Time to Get Selfish!
I recently received feedback from someone who perceives me as selfish.
My response?
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Yes! You are right! I am selfish!
Just a few years ago, this feedback would have been devastating.
So how could I hear it now without reactivity?
How could I move towards the person giving it with kindness and compassion?
That has been a question I've been living inside, mainly because it interests me when I notice a significant personal change.
I always want to know why and how it happened.
When I started weight lifting, my gym assigned me a trainer. It was random, and that's how I met Jon, a dudebro trainer.
At first, our relationship was strictly professional.
But as we got to know each other through meeting three times a week at 6 AM, his true nature emerged.
Jon would dance around, singing the little mermaid, while he fiercely bullied me into one more rep.
With equal parts silly and severe, Jon held my goals rigorously and loved me enough to help me have what I wanted.
I don't imagine that I was his easiest client. I complained, pushed back, and sometimes flatly refused.
But he was willing to step in and hold the part of me that wanted strength while combating the part that wanted something else. Ease, perhaps.
I learned so many things from this random guy I cherish.
One of the most important lessons I learned from him was about getting selfish.
I'd be at my last squat or my last press, and the muscle agony would be winning. I would be ready to quit and abandon my goals.
Then, Jon would say, "Pavini! Time to get selfish about the burn!"
I interpreted this to mean I could reframe the burn as the prize.
Jon gave me permission to take exactly what I wanted; strength and power.
He taught me to be selfish, which I had never heard described in this way.
Could being selfish be a good thing?
I had always learned that being selfish was to be avoided.
The best thing was to be someone who shares freely and doesn't want too much for themselves.
But there is a part inside me that wants everything.
Interestingly, that part doesn't want it at the expense of others.
As a kid, it wasn't that I wanted all the (insert whatever the good thing is here) and didn't want you to have any.
No.
I wanted how much I wanted and you to have how much you wanted.
The first time I experienced food scarcity was in pre-school.
We ate a hot lunch that the school provided.
We sat at our family group tables and passed the food around, each student putting it on their plate.
The day in question was hamburger day.
Each hamburger had been carefully cut into quarters.
When my classmate passed me the yellow basket, I took two pieces.
And my teacher reprimanded me: please put one back piece, so there is enough for everyone.
Later, I would overhear my teacher telling my mom that I often put more food on my plate than others.
As an astute kid, I realized this was A Problem.
I felt that hot burn and collapse of shame. I was bad!
But I was hungry!
It wasn't for another three decades that a nutritionist specializing in eating disorders would tell me she believed, from the symptomology I was exhibiting, that I had experienced some degree of starvation at a young age.
Later, my childhood best friend confirmed she had always been hungry at my house when she lived with us.
What do you do when you are trying to meet your needs but trying to avoid being selfish?
You find covert ways to meet your needs. Sneak food, for example, which I became an expert in.
I have needs, you have needs, and we all need to meet our needs.
The problem is that there is often shame about needs and wants.
So much shame that it is hard to hear the actual need.
Compassionate communication, or NVC, teaches how needs and strategies get conflated.
You have a basic need, like food. Then, you meet your need with a strategy. Chinese or Italian for dinner?
Problems happen when we get attached to our strategies: you are hungry and will only eat Chinese.
(Am I hungry right now? A lot of my examples in this piece are about food!)
My former lover Lore and I often conflicted over our strategies to meet the same need: food.
She wanted one kind of food to satisfy her appetite, and I wanted another.
When we first started dating, I would usually eat where she wanted.
Her preferences and opinions were more robust than mine.
But then, I began to feel resentful.
I started sticking up for what I wanted to eat.
Although we were both hungry, we could spend an hour arguing about where to eat. (I feel silly admitting this, but it is true.)
After many repetitive and life-draining fights, we got creative.
We came up with a plan.
If we couldn't agree on where to eat pretty quickly, we would get food from two different restaurants.
Once, we even sat through two meals, first mine, then hers, so that we could each meet our needs exactly how we wanted.
It was a beautiful night of connecting, chatting, and enjoying the deliciousness we both wanted.
Plus, the added pleasure of watching your love get just the thing.
Without shame, I accepted my needs and my desires and her needs and desires. Neither of us had to compromise on a meal just one of us wanted or neither of us truly wanted.
I want everyone to have what they want and need.
I got curious when I received feedback that someone perceived me as selfish.
A few years ago, I would have been hurt, angry, and resentful to hear someone experiences me as selfish.
But now, I hold it with gentleness. Why?
As I continue to sit with this question, here are some emergent thoughts.
Of course I am selfish. We are all selfish. We all have needs and desires that we are trying to meet.
It is my job to either meet my own needs or make requests (that I am willing to hear no to) to ask another to help meet my need.
Reframing selfishness as having what I need and want and wanting everyone to have what they need and want, I release shame about having needs.
I practice the mindset that there is enough for everyone.
I don't want anyone to sacrifice so that I can have what I want.
I want win-win strategies more than anything.
I value win-win strategies, and I trust myself to act in accordance with this value based on the proof I see in my actions.
I'm guessing the person who lobbed this judgment at me has difficulty giving themselves permission for their feelings and needs, and it's confronting to see me do it.
Needs don't compete.
Scarcity, perceived scarcity, or fear of being an outcast because we are 'selfish' makes us do all kinds of weird sideways shit to meet our needs.
Rarely is there a situation where, with enough spacious non-urgent creativity, both people cannot meet their needs.
I'm not a big believer in sacrificing your own needs or wants for the sake of a relationship.
That tends to lead to resentment, which like kudzu, eventually strangles its host.
Love needs intentional tending, which means not holding resentments.
Instead of sacrifice or compromise, how can needs be held in a relationship as "the needs of both people in this relationship?"
How can we team with our loved ones to ensure everyone has what they need?
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