Anyone out there wondering how to make the leap from wanting to doing when it comes to being your true self?
It’s one of those good-on-paper things. Yes! Let’s be free! Let’s unclog our throats and speak our truth and wear clothes that are comfortable and dance like no one’s watching. Let’s say no to obligations and yes to ourselves. Let’s order what we really want to eat. Let’s love the age we are and the body we’re in.
As my teenagers would say: LET’S GO!
We run down the runway, gathering speed, ready for lift off!
But WAIT.
We have that thing and the other thing. People are expecting us. No one else is wearing clothes like this. What will people think? I can’t order that – did you see how many calories it has? And, oh yeah, I can’t dance.
The light turns red. There are stop signs in every direction. It was a nice idea. Maybe tomorrow.
The Struggle of Others Versus Self
Most of us are caught in a tug of war between freedom and social/familial compliance. The desire to live as our fullest selves is a constant pressure from within. We might experience it as a clear plea from our inner selves or more as an abstract unease, the feeling that something is missing from our lives.
Some of us might feel it seasonally or monthly whereas others feel torn on the daily. It’s a tension between choice and obligation, a chronic low-grade feeling that we are always failing someone.
At the center of this win/lose dichotomy is a simple question: should we let someone else down or let ourselves down?
It’s a winless either/or. Who wants to care for themselves to the detriment of someone else?
But it’s not just because we are nice (which we are) that we feel the ick of this choice. It’s because the real question - the one that underpins the entire struggle – attacks our character.
Am I selfish if I choose myself?
The Misnomer of Selfishness
Selfishness gets a bad rap, one I’d really like to rewrite.
Selfish: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.
Without regard for others. There it is. To prioritize one’s wellbeing disregards others.
Self-interest has a similar definition. So does self-seeking.
What’s the word for when we prioritize our interests, needs and authentic expression with consideration for others?
If you look strictly at definitions, self-centered fits the bill (ironic since culturally its connotation is as negative as “selfish.”)
Self-centered: Independent of outside force or influence. Concerned solely with one’s own desire, needs or interests.
But still the word "solely" implies a level of disregard. As if we aren't capable of balancing caring for ourselves with caring for others. (Look no further than at the idealized selfless, sacraficing mother.)
In the end it’s all semantics. What matters is how we think about and use these words and the power they have over us.
What if we reinvent the word selfish or rebrand self-centered? What if we walked around, proudly owning our right to please and prioritize ourselves?
To do that, we would first have to believe we have the right to do so.
Are we Allowed to be Selfish in Order to Become Ourselves?
Selfish is a trigger word for me. I get activated when someone calls me selfish and promptly sacrifice myself for someone else’s needs to disprove the accusation. It works every time.
And every time I do, I take my place in the giant cog that machines women’s passion and purpose down to an unrecognizable nub.
The message: honor my needs over your own needs.
It’s like someone boards your boat, smashes your GPS and rips up your charts then offers to guide you home with their functional electronics. What choice do you have?
And that’s the whole point: to find our point of choice.
Great. But how do we actually do it? How do we turn our backs on the values and principles we’ve been taught and let ourselves rewrite our belief system?
How do we let ourselves be the thing society detests and rejects?
Selfish.
To be honest, I’d prefer someone to go ahead, pave the way, crash into the inevitable obstacles, shoulder the criticism. I want someone to jump in first. Come on in – the water’s fine!
I want someone – anyone – to tell me I’m allowed. That it’s okay. That everyone is doing it, and I won’t be alone.
I want permission.
But the path of liberation, by definition, requires something very different. Instead of following, we must lead. Instead of blending, we will stand out. Instead of safety and security, we will abandon our comfort zone and tax our courage.
Meanwhile our lizard brain is screaming: Danger. Danger. Danger.
And the truth is, there is risk. We might stick out. We might be rejected. People might disapprove. We might threaten our belonging.
I lived inside this tension for a long time – desperately wanting my freedom but equally terrified of what it would cost me.
At some point, the scale tipped. I got tired of containing myself, of wrangling wayward parts of myself and living in fear of what might burst forth if the damn broke. I was living a half-life – swallowing my truths, morphing myself to avoid rejection or judgement, severed from my true self.
Eventually, it becomes too painful to not be ourselves. This is the point of choice.
Permission to be Selfish
Rethinking selfishness requires permission. We’d love for this permission to come from someone else, particularly someone with authority such as our parents or perhaps the President.
Maybe society could have a quick family meeting and approve this with a majority vote?
External permission is like eating a huge bowl of watermelon – it fills you up but you’re hungry in an hour. It’s unconditional self-permission that we crave and that has the substance to sustain us. Yet our own permission can feel like a wishful delusion. As if we aren’t qualified to dole out such declarations.
This is the lie. We are taught to align ourselves with other’s opinions when the alignment we need is with ourselves. It is our own approval we’ve been seeking all along. A thousand people approving of us can't replace the approval and permission we require from ourselves.
We hold the keys to our own kingdom. We are looking outside ourselves for the treasure when we are the gem. And we have been all along.
We deserve our own love, care, attention and regard.
We deserve to come first.
We deserve to find the things that light us up and prioritize them.
We deserve unproductive, free, wandering time.
We deserve to eat and move and think about our bodies in ways that feel happy and joyful.
We deserve to discard thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve us.
We deserve to own our power.
We deserve to be treated well, especially by ourselves.
We deserve to say no to things that aren’t for us. Just because someone asks or we have the exact skill set for the task, doesn’t obligate us to do it.
We might need a touch of selfishness - a.k.a. tuning out critics and drilling into our own truth - to make this leap.
Self-love is not possible until we rethink our relationship to selfishness. Authentic love for others is also not possible with some selfishness. Because when we do not honor ourselves, we cannot show up authentically. Sure, we might do the expected tasks and show up for obligations but not with our whole selves.
And it's only when we bring our true, messy, whole selves that authentic love is possible.
When we honor ourselves, we honor others. It is not an either/or and it never was.
I’ve working to own selfishness, to wear it proudly as a badge on my chest. There is power in reclaiming a weapon used to cut you down.
If someone calls you selfish, silently say, “Thank you.” Because this means that you are, for real and for true, choosing yourself.
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