Ep 34 - Q&A: Real-Life Ayurveda, Ritual Burnout & Letting Go of Excessive Self-Sacrifice

Episode 34: Q&A: Real-Life Ayurveda, Ritual Burnout & Letting Go of Excessive Self-Sacrifice

In this Q&A episode, I’m answering some of your questions - from how to navigate “non-Ayurvedic” choices in real life, to avoiding burnout from daily rituals, to understanding the deeper pattern of self-sacrifice.

I also take a moment to celebrate a milestone: 2,500+ downloads of the podcast. Thank you for being here and for listening, whether you tune in every week or drop in from time to time!

In this episode, we explore:

•  The “80/20” approach to Ayurveda
• Why aiming for perfection can actually create imbalance (especially for Pitta)
• How to build a strong, supportive foundation without rigidity
• The role of pleasure (kāma) as a legitimate and necessary part of health
• Why occasional “non-Ayurvedic” choices can support resilience 
• Real-life examples of flexibility
• Food choices in social settings (and how to stay out of anxiety)
• Parenting and guiding habits without rigidity
• Travel, unpredictability, and making the “best available” choice (even at fast food stops)
• Avoiding Ayurvedic routine burnout
• Why burnout often comes from over-prescription or over-ambition
• The importance of capacity, joy, and personalisation
• How to simplify your routine to core practices that truly matter
• Reconnecting with meaning and creating a sense of relationship with your rituals
• Moving beyond self-sacrifice
• Understanding the dynamics of Karpman’s Drama Triangle
• How the “rescuer” pattern leads to burnout, resentment, and disempowerment
• Why self-sacrifice doesn’t actually serve you or others
• Practical reflections to step out of chronic self-sacrifice 

Key reflections from this episode

• You don’t need to get Ayurveda “100% right” to benefit from it
• A strong foundation matters more than perfect execution
• Pleasure, flexibility, and adaptability are part of true balance
• Fewer practices, done with intention, are more powerful than doing everything
• Your wellbeing is not separate from how you show up for others

Resources & references

• LifeSpa Podcast by John Douillard
• Karpman’s Drama Triangle

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• 📧 Email: hello@leanonayurveda.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Download Milestone

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi and welcome to the Lenan Ayurveda Podcast. Here we explore how the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda can help us gain a deeper understanding of our body and open the gateway to finally feeling better.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hello and welcome to episode 34 of the Lina Ayurveda podcast. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Vitote, I'm your host, and for today I will be answering some of the questions that I received from my audience. But before we begin, I wanted to have a little celebratory moment because at the time of recording this episode, I had just learned a few days ago that this podcast has crossed the 2.5 thousand downloads mark. So I want to thank all active listeners across the globe because we have active listeners on every single continent. And I'm just so grateful that you guys are there tuning in. And some of you are tuning in quite religiously as soon as the new episode drops, and some of you are revisiting, and some of you are um only dropping by every now and then, and whichever way um this podcast um is accompanying you, I am just so so thankful that you're there on the other side of the line, ready to receive what I am transmitting.

Human Made Podcasts In An AI Wave

SPEAKER_01 2:01

And actually, speaking of transmission, another thing that I recently learned from um my podcast platform provider, so you know the company that is hosting my podcast, is um they they did a study recently, and apparently around 46% of all new podcasts that are being launched right now are not even human. And this number was so shocking to me because that basically means like out of all the new podcasts that are being born right now, chances are half of them, like one out of two, is not human, is like run by an AI bot or whatever, you know, it might be directed by a human, but like it doesn't have human heart and soul put into it. And um, I feel like you know, since for me having that um like retaining humanity in this work is important. I I find it's important. Um, and I know not everyone does, uh, and that's okay, but since it is important to me, I also wanted to say that whatever you hear on this podcast um is spoken by me in my real voice, sitting in my real home office with my real mic, and it has been um planned by me. It has been um, you know, the the prompts that I have they come from my brain, my own imperfect human brain. Um and so yeah, I feel like it's important to say that. And it could be that I changed my mind in in the future. I don't know. I don't know where the future holds, but for now, that is important for me. It's important for like when I choose my own podcasts, um, for me the human the human factor is very important. Like I would not it would not occur to me to listen to a podcast that was not essentially a human transmission. Um, so I wanted to leave it out here and tell you that when you tune into Lina and I Rada podcast, you're getting the human stuff.

