The dictionary defines being selfish as lacking consideration for others and being concerned primarily with your own personal benefit, pleasure or profit. Mostly, the term being 'selfish' is used when our actions somehow bring harm or pain to others, but benefit us in return. For instance, if you tell your sister you will sleep on the bed and this means she has to sleep on the floor, you are being a little selfish in particular if sleeping on the floor makes your sister uncomfortable.
So if you are just focusing on your needs, desires and wants and are causing any sort of discomfort or hurting someone else in the process, you are being selfish and that's not very nice. But there are times when you need to be a little selfish and really focus on your needs. Why is that? For that, I would first like to throw a little light on what happens when you stop thinking about yourself at all.
When You Stop Thinking about Your Needs
Looking after the needs, comfort, pleasure and happiness of others is great. When you take care of someone, make sure a person is comfortable being around you and otherwise, are nice to others, help people out and respect their needs and wishes before taking care of your own, you spread love and kindness around. This definitely makes people like you which makes you feel wonderful. Also, you feel good about yourself by being a blessing for others.
However, not everyone around you values super-nice and caring people. There are some people who start taking advantage of your kindness and slowly start to manipulate you subconsciously. This is when you start being pulled towards them in a manner that you start seeking their approval and appreciation for everything and turn into a people pleaser. Mostly, this happens when you fail to set healthy boundaries. @eco-alex wrote a wonderful post on this topic and if you feel you have trouble setting boundaries, I ask you to please read that here.
However, sometimes even when you do set healthy boundaries for others, you fail to set them for yourself and feel so compelled to look after the needs of others that you completely disregard your own. When this happens, you feel others are using you, take advantage of you and even hurt you in the process. But in reality, it is you who is looking after their needs to the extent that you are sabotaging yours in the process. It is you who gave them the right to overlook your needs and prioritize their own. It is you who made them nurture the habit of putting them first ALWAYS and the focus is on the word always. Had you taken care of your needs every once in a while and made them understand the things that are important for your well-being, they too would have been concerned about you and would have prioritized your needs too.
So it is basically you who forgets to take care of his/ her own needs at the right times that makes people disregard your feelings and needs. If you keep doing that, there will come a time when you will feel like a pushover and will be crying from within, but won't know how to communicate your feelings to others. Such times are really hard to go through. I know that because I have been through such times and the pain you endure during that point can be really unbearable. I had become quite a pleaser in my marital relationship and was only looking after the needs of my husbands like literally ALL the time. What that did was it slowly made my husband overlook my needs. Since I always showed him that I was happy doing whatever he wanted, he got the message that all that I did for him were things I wanted for myself too. So my needs had somehow camouflaged and taken the shape of his. Had I told him I wasn't comfortable with certain things or that I wanted certain things differently, I am sure he would have understood, but since I never said that and he wasn't good at reading and understanding people (like really really bad at it about a year back), he couldn't get the pain I was going through.
However, when I started feeling more frustrated than usual and started venting out my anger in unusual ways and always felt disturbed, I started to dig deeper into the issue. I didn't like having fights with my spouse every now and then and feeling that I was a bad wife even when I was doing a lot for him. As I dug deeper into the problem, I realized that it was because I was giving the wrong messages to him and because I had made his needs my own, and had completely failed to realize what I truly wanted for myself. It was then that I also realized that it is perfectly fine to be a little selfish at times and focus on what you want instead of just giving to others. While this is really important, it is also important that you do it the right way.
How to Focus on Your Own Needs
When focusing on your needs, first understand what is it that you really want and the needs that you cannot compromise on at all. Basically, you need to be clear on your core values and define them clearly. It is wise to write them down in a journal so you can revisit them from time to time and not forget them. Like I had to really think hard on what I really wanted when I wanted to end the troubles and emotional crisis I was going through. When I became clear on my needs that weren't being met, it was truly a revelation for me because they weren't needs that would harm anyone, but just basic needs of care, understanding and respect.
Once you are clear on your needs that you need to be fulfilled, you need to figure out who isn't fulfilling them or who is disregarding them. Then you need to think about ways to effectively and lovingly communicate those needs to that person. With some people, you have to be really firm, but even then there is no point in being rude to them. Just talk to that person in a friendly environment and let him/ her know what's bothering you, why it is bothering you and what you want from them.
Like I told my husband that I wanted him to take my views into account when making a decision for our family. I was doing my share of work- emotional, physical and financial for the relationship so it was only right for my viewpoints to be considered when deciding something that affected all of us. I get that he always made decisions in our best interest, but that didn't mean my views didn't matter. Even if he decided something that I too wanted, it was important for him to discuss the matter with me. At first, he did not understand because he had nurtured the habit of not discussing things with me and that was mainly because I never told him so. However, when I kept talking to him about it patiently and made him slowly understand how it feels to not have your voice heard, he understood. I had to be patient throughout the process, but I knew I couldn't give up because that would mean me feeling frustrated in the relationship which would eventually lead to a very bad marriage or make me want to end it completely.
Once you have communicated your needs to that person, you need to start making sure your needs are being met by taking care of them yourself first. Do not expect that person to be the sole protector and guardian of your needs. You have to do that first so you can slowly help him build the habit of putting your needs first at times too. Like in my case, I started discussing different things with my husband myself and used to make sure to bring up topics in discussions when I felt he was planning something and started giving him my input even without him asking for it. Slowly, he learned to take my views into consideration too and became more careful of my needs.
It takes time, patience, love and consistency to build, maintain and strengthen relationships and if you do build a loving, meaningful relationship, you need to be very careful with it. You cannot just let go of it because of a few issues that can be taken care of if you act cautiously, intelligently and wisely. However, you also need to take care of your own self when caring for that other person. It is quite an art to build a balance between the two things, but it is possible for sure. Just make sure to be aware of your needs and then communicate your concerns with that person and ask him/ her to do the same so you can both gain a better understanding of what you want and together take care of each other. Hence, sometimes it is fine to be a little selfish and think about yourself first because if you won’t, nobody else will.
I would love to hear your views on the topic as it is always a wonderful experience for me. Thank you so much for going through this post and supporting me.
Love and light,
Sharoon.
If you enjoyed this post, you may like some other of my work too:
[A Collaborative Message To All Women: What Makes You Feel Beautiful? - #feelbeautiful Challenge #1](A Collaborative Message To All Women: What Makes You Feel Beautiful? - #feelbeautiful Challenge #1)
My Scar Stories- Reminders of Many Different Memories
Batman & Jesus: Why do we fear debate?
I support the @ecotrain which has the aim to make this world a better place so if you do have the same mission, do consider visiting it.
