, take care of yourself so you do not lose yourself to chronic self-sacrifice. Practice so-called controlled selfishness to avoid losing yourself!