How Listener Q And A Works

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Okay, so we are going to look at some some of the questions that you guys have sent me through um it was through Instagram that I did um I did this um you know call for questions and answers. Um, but know that if you have a question, you can always that you would like me to cover or like a topic that you find would be so interesting to learn about or explore, you can always send me an email. I'll put my email address in the show notes, uh, or send a note to me via Instagram uh or even via Facebook, and uh and I will you know collect these and every now and then I will gather them all in a QA episode. Alright, so let's go.

Wellness Performances And Honest Living

SPEAKER_01 5:40

The first question was such a good question. What's the one non-aiuretic thing you still do? I love it because I think this question points to the inner knowing, I think, that we might have that no one is perfect, right? That we're all human and no one is doing things a hundred percent. No one is like super human, right? And also the fact that like this question is coming from um somebody who follows my social media account. Um, I mean, my social media account is like sometimes it's more active, sometimes it's less active. It it's not a place where I am putting um most of my, you know, where I'm investing most of my time for sure. But I think what tends to happen, at least in in the wellness um industry, in the wellness uh world on social media, is that you know, we like the way we share as professionals, like I I will share um, you know, an Ayurveda practice that I do, or I will share like you know, a text or a book that I am studying, or I will share something, you know, by a teacher who I'm learning from. And so we receive these like tiny snippets of our life, and we might um, you know, as an audience, we might like build a certain image of somebody thinking that is like all that they do, right? Thinking that like they're living this super Ayurvedic life that is outside of my reality, right? Which is you know, like a different reality. Like, I I can argue with that. Um I can see how that could be true in a way, like when we compare the realities of people who um you know who might have different lifestyles, but what I want to say is what you see on social media, whether it's you know my account or anybody else's account, you only see a tiny sliver. And you know, you you can take it as like as um like breadcrumbs of the totality, right? But no one sees the totality, right? And then it becomes um like I want to say a question of like honesty and honor of the person, of the professional, right, that you know they need to make sure that they are the embodied version, right? And they're not being performative, right? So that's that's like another thing that can happen um on social media in the wellness world, right? That we are like doing this stuff to like snap a picture, right? Um, I mean you see this also with like travel, you know, people go to places just to take a selfie, and then there's nothing left of the travel experience. The same as in the wellness world. Um you know, if if you're like doing a practice so that you could document it, um that is you know, that is not embodied living, right? That is not very Ayurvetic, and I'm not like I'm sure people do this. I have like I have caught myself doing this a few times, and immediately when I did, I was like, okay, it's time for me to go on a social media break. So I'm very careful to make sure that um what I do and when I do document a practice, that it's the practice is not being done so that I can document it. I'm I make sure that I document the practice because the practice is embodied and I want to share it. Okay, so that's one thing on embodiment that I wanted to say.

Building An 80/20 Ayurvedic Foundation

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And then I also want to say that there are a million non-Ayurvedic things that I do, there isn't one thing, there are lots, and sometimes they are big things and sometimes they are tiny things, right? And I think the important thing here is um not necessarily to like view your Ayurvedic path as like now I have to get everything right, right? But kind of aiming for a foundation, right? Aiming for a foundation of rhythm, a foundation for your nutrition, that most of the time what you're eating is adapted to your birth constitution and your current state of um you know doshic balance or imbalance, whatever that may be. And you know, that nutrition, the way you the way you um nourish yourself also reflects um what is appropriate um in terms of the season that you're in, right? So this is like the foundation. Also, part of the foundation is um, you know, how do you use your energy? How do you uh how do you adapt your output of energy to the current needs of your body, right? How do you input your energy? How do you replenish yourself? Right? That is part of the foundation. Um how do you um respect your emotional needs, right? Um like do you give yourself space and time and resources and support to move through emotions, to digest emotions, right? So there are these foundational pieces, and um the way that it's helpful for me to think about it is like your foundation is 80% of what you do, right? This is what you can be aiming for. That most of the time you will be doing what is appropriate, most of the time you will be doing the right thing, and then every now and then you will be doing what you you know might desire to do, but that is not necessarily in alignment with what your body needs. Like 20% of the time you can be doing the naughty thing, and I argue that it's actually really healthy to keep this balance, it's really healthy for us to digress every now and then, right? So long as that digression does not become the norm, and then it it like feeds into the 80%, and then the 80% becomes lower and lower and lower, and then your digression, the like the naughty thing that you do, I mean I'm calling it naughty, like let's say the non-aiuratic thing, um, is taking up more and more space, right? So there we uh we definitely would want to look at that, but um I have seen where you know when when there is this desire to get things 100% right, um I have seen how it can become detrimental. So in Ayurveda speech, what this can drive is a pitta imbalance, right? A rigidity in a person when we're no longer able to adapt to what is happening, and part of the benefits of living an iur a balanced Auretic lifestyle is that we're more able to adapt, right? And adaptation is um you know it's it's the opposite of rigidity, it's letting go of that rigidity and seeing okay, this is happening, how do I move with it, right? So that I don't break. Let me give um a recent example

