Are you Selfish?
As a counselor that works with recovering people pleasers, there is a word that comes up a lot during sessions-selfish. And that word is SO emotionally charged. Be honest-when you read the word selfish, did you get a knot in your stomach? A lump in your throat? A feeling of nausea? If so, chances are that you, dear reader, likely have some people pleasing tendencies.
If I have learned anything about working with people pleasers, I know that one of the things they despise the most is to be labeled as selfish. Let’s be real, they even hate the IDEA that someone could possibly think of them as remotely selfish and will do anything to avoid that perception. Like literally almost anything. They’ll even spend 30 minutes waiting in line at a store because they keep letting people go ahead of them because “that person only has a few items and it would be selfish of me to go first when I have so many.”
These are some of the common things I hear from clients:
“Oh, I could never do that, it would be selfish” (nevermind what the “that” actually is),
“It would be selfish to ask for a day off when there is so much work to get done” (ignoring the fact that they’ve been working 12 hour days for 6 months and have so much leave time that they’ll lose it if they don’t actually take it), or
“I can’t buy myself something at the store without buying something for everyone in my family, that would be selfish” (but somehow buying things for the family without buying something for themselves is okay).
🙋♀️ Raise your hand, if any of those sound like something you’ve said or thought.
Another thing I’ve learned about working with people pleasers, is that 99.999999% of them, are using an inaccurate definition for the word selfish to begin with. And this is the first change we make, redefining that word.
A people pleaser’s definition of selfish is “doing anything at anytime that is just for me.” Read that out loud. Anything? At anytime? Do you hear how extreme and unrealistic that sounds? Not to mention, it’s totally unfair.
It also reflects a specific thinking pattern which we call black and white thinking. In black and white thinking, something either is or it isn’t. No middle ground. Only two choices.
With this pattern, we’re also setting ourselves up for failure because we can only categorize ourselves in one of two categories-the successful perfect category or the total failure category. And since no one can be in the perfect category 100% of the time, that only leaves one category-the failure category. How do you think I’d start to feel about myself if I view myself through this black and white lens?
A cool thing science has learned about brains is that we have something called neuroplasticity, which means our 🧠 has the ability to change and adapt its structure throughout our life time and can develop new neural pathways (i.e., new thoughts). So even if you’ve been stuck in a black and white thinking pattern, you don’t have to stay there (unless you choose to). If you want more help on changing your thoughts, check out my free guide, Rewrite Your Subconscious Beliefs.
Here’s the new definition for selfish “intentionally doing something that causes another person harm for your own benefit.” Keyword there is intentional. That means to accurately label yourself as selfish, that you had to do something to purposely hurt another person. You had to think your action through ahead of time and follow through with it because you wanted to cause another person harm.
With this new definition, would it be accurate to refer to yourself as selfish because you decide to take a day off from work? Or take an evening alone? Or buy yourself an ice cream on the way home? No. So let’s replace that word in your vocabulary.
Instead of labeling yourself as selfish, here are some replacement thoughts:
“I am allowed to do things just for me,”
“I can balance prioritizing my own needs and being helpful to others,”
“Even if someone else thinks my behavior is selfish, that doesn’t mean it’s true,”
“Taking care of my own needs, helps me be a better human,” or
“I choose to invest time and energy into myself.”
Read those thoughts out loud, one by one. Do you still feel that knot in your stomach or do these thoughts feel different? If these thoughts feel uncomfortable, that just means you’re hitting the edge of your current comfort zone and it indicates that change is just around the corner.
So here’s your challenge: every time, you find yourself thinking or saying “I’m being selfish…”, I want you to review the new definition and ask yourself “am I accurately using the definition?” If the answer is no, which it will be, pick one of the reframed thoughts and affirm that to yourself, repeatedly if necessary.
If you want to read more about another word that gets people pleasers in trouble, check out this blog post-You Don’t “Deserve” It.
If you’re still struggling to reframe these thoughts, use my Contact Form to schedule a session. I have sessions available in my office located in Augusta, GA, or via telehealth.
Choose your thoughts wisely,
