If someone calls you “Selfish” it seems they don’t mean it well, and we don’t like hearing it. “Selfish” is not a good thing to be.
I remember the first time I was called “Selfish”. My mother said it to me.
I don’t remember what I was doing, or what I said, but I was overwhelmed with the thought that she just called me Selfish and this was very bad. I would do anything, it felt like, NOT to be that. I should have been thinking of her.
Jane Austen wrote “Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure”.
The dictionary defines “selfish” as lacking consideration for others, concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.
The very definition has stressful underlying beliefs…we have to believe that being concerned with our own pleasure or profit actually makes us lack consideration for others. And that this is terrible, bad, wrong!
We also have to assume, if there is such a thing as being Selfish, that it is something you can just wind up being, by accident, unless you are diligent and you focus on other people. You need to watch yourself carefully, and keep yourself from doing things just for YOU, just because you like it. You need to think of others first.
Byron Katie wrote in one of her newsletters in 2009 this passage:
“Love is self-absorbed and leaves no room for any other. Love is the affect of self-consuming, the consumed. There’s not a molecule separate, outside of itself. In the apparent world of duality, it can be seen as a you and a me, but in reality there is only one. And even that isn’t true. I call it the last story, the one in the moment. The voice I love from within is what I’m married to. All marriage is a metaphor for that marriage.”
Katie has another saying that I’ve also heard elsewhere “You are the one you have been waiting for!”
Once I was very angry with a good friend, a man I was dating. In my mind I had the thought “He is sooooo selfish!”
I knew what to do. Investigate my thinking. Because the very thought filled me with frustration, hate, rage and sleeplessness.
Who would I be without the thought that he was selfish? Watching a man who appeared anxious, demanding, watching someone yell out for what they wanted. There was passion! And fear, confusion, worry. He was believing lots of painful thoughts, he was trying hard, he was trying to find balance, he was afraid of suffering, afraid of not getting what he wanted.
The Turnaround is of course “He is not selfish”. How was this true?
He brought gifts to his mother, he invited me to do things with him, he was willing to trust me and other humans even though he was so afraid of them, he didn’t keep secrets, he spoke exactly what was on his mind (even if it was harsh or unpopular), he saw the value in questioning his thinking, he told jokes, he laughed, he could have one conversation for hours with me or someone else, he worked so he could earn a lot of money and pay his way, he paid for other peoples’ meals, he asked questions, he was completely transparent and real so that I could see where I wasn’t interested in him as a partner.
He was super generous, actually, in just being himself. I learned more from him than I had from many others throughout my life about honesty, feeling “criticized”, finding freedom in allowing others to be exactly as they are. He was so free!
What if we are here only to be ourselves? What if that is truly all we can do?
“To love is to be happy and do what you want, whatever you want. Be with. don’t be with. Smile; don’t smile. Be loving; don’t be loving. Give or say whatever you want; take or ask for whatever you want. Do you own thing. If the one you love gets unhappy, don’t believe you are not loving them enough for them to be happy. Their happiness does not depend on you. If you find you want them to be happy, it is because you want it; not because you must be a loving person to prove to them or you that you can love. You are loving if you are happy!” ~Bruce di Marsico
There is no danger in being selfish. Be who you are. You are Love. Your nature is peace, joy and happiness. Mothers say things at just the right moment for our awareness…and how amazing to question anything that hurts.
With love, Grace