Pleasure Versus Nutrient Calculations

SPEAKER_01 15:06

of this. I think this will illustrate this for you well. So recently I went with some girlfriends to a Japanese tea house where they also had like beautiful Japanese desserts, okay, mainly with like matcha powder and they were really cool. Um and so we're standing, um, we're standing in, you know, by the counter and like ordering our stuff, and um a friend of mine who is very much into wellness, she was getting worked up and anxious about choosing the healthiest of the desserts available, right? And she was like really getting into um, you know, which one would have more less sugar and which one would have like more fiber, and like this experience that was supposed to be all about pleasure, right, for her became this anxious, rigid experience. She ended up picking something, I don't know to what extent she enjoyed it. Uh, but I think all the back and forth that she was having and like weighing the and you know, that no longer, in in my view, was a source of pleasure. It was more like, okay, what can I get that is going to be the least detrimental, right? And there is value in that. I will later talk about um about an event where I use the same reasoning because I felt I had to. Um so I'll come back to that. But when, you know, when when an experience is about pleasure, being like, you know, trying to be rigid in like calculating like what is truly best for me, that sucks the joy out of that experience, I think, right? And so then we don't get the benefit of the pleasure, and that's also not Ayurvedic. So what is more Ayurvedic? We could argue, right? Is it more Ayurvedic to eat a cupcake, a sugary cupcake, but that you have chosen it with joy and like anticipation, and so you know, your like you know, your your body is like anticipating with you know excretion of saliva and like the gastric juices start to flow because you're looking at it and you're like, ooh, I want this, this looks so delicious, right? Um and you eat it with like joy in your heart, right? Or is it more iuretic to get something that is more nutritionally uh beneficial, but you are eating what eating it with something, you know, somewhat like partial insatisfaction, because it's not what you wanted, right? You ended up taking a calculated option, right? And and there is so much value in taking the calculated option most of the time, but if if sometimes you're not able to not take the calculated option, right, then this whole sense of karma, pleasure, which is one of um one of the four aims of life in the Vedic tradition. That is one of the four what they call purusartas, one of the four aims of the human experience, is to experience pleasure, right? We want our food to feel pleasurable, it does not mean that we um, you know, have cupcakes all the time, right? We need to learn to find the pleasure in the foods that are good for us 80% of the time, but there is so much value in digressing every now and then, because it we can practice that letting go, right? We can practice that trust. And here's another thing, like this idea of trust, right? That every now and then I know my body can handle this or that. For instance, Dr. John Duyard, who has done a lot of scientific research um to back IRED concepts, so he has a podcast as well, which I really recommend. It's called the Life

Trusting Agni Beyond Elimination Diets

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Spa podcast. Um talks about how you know when we constantly live on elimination diets, right? So we avoid sugar, we avoid gluten, we avoid uh what you know, lactose, um eventually what happens is our body loses the ability to digest these things. And so, of course, if you have a medical condition that requires that, sure, that's appropriate. But you know, more and more people are just avoiding these things, and instead of focusing on their on building their capacity to digest better, instead of focusing on rebuilding their digestifier, their agni, that would be more powerful to digest these things, such as gluten, um they are eliminating it entirely, and you know, eventually our body like loses its capacity to deal with that. Right? Um, and so it's this idea that every now and then we need to trust our bodies, right? That they'll be fine, and we can do the naughty thing and we can enjoy whatever it is that we want to enjoy. It's absolutely legitimate to want to do the naughty thing every now and then right there is no need to um to like carry shame around it even if you are somebody like who you know who perceives themselves as quite far down you know down the Ayurvedic path um you also have the right to digress right so long as that digression that non-Ayurvedic thing does not interfere with your body working as it should over time right so that's again this idea that that we keep it at more or less 20% and and you see how you divide that 80 20 whether that's like daily whether that's by weekday whatever you find that

