Insights and Thoughts

Sacrifice refers to the practice of offering something for a greater cause, like that of a victory.  An example of this are soldiers who sacrifice their lives for their country.  But if we had better leaders, would we need to sacrifice people at all?  

 "Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers." - Simon Sinek. 

Evidence of animal sacrifice to gods has been in practice since the beginning of time which is no wonder people are born into the world with the belief a sacrifice has to be made to gain the desired outcome. 

Throughout the ages people of great influence would have us believe this also. It was Napoleon himself who said ‘You can never gain something if you don’t sacrifice something of equal value’. With this expectation, experience shows us everything comes with a price and this is what the world is now manifesting!

These beliefs carried out for the greater good, have led to the creation of saints, heroes and martyrs at the costs of their own lives.  While the extreme of these beliefs on a mass level, have led to the loss of a culture, language, race and even the extinction of a species.  Often when political and religious beliefs are thrown into the mix, our individual beliefs are dominated by the beliefs of the masses with little regard for the harm caused to the few.

We understand sacrificing for the greater good but we see all too often sacrificing others for personal gain.   It’s as little as ‘throwing someone under the bus’ to gain personal achievement, to sacrificing an entire community for corporate or political gain.  

What has been very clear in our healings is you don’t need to sacrifice yourself or others to be worthy of receiving or being accepted. The world does not need a sacrifice for you to enjoy a happy life. 

SOME THOUGHTS YOU MAY HAVE WHEN YOU’RE SACRIFICING AT AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL ARE:

Everything comes at a cost

• To move forward something must be sacrificed

• I can have this but only at the expense of that

• You have to be the sacrifice on behalf of others so they can move forward (martyrdom)

• I’m always the one who has to make a sacrifice

• One step forward comes with two steps backwards

• When they tell me I have to compromise they actually mean I’m going to have to  sacrifice something

• I have to give up my own belief system for someone else

• I know there will be ‘pay back’ for this at some stage

• God won’t love me unless I sacrifice something

• I have to give up time with my children to work so I can give them a better life than I had

SACRIFICE ON A MASS LEVEL CAN MEAN:

Mass belief or action which at the extreme can lead to the loss of a culture, war or even genocide. The sacrifice of:

• one culture and/or language for another 

• cultural beliefs for religious ones i.e you can’t have both

• cultural belief in the name of Jesus, Allah etc.

• people who kill themselves for a cause 

• people who are killed for a cause (e.g. the ones killed in the name of god/religion or political beliefs etc)

• individuality (e.g. communism)

SACRIFICING OTHERS FOR PERSONAL GAIN (EITHER AT AN INDIVIDUAL OR MASS LEVEL) CAN MEAN:

• Sacrificing a life (people or animals) as an offering to gain something in return

• Sacrificing a community for individual, corporate or political gain

• Thinking it’s okay to sacrifice others for your own gain:

• throwing people under the bus

• getting someone to like you at the expense of someone else

• doing something underhanded for your own gain to the detriment of others