Selfish or Self-Full

Most of the time growing up, I lived in the same bedroom with an older sister who I experienced as a bully. She let me know through her words and actions that I was a bother, that I was less than her and my needs didn’t matter. I have healed most of the stories I took on while undergoing that kind of daily heartache and pressure.  One of the core ones was that I was less than everybody else. I now know I’m not less than nor am I better than anybody else. I am simply who I am and that is enough.

Another deep wound I took on during that time was that I was stupid. I had a B+ average in high school but she was salutatorian of her high school class and graduated summa cum laude from college. With those kinds of accomplishments, she let me know over and over again that I was not her equal. And I’m not. I don’t have the academic intelligence she has but I finally realized I carried the kind of intelligence that truly makes a difference in life and that my intelligence is heart savvy.

I also learned to hate my body. She has always been tall and willowy while I was round and shorter. I wasn’t fat but I perceived myself in that way, so much so that this self-hate fueled extreme dieting and binging, eventually ending up in gaining 97 pounds in one year in my early 20s. Now I have a wonderful relationship with my body that allows me to celebrate it exactly as it is. It brings such deep joy to live in my body and to experience it as my friend. ****

There is one deeply conditioned wound that I took on in relationship with my sister that can still catch me at times and that is the idea that I am selfish. The message I got from her, if I asked for anything, was that I was being selfish. My stomach clenches a bit even writing this. And yet, if you ask my friends if they experience me as a selfish person they would first laugh hysterically and then say no. And yet for all of us, old beliefs can get such a foothold in our heads that we can’t see the truth. When this old belief does arise inside of me, I can fairly quickly find my way back to my heart, but I am still stunned with the depth of the virulent meanness that arises with the idea that I am selfish.

The first time I was able to see through this conditioned misperception was many years ago in a large auditorium where a number of us had gone to hear a favorite speaker. In the middle of the talk, I became panicked with the feeling of being trapped. I turned to the woman who I had driven with and said, “I need to go.” Her response was my greatest fear, “How can you only think about yourself?” she said. I got up and walked out to the lobby, trying to allow some long, deep breaths as the intense contractions of fear and self-hate threatened to overwhelm me.

Besides believing that I was being selfish, I was also feeling one of my greatest fears, which was ‘no way out’. I was in a noisy, public place rather than the safety of my home; I didn’t have a way to get home until the end of the talk; and I was feeling very alone. The intense pressure of the situation cracked the armoring around my heart and with a tenderness I had never known before, I was able to see that I wasn’t so much being selfish as I was just trying to take care of myself. I was being self-full rather than selfish.

Now, all these years later, if life brings me a lot of challenges and I am feeling vulnerable, the idea that I am selfish and all the pain that comes with it still arises and can grab me – but not for very long. I now know that any thought that makes me tight is from my conditioning and is not the truth. I also know when the selfish story arises there is something inside of me that is feeling vulnerable and needs my kindness and understanding rather than by judgment.

Of course, at times we will all experience the state we call selfishness for that is just what conditioned minds do. No need to judge this. Instead realize that ‘selfishness’ comes when we are vulnerable and instead of buying into its story, ask yourself how you can be self-full. In other words, how can you meet yourself in your own heart.

**** As I found my way back to my heart, I fell deeply in love with my sister. I understood that, in the insanity of our childhood, her survival system was about being the best. That is how she survived the abuse and deep disconnect in our home. I also came to a place where I am very grateful for the pain I took on when I was young for it became the fuel for my awakening and eventually brought me back home to my heart.