Popcorn Nights And Habit Awareness

SPEAKER_01 22:55

is good for you so for example um one of the things that is non-Ayuretic that I do is um I have popcorn with my kids on Friday nights so usually that's after dinner uh the ayurvedic thing would be do not eat after dinner um also because it's the kuffa time of day right so those of you who are familiar with the Ayurveda clock if you've worked with me before um it could be that we worked on the Ayurveda clock specifically for you so that is the time when digestion is slower when our metabolism is slower so it's not advised to eat after dinner right um yet on Friday nights I have the popcorn and I love it and my my body like it doesn't um um like I I don't see the struggle right I'm not like constipated the next day or I'm not bloated afterwards um my body just deals with it and what I get out of it is this like cool bonding tradition with my kids now would I make it um a daily tradition no so for example my son he was um he he at some point he started asking me for what he what he calls a midnight sandwich it's very cute it's a very cute concept but um one evening he had um like um like a slice of bread with butter and honey I think he was having like some milk and he was still feeling hungry and so he had this like sandwich he called it the midnight sandwich it wasn't at midnight but it because it was a school night so it was probably at around like 8 30 p.m and he liked it and so then he started asking for that every night and what um I am directing him towards is like you know you you had this a few times but let's not allow this to become your daily habit because it's not good for your body to be receiving food this late just before when you're about to go to sleep. And it's okay if you do it like every now and then we're not gonna stress about it we're not gonna be rigid about it like if some days you're really really hungry but when I see that you are wanting to adopt this as a habit and also you know again who was asking I know my son he is very much a habit person so it takes him a long time to get into a habit but once he's in a habit so he definitely has this coffer side of um uh you know of of his um constitution it takes him a very like it takes him a lot of effort to modify the habit or to make it go away so I'm like I have a lot of awareness about like what habits he's forming right so that is just another example like every now and then I will let him enjoy to do the thing that he wants to do right um and that is not necessarily like beneficial in the Ayurvetic sense but when I see it's becoming a habit I will try to uh provide alternatives that might be Ayurvically more friendly right so in in this case of like midnight sandwich I might propose that to him right after dinner for example that would be more Ayurvetic than waiting after dinner and then eating it right before bed I want to give one more example that I think it's probably the most shocking example from my life but it's real life you know um and I feel like I need to share it to kind of take pressure off people.

