The Art of Healthy Selfishness: 4 Painful Mistakes The Most Selfless People Make In Self-Compassion
As a child, Jenny was taught that being selfless was the ultimate virtue. She was told to always put others first, sacrificing her own needs for the sake of friends and family. She believed this was the right way to live and started to neglect her own well-being.
Years later, Jenny found herself burnt out and exhausted.
She had given so much of herself to others that she had nothing left for herself. That's when she realized that she had been living a lie. She had been sacrificing her own mental and physical health to take care of everyone who needed her, but in doing so, she was actually doing them a disservice.
It wasn't until Jenny started practicing self-compassion and healthy selfishness that she truly started to thrive.
By taking care of herself, she was able to show up for others in a much more meaningful way. She learned that self-compassion and healthy selfishness are not selfish acts, but rather essential practices that allow us to be our best selves and contribute to the world in a more meaningful way.
Most caregivers take the opposite approach and find themselves teetering on the edge of burnout far too often because of it.
Healthy selfishness lifts others up
Healthy selfishness is the oxygen mask analogy.
When boarding a flight, the pre-flight instructions tell us all that in the case of an emergency, if the cabin pressure drops, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling and you must put your mask on first. It's not just a good idea, if you can't breathe you'll be of no help to anyone else you're trying to support.
Doing things that are good for and support you helps you to contribute more to others as a giver as well.
Things that are good for you require the right boundaries.
We often think of boundaries as walling ourselves off but boundaries are about have clear and firm lines between the different parts of our lives so that we don't let other people influence our inner harmony.
Having unclear boundaries mentally stresses and fatigues us and doesn't help us to present our best self to whatever we are doing. We've seen this happening a lot in the last several years since technology has made it so easy to work from home around the clock. When we can be on Zoom calls for meetings at home in the living room at 7 or 8 pm, the workday becomes a never-ending loop. The work and home-life boundary is a clear example to make but we also see boundaries getting breached in our close friendships and family relationships. Recognizing this is the first step to having clear boundaries.
By protecting your boundaries and saying no when you need to, you are also being courageous to do something that gives others the excuse to say no as well. Healthy selfishness is infectious.
Healthy selfishness breaks down the false dichotomy between being selfish in supporting oneself or being selfless by giving all of yourself to others.
How do you put this into practice without sounding rude or disappointing others?
Have a polite but firm answer that you can use when you've decided that you need some recharge time for yourself. In Scott Barry Kaufman's book Choose Growth, he gives examples of protecting your boundaries and how to talk to others about your self-care. Give a clear and simple response, like “I’m afraid I can’t go out tonight; I am giving myself some much-needed self-care time.”
This will give others the confidence to practice the same for themselves and they will have respect for your courage to do so.
Practicing self-compassion will teach you to have more healthy selfishness
Self-compassion is an important part of having a growth mindset and learning how to develop into your best self. But most people suck at practicing it. Why is it that we push ourselves relentlessly or tell ourselves that we could have done better with our efforts?
Self-compassion consists of:
common humanity - recognizing that other people struggle too and we aren't so unique and isolated in our suffering.
self-kindness - not beating ourselves up so much.
mindfulness - becoming more aware of how we are feeling deep within.
By valuing our own well-being, we can create a more compassionate and supportive world for everyone.
When was the last time that you actually let yourself feel a sense of accomplishment at something you did? And I’m not talking about a 5-second pause before starting up the next project on your list.
This is a hard skill to develop in yourself. Self-compassion will positively change your life and so you owe it to yourself to put in the effort to rewrite some of these invisible scripts that you tell yourself about self-compassion so that you can go further while also being appreciative of where you are now.
Underlying scripts from society
Fear of other people’s opinions or FOPO holds us back from being self-compassionate. When you’re hurting and need a day off from the gym, you find yourself watching Navy SEALS on Instagram waking up before the sun to run 100 miles and you think about how if they can do that, you shouldn’t be taking a day off.
Or when your eyes are bugging out of your head from working at a computer all day but you think about that entrepreneur online who is hustling hard 24/7 and so you just keep on working through the exhaustion and digging a deeper hole for yourself.
These underlying scripts tell us that we will be judged and criticized for doing what we feel in our hearts we need at the moment to recharge or just take care of ourselves.
The misconception that self-compassion means complacency.
We find meaning in progress because we are hard-wired that way. Our brains are constantly seeking out the next step on our journey.
Recognizing that we are driven by dopamine is an important part of having more self-compassion. By knowing this, we can identify when we are feeling unease at sitting still or seemingly not making enough progress. And once we can recognize this, we can accept and embrace that progress looks differently for everyone and sometimes the best progress comes from taking a break to recover and recharge. Or that it means pivoting to something new when what we’ve been attempting is no longer working for us.
Self-compassion feels soft and vulnerable.
Most people want to avoid vulnerability at all costs. They keep their secrets held close and don’t open up about anything to anyone.
While there are many thought leaders expressing themselves and sharing the importance of vulnerability, this is still not the default for most people.
Have you ever been on a car ride with someone where the silence was deafening? You know that something is up with them but they’d rather stare out the window with lips held tight instead of having a conversation. You can sense it because our ability to read a situation goes far beyond just language.
One of the reasons we like to follow people like Brene Brown and Russell Brand and all those influencers online who have expressed a part of their story to the world is that it’s brave and we have a strong desire to feel the same way.
Being self-compassionate does not mean you are soft although it often means opening yourself up, at least to yourself, so that you can correctly understand what and how you are feeling.
It is only through practice that you will come to understand how to express yourself.
The journey from self-neglect to self-compassion underscores a vital lesson: Taking care of oneself is not a selfish act, but a necessary one for sustainable giving.
Healthy selfishness is not about ignoring the needs of others but about finding a balance where self-care enables us to be more present and supportive. It challenges the false dichotomy of being selfish or selfless, highlighting that one can support oneself while still being generous to others.
To embody this practice without seeming rude or disappointing others, you can adopt a polite but firm communication approach, advocating for personal recharge time with simple and clear responses. This approach not only protects our boundaries but also encourages others to embrace self-care.
Practicing self-compassion also teaches us to break away from the relentless pursuit of perfection and the fear of judgment, allowing us to celebrate our achievements and embrace our vulnerabilities. By rewriting the societal scripts that equate self-compassion with complacency, we can recognize that progress and self-improvement sometimes require rest and reflection.
So let's reframe our understanding of self-care: it's not a luxury, but a cornerstone of a fulfilling and generous life. By embracing healthy selfishness and self-compassion, we not only enhance our own lives but also become a wellspring of strength and care for those around us. Let us all give ourselves the permission to prioritize our well-being, for it is in flourishing ourselves that we can truly uplift others.