Unraveling Self-Stopping - Selfish
My goal for this series is to help you become aware of where you might be stopping yourself from going for your dreams and desires. By bringing that awareness up so that you can see, “Gosh, I am doing that and I would really rather not. I'd rather choose something else.”
Watch the video or read the article below to dive deeper into how avoiding being “selfish” may be stopping you for more success.
I appreciate hearing from you and I'm so glad that you're watching and getting something of value from this series.
I want to thank Liz for writing about the Judging episode that we did, and how she sees that she's really a great judge of herself and how that stops her. That awareness will give her new choices and new possibilities. We’re all about really opening up the possibilities of your having exactly what you desire in your life and your work. Today we're going to talk about Selfish.
Selfish Is a Big Taboo for Many Women
I can't tell you the number of women who have said to me, “Well, I didn't do that because I didn't want to seem selfish.”
I work with women in business to help them with their confidence and sales skills because selling is really the only way to get money into your business. Not putting yourself forward to offer what you have is a really good way to stop your business from prospering.
What is it about being selfish that we feel we must avoid?
One of definitions selfish is, “exclusively or excessively being concerned with oneself.”
We pretty much know selfish when we see it. We don't tend to like to interact with people who are selfish, because there's really not a whole lot coming back. It can be kind of entertaining to see how selfish people can be, but it's really not something that you want a whole lot in your relationships.
What Does Selfish Look Like on You?
When it comes to being selfish, you may not have the correct idea of what selfish is.
Why is that?
I think it's because we've been trained by other people to really watch and avoid our own self-interest.
My having self-interest, didn't work for some people in my life—they were often trying to get me to give up my self-interest in favor of theirs.
That may have happened to you, too. I really feel like most women in our culture have been trained to be less self-interested than is really healthy.
Self-interest leads to self-care. If I'm being “selfish,” I will also be taking care of myself in a much better way than if I don't act selfishly.
I've been through a serious health challenge, and am now on the other side of it, thank goodness!
It was very challenging in the middle of it to want to do for other people and not have the energy to do it. I had to be selfish, and I had to take care of myself. I had to be interested in myself or I wasn’t going to make it.
A lot of women run so hard for the goal—in our work, in our families, in our life, in our community. We will do, do, do for other people.
We never put ourselves on our own agenda. Never.
That not only leads to burnout, it can lead to illness—and for some people, it can lead to death. To avoid illness or premature death, let's start to change the definition of “selfish” into “self-interested.”
What difference would it make if you knew that self-interest and self-care were entirely appropriate—and in fact, necessary for you?
Would that make a difference in how you talk to people about your business?
Would that make a difference in how you interact with other people and what you say “yes” to?
Would you say “no” more often if you needed to rest or if you needed an R&R day or if you needed to retreat someplace and have mental space? Would allowing yourself to do that make a difference for you?
I’ve talked before about Adam Grant’s work in his research in his book Give and Take. He found was that over-givers perform the worst of any of the groups that he measured.
Grant measured the performance of
“Givers with self-interest”
“Matchers”: people who say, “You give me an apple, I’ll give you back an apple”
“Takers”: we know what takers are; and
“Over-Givers”: givers who do not ask for anything in return.
In business, Over-Givers do the least well, because they have no self-interest. There's no collaboration; no mutual give-and-take. They burn out, get taken advantage of, and never see the reward from their efforts.
Those who do the best in business and sales are givers with self-interest, saying ”I'd like to give this to you, and in return I would like to be paid.”
The research shows that being self-interested is a very positive thing for your business and for your health. Let’s see if we can clean up some of our cringing about being selfish.
Energy Clearing
This is the bobber, and it's a dowsing tool. If you want to learn more, you can go to RaymonGrace.us. Raymon has classes coming up if you'd like to learn how to dowse. I love dowsing because it's a visual and a physical representation of your mind changing energy.
We’re going to dowse to change the energy around the word “selfish.”
When the bobber is going counterclockwise, it's removing or neutralizing unwanted energy.
I'm also going to use Access Consciousness Clearing Statement. This represents my intention and your agreement that this issue clears up for you. That way you can stop stopping yourself by thinking, “Oh, I can't do that because I'll be selfish.”
Anywhere where selfish is a bad thing, delete and destroy across all time, space, dimensions, and realities. Good, bad, right, wrong, PoD, PoC, all 9, shorts, boys, and beyonds. Go to AccessConsciousness.com and look up the Clearing Statement if you'd like to know what all that means.
Let's infuse a proper calibration of self-interest, self-care, and selfish.There truly are times you want to be selfish—want to take care of your energy, your mental status, your emotions, take care of who you are—so that you have the energy and the resources to be in your life fully, and to help those that you desire to help.
In this round, let's work on the shadow of “selfish.” Shadow work is powerful because it reveals what you’ve deemed unacceptable and pushed into the shadows so that you don't see it.
For instance, a shadow could be stated like this, “I don't want to think of myself as selfish, because I don't like it in other people.”
What is the benefit of being selfish?Anywhere where you're not willing to see the benefit of being selfish, where it really triggers you and really makes you think, “Oh, that person is so selfish; I never want to be like them.”
The benefit of being selfish is taking care of yourself.Let’s delete and destroy all the ways that you've put into the shadow your selfishness. Good, bad, right, wrong, PoD, PoC, all 9, shorts, boys, and beyonds.
We're going to infuse the benefits of being selfish.Let you see them, let you gravitate towards them, let you claim those when you're ready.
Here are some benefits of being selfish:
Being clear on what you want
Asking for what you want
Getting what you want
Wouldn't that be something?
Is that selfish or is that clarity?
If you can't ever be selfish, how is that limiting you?
One last clearing
Let’s clear anywhere you're afraid of criticism or rejection from someone else that you are selfish.
That fear holds us back a lot.
I know I don't want anybody to judge me or think I'm selfish or reject me. What am I giving up by having that point of view? Why does their opinion of me matter than my own experience?
Let’s infuse in the acceptance that we have a self that has needs, desires, dreams, wishes, hopes—and that we're here to grow into our full self—to be generous with ourselves, to be generous with others when it works for us—and to recalibrate what being self-interested is.
I'm going to suggest that you use the word “self-interest” instead of the word “selfish” going forward. See what that clears up for you.
I would love to hear from you about what these clearings are doing for you. You can email me, or if this is on social media, put it in the comments below.