Road Trips When Options Are Bad

SPEAKER_01 27:39

So we do a lot of road trips and our road trips um because we have family um on like opposing sides of Europe so when we travel to see them it's you know two days of driving one way and um sometimes we drive through countries that um you know usually what I'll do for road trips is like um we'll plan out um food to take with us for the first day and then the second day we we we just kind of like stop and eat on the way um and sometimes that second day will coincide with driving through a country that doesn't necessarily have the best food options um that are available where we you know where we have to stop and charge the car because our stops are quite um well defined um because they're like specific spots where we where we're stopping and then we need to like stay there and wait until the car is charged. So um one of these places is Germany um and and there it's really difficult to find you know at least where our stopping points are it's really difficult to find Auretic options or anything that would feel even remotely auretic especially if it coincides with our second day where we don't have the food prepared and so um what happened um I think was it last summer it was one of the um uh one of the road trips we did I think last um last year in an event um is that we ended up having to eat like two meals or was it even three meals at fast food restaurants that day this happened and I had to survive it because there was nothing else and I think actually it it was also a public holiday so anything else that was like you know it was closed um and you know that was just the circumstances that I was confronted with so when I'm traveling with my family and when my kids are hungry I in this situation like I had two choices you know I could stress about it I did stress about it a little bit I must say not at the first meal but probably second meal and maybe the third meal I was you know the irritation was there I won't lie but um also there was an opening in me to see how you know what is the best outcome I can get in the situation right so um for example I figured in McDonald's at least in Germany they have good tea options right so they have like they carry quite an okay tea brand that like goes beyond like you know the the very basic like yellow label and um and such and yeah I I can't remember what it was called I maybe it was clipper I don't know but it was one of those that was like decent and I was like okay at least I can have a digestive tea that's already good and then I ended up um I can't remember what I picked uh it was probably like a wrap of some kind maybe like a veggie wrap something like that so you know in this situation I'm like okay I can stress about this and uh I will end up eating here because not eating is not an option either but I can eat this food um like you know having my brain and and my body in a doomsday scenario or I can eat this food knowing that I picked like the healthiest option that was available and plus I have a digestive tea you know so um for me that was a win now I won't lie it did not feel good overall right it's not an experience I would like to repeat um but it was a real experience you know and here I am an Ayurvedic counselor eating in McDonald's in Germany right at at the charging station um so you know these like we need to also remember that we don't live in an Ayurvedic society so it's inevitable that we will be thrown into situations like life will serve as situations whether that's with our friends with our family with like circumstances with your work whatever that will not feel Ayurvedic at all right but in those situations how can we move past the trigger noticing the trigger but also providing our our brains our hearts with this 20% option right um that yeah this is not ideal if I could choose you know I would not be doing this but this is what is right and what is the kindest thing for me to do and if my only option is to eat McDonald's right how can I eat this meal while my body is feeling safe that it's okay to to like do this this time it's okay you'll be fine right and maybe finding some gratitude and that will support your agony that will support your digestive capacity right so that meal will be much less damaging than eating it with guilt and shame and resentment you know that there aren't more Ayurvedic establishments around resentment that we had not planned well enough resentment that I don't know you know you your kids are actually happy this happened true story um yeah then again it doesn't mean that you don't learn from the experience right um you can still carry the lesson forward but when you're presented with non-ioretic circumstances like it's okay you know let that be part of your 20% and then you go back to your foundation the moment that you can all right let's move on to question number two oh

Avoiding Daily Ritual Burnout

SPEAKER_01 35:37

this is a good one how to avoid Ayurvedic daily ritual burnout ooh so good such a good one um first of all my thoughts are if we're talking about burnout something is happening where we are pushing through something that we don't necessarily want to do but we think we should do it so if you feel like you are burning out from Ayurvedic daily ritual my first question is how was your Ayurvedic daily ritual designed was it designed by you or was it designed by um like were you guided into it? Now if you were guided into it by a professional first of all did you give them feedback of what is working for you like was this process of building up your routine was there organic exchange between the two of you or was it merely prescriptive? Like did somebody say in order to address your imbalances you need to do this this this this this right and did you like take the list and you're like trying to implement if you're doing that if that is the process um that can be conducive to you feeling burnt out if your daily routine was like designed by you if you're the one who came up with it an interesting question to look at could be like were you perhaps too ambitious in terms of how many practices you need to take on right what's your true capacity right now we can also work on raising our capacity that's that's a different topic um and uh in in one-on-one context that is something that um can be addressed um but ultimately like do you feel that you should be doing all these things and why that is um I think one of the key things to ask ourselves because when we are when we are like well versed in the world of Ayurvada it can be it can feel like pressure right that you know as somebody who lives an Ayurvadic lifestyle I need to be like tongue scraping okay tongue scraping yes probably but like oil pulling and morning abyanga and morning red light and morning walk and uh you know breakfast made from scratch and it can very quickly escalate to the point where um where we feel that we're on the verge of a burnout right but I would say you know that's where like guidance can really help because chances are you don't need to be doing all these things that you're trying to do likely you would benefit more from doing less things but doing them with more intention and more pleasure right um so like have you spent time contemplating the joy and pleasure piece in your routine right have you infused Ayuritic ritual with joy and if there are thoughts about burnout lurking in the background chances are the joy piece is missing now not everything needs to be joyful in our routine some some rituals actually like are not joyful by definition. They might actually feel very like painful and full of grief like um having rituals for emotional digestion right um where we might be like writing something angry like as we're working with anger and like burning up that piece of paper and maybe like stomping on the ground or whatever our way of moving through anger may be so it's not to say that like every ritual needs to be infused with toxic positivity right that is not what I'm saying but it's also true that you know things that we all need to do right like brushing our teeth like going to bed like preparing our food right these are things that um just need to be done so contemplating how can I bring the joy into these like cornerstones cornerstone practices of my day that can be a helpful place to start if you want it. So it doesn't mean that you necessarily like need to put yourself in a state of like ecstatic happiness right um about I don't know chopping your vegetables or whatever it may be but maybe you manage to put yourself in a state like oh hey now it's time for this all right all right let's do this you know it's very different than thinking oh now my Ayurvedic routine says that this needs to be done so I'm gonna do it um I have I have a personal example for this one so this is actually in relationship to my spiritual practice which is part of my routine and I was getting to a point where my practice got like it felt a little repetitive it felt a little like autopilot and I started craving something something different you know I wanted it to be more like more feminine more free flowing more um more fun because it's something I do every morning right and so what I started to do over the years is I started to um work with my altar in like making it pretty because I sit in front of it every morning so I started bringing fresh flowers I started bringing offerings and of course I'm working with um a teacher as well who is um you know steeped in in the in in the Vedic tradition and so I'm I'm following also the Vedic calendar of celebration so that really helps but my point is when something felt uh like automatic or automated I should I should say and a little dry what helped me is developing a relationship with it right it feels now like there is a relationship between me and my altar and I look forward to like Cleaning it. I look forward to bringing fresh flowers for it. Like sometimes I will have this thought, like, oh, today is a good day to get nice flowers for my altar. What color am I gonna get? Which flower am I gonna get? How can I make this the best party for me? And then I'll I'd also look at like if you are feeling that um sense of the beginning of a burnout, I would look at like which rituals are actually necessary, right? What is like the bare minimum? Always when when we're an overwhelm, it really helps to go back to the basics, like what are the cornerstones? And these will be like you know, morning hygiene in the morning, and uh probably lunch and and having a regular dinner and a bedtime. These could be your cornerstones, right? That foundation, and so really learning to love these, right? As as I did with my altar, like how can I make these a party for me? So I did this exercise with a client recently who um was having some trouble with her bedtime routine, like she um the the routine that she had wasn't working, and she would always find herself avoiding it, you know, and doing anything else that would not actually lead her to go to bed at the right time. And so, you know, as as we were working on that, one of the things I had her do is I had her make a list of all of the different ways that she her immediate family and her extended family are going to win when she has a good night's sleep. Right? So, and as she started brainstorming, she came up with a lot of things, you know, for her health, um, like how how her body would feel better, how she would be able to make wiser choices the next day and do less snacking, and how um you know how different she would parent if she was rested, and how that would affect her relationship with her husband, um, if she were more patient and more energized the next day. And the list went on and on. And so by the end, she was really convinced that having a more supportive bedtime routine is actually incredibly meaningful, right? So that's another way of like if you're finding yourself in a situation where you're resisting something that you know would be good for you, is like finding as many ways as possible and really writing them out in detail of how that will help you once you get that result. And one last thought I will offer is that the number of practices that we accomplish throughout the day does not define us, right? It does not make you like a better um Ayurveda student or you know a better Ayurvedic practitioner if your list is longer than somebody else's, right? So that's I think an important hurdle to uh to surpass in our brain to tell it that you know quantity does not mean quality, and ultimately, Ayurvedic ritual is infused with meaning and meaning that is personal for you because that ritual is appropriate for you, and it's designed to support your body, your mind, your senses, and your soul. So, really going back to the why because it might very well be that you know the number of practices that you're engaging in could be less, but done with more joy and more meaning, more aliveness infused into them. All right, let's do one last question.

Escaping The Self Sacrifice Cycle

SPEAKER_01 48:46

How to move past the pattern of self-sacrifice? So, this is a common one, I think, for many, especially among women, and I have this is a pattern I have lived and experienced um for a long time. This is a pattern I see many of my clients experience, especially in the you know professional realm. So the first thing I want to say is um recognizing that when we stay in the space of self-sacrifice, that is exactly where we stay. Um, there is a very helpful concept here. Um it's called Carpman's Drama Triangle. I don't know if you've heard about it, but if you haven't, it's a really useful tool to explore and kind of understand this dynamic. Um when we are in a self-sacrifice mode, we are a rescuer. And so this drama triangle, it's um made up of three roles. So there is a rescuer, there is a victim, and there's a perpetrator. And the idea is that like all of these different roles, they are interchangeable, but as long as one of them is activated, it means we are in the triangle and we're just moving between different roles and we're not outside the triangle, right? So like we we stay in this dynamic of being the rescuer, the victim, or the perpetrator, right? Because when we are um sacrificing ourselves, we're giving up something in order to save others, even though you know there's obviously like situations where we all need to do that, right? Especially if you're a mother, you will know that um there is a fair amount of self-sacrifice that comes with that, right? But if we are repeatedly putting ourselves in the situation of self-sacri-sacrifice, what happens? Let's take this example of work, right? That um like a narrative I hear often from clients is like um I may be, you know, sleep deprived, I may be feeling under the weather, but my work, I make sure that my work doesn't suffer. And um if we are repeating this scenario, right? I give to my work before I pay attention to my health, for example, we are like the rescuer for the team, right? The rescuer for for the colleagues. Um, if we're like super available, everyone can count on us 24-7. Ultimately, we will feel victimized, right? Ultimately, we will feel resentful, right? We will become a victim, and then we will be on the victim corner of the triangle, and we will be there for a while until we can no longer take it, until we snap and lash out, and that is when we will become a perpetrator, right? That is when we will have like a burst of anger and we'll like lose our temper or however else it might um express, you know, through like passive aggressivity, but at some point a victim will snap, and so we keep on traveling in this triangle. So if we're finding ourselves in the space of constant self-sacrifice, if this is a pattern that feels alive, it means you are probably moving in that triangle from position to position, right? And the first thing that needs to happen is awareness that you are in this triangle. It's like a vicious circle, a vicious triangle in a way. And what can be helpful for like this rescuer martyr position is becoming aware where am I trying to fix things when it's not my role to fix them, where perhaps it's not appropriate for me to put my nose into things, right? Where is my help not solicited, but I still make sure I put myself out there? Is it really my place? Do I really feel I need to do this? Because usually what is behind that, like we the society might and we might perceive it as like going an extra mile. But usually what is behind that is you know the reality of wanting to be liked, wanting to be celebrated, approved of, wanting to be worthy, right? But ultimately, we are driving ourselves into victimhood when we do that continuously, and we're also robbing others of an opportunity to feel empowered. Because if our relationship, let's use this work example again, if we are fueling this relationship of dependency on us, right, others can't be empowered. So there is a part of us that might feel worthy because others are relying on us, and that is sometimes appropriate, and a lot of times it's unnecessary, right? So Cartman's drama triangle is a great concept to explore if this pattern feels familiar to you, and also it's important to realize that like when we are in this space of self-sacrifice, right? When you know whether it's about work or whether it's about like we're always giving to, you know, um giving to others, but not not fueling ourselves, right? Um, no one's winning. No one's winning. You're not winning, but others are not winning either. Right? Because if you're playing the rescuer, it means others are victims. That they can't fend for themselves. If you're playing the victim, others are rescuers or perpetrators. Right? And if you're the perpetrator, others are victims. And all of these situations are really sucky. None of them are great, none of them feel good, not for you, not for another person. So this is what can be helpful is first to acknowledge that this is a pattern you're repeating, and second of all, when we're looking at stepping away from the triangle, if you identify with you know your behavior with these rescue your patterns, really asking yourself, where are you offering help where it's not solicited? Right? What is necessary to do and what is not necessary so that you would have more resources to take care of yourself, right? To take care of what needs to be taken care of in your own backyard, right? So that would be um my first take on this pattern of self-sacrifice. I hope

Work With Me And Closing

SPEAKER_01 57:31

this was interesting for you. I hope this was helpful. If you would be interested to work with me in the context of my one-on-one 12-week Ayurvedic program called Awaken Your Health. Don't hesitate to book a call. That is a free call. You can find it uh via the link in the show notes. And there we simply get together, we talk about the challenges that you're going through, we talk about what it is that you're seeking, what it is that you're looking for when it comes to eye writing guidance, and then we see if my program is a good fit for you. So I am wishing you a beautiful day. Thank you for listening until the end. If you enjoyed this episode, don't hesitate to leave me a review or a rating. Share it with a friend, share it on social media. That always really helps support my work and to make sure that it reaches more people.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Thank you for being here. See you next time.