5. Learning how to be Selfish from the heart - Self-full

Most of us have been trained or programmed to think it’s a bad thing to be selfish. Let’s really look at the meaning of the word selfish, in the classic sense “selfish” means to think of yourself and no one else, or worse yet disregard and push away others. It can also be the same as greed or entitlement.

When you hear the word selfish, do you think of person who just thinks of themselves and no one else, or do you think of someone who thinks of themselves along with everyone else? In the truthful sense, everyone is selfish, all actions in any part of the day have some sort of selfish intent.  There are actually two types of selfish. There is the type that is motivated by avoiding pain, and there is another type of selfish that is motivated by seeking love. The first one is a reflex of protection and survival and the next is a choice out of thriving. Which one are you most of the time?

Selfish from your mind – Survival and Avoiding Pain

Have you been in situations where you’ve done so much for other people only to be left unappreciated and upset off after? What was your real motivation, were you really doing those actions because you were thinking of them first or did you do those actions not to feel guilty, not to feel like a bad person or not to be rejected in some way. The only way to really know is ask yourself how I would have felt if I did not do those actions, if the answer is bad or guilty you may have been motivated by just trying not to feel guilty. Were you doing those actions because you where trying to avoid pain. This is the classic people pleaser, that goes to the extreme to make everyone happy while simultaneously burning themselves out it the process. My clinic is full of these patients, they are the classic mother and wife that has sacrificed everything for their family, mostly out of obligation and responsibility and once the kids have grown they abruptly come to the realization that they are alone, except now they are alone inside of a burned out, out of shape body, they present with chronic fatigue, depression, anxiety, diabetes and heart disease.

For instance, what if I was only being nice to you because I don’t want to get rejected, feel bad or because I needed something from you. You still get the nice act I guess, but I am only really doing it because I have to not because I really want to. I am motivated by not wanting to get hurt, or feel guilt. So I am just thinking of myself, that’s me trying to avoid pain, I’m not really thinking of the other person first or at all, I am motivated solely by my reflex needs to avoid pain, this is the ultimate and more detrimental version of selfish. This is also the version that causes the most amount of lost time, health, potential to the person and the world around them.

In the family setting, the meaning of this word has lost the essence of helping one another, we have made the word selfish automatically imply some responsibility to care for everyone else accept ourselves. Oddly enough if your do not care for everyone else first your told that you are being selfish, when it is actually more the person who is motivated by avoiding pain that is the one being selfish. Now I am not saying we should not help care for those unable to care for themselves, I am merely saying that we must learn to merge them together to ensure that we help and nurture ourselves first, or all we do is end up creating another sick person to take care of.

Imagine a lady with her young daughter on a plane. Imagine and remember the oxygen mask? In the event of an emergency who are you supposed to put the mask on first? You or the child? You always put the mask on yourself first and then the child, that’s because unless you help yourself you can’t help your child. That would be considered selfish in the way we’re taught. It is in fact very self full. It would be very costly for you to die and leave your daughter with the mask on without a mother. It is okay to love and pay yourself first.

Self-full from your heart - Paying yourself first

Selfish from the heart is totally different than selfish from the mind. Selfish from the heart means self-fully always thinking of yourself first. This self-full exists in nature. Think of a growing plant it grows and becomes beautiful, programmed and focused on itself. It exists in balance and harmony with the other “selfishly self-full” plants. It grabs all of the light, oxygen and nutrients, everything that it needs when it needs it without guilt. This plant would simply not grow if it was programmed to believe that it was not worthy. The plant would die if it had to fight inside and debate past guilt every time it needed something to grow. A withering dying plant or person does nothing to inspire others how to grow and does nothing to feed or nurture anyone around it. Everyone loses.

Does it make sense that you have been given your amazing gift of life to make everyone happy except yourself? How happy and healthy could you really be if your time and life is given in this way? How happy could an “unhappy you” make others see the value of life? Could you really be the best you could be if you are the last person valued? Does it not reason that if you are happy and healthy that you would not only have more energy to show love but you would also have more ability to inspire others and you would be purposeful to more people at the same time as yourself. Why does someone always have to loose, becoming selfish from your heart means more people win consistently. What if you could think of yourself and others at the same time and by being selfish and loving yourself first it actually served not only you but others around you. The days of being able to merge the two to create a selfish from the heart that serves yourself and other is what is know as Self-Full and is basically the act of paying yourself first.

Paying yourself first

What do you think it feels like when you do something solely for yourself, do you feel great, or do you feel remorse or guilty? We are taught that it is wrong to think of ourselves and it is better to think of others first. This common program to think of others first (and us last) is the same thing as I am not lovable or valuable enough to love myself first and everyone else is worth more than me. Thinking of yourself may seem like a hard concept to grasp at first but it is the most efficient way to love others, and the world around you. Loving and paying yourself first, leaves no emotional debt for someone else to pay, you are creating, maintaining and inspiring happiness in every action of every day. Loving yourself first also means thinking of your happiness first and in the context of the heart really means “self-full”.

Selfish from the heart or “self-full”, is different, it means that you’re naturally always thinking of yourself in the equation of giving and taking, you automatically treat yourself as a priority, you take care of yourself, you esteem and value yourself, and you know and accept that you are valuable, important and lovable. Selfish from the heart means you’re shining because you’re connected to the light and your goal is to be as beautiful as you can be. I don’t mean primarily aesthetically, I just mean alive, open and beautiful. This type of selfish naturally and automatically adds back to the world, and it does it with the least amount of energy and the most amount of playfulness. It is not a chore to help when you are happy. A self-full person does not add more regret and fear back to the world, they do not add more hate back to the world. A truly selfish person from the heart adds love and gratitude to every day and every person.

If you are “selfishly self-fully” taking care of yourself and becoming happier and healthier every day, how many people do you think you could really help in life? If you are selfish from your mind, the way of helping people is exhausting, and someone will always loose….you. How quickly do you think you would get burned out? It take enormous of energy, time, lost health and potential when everybody else comes first, second and third and you get the scraps left over. This is the difference between a “care giver” and a “giver of care”. It’s efficient, it takes minimal energy to show love or give care when you take care of yourself first. The person running primarily from selfish from their mind will never run out of people or problems to save or think of first, this is also known as a co-dependent relationship. This type of selfish seems okay on the outside but actually limits the persons potential and will always have someone’s else’s problems to distract from your own. It is important to balance yourself, it is important to love yourself first.

Paying yourself first for the world
True selfishness in the not so positive sense really only exists in the mind and is based on the reflex to protect yourself from being hurt. Self full from the heart, the new version of selfish is something you do out of choice and has a positive effect on yourself, and those around you. If you’re going to do something do it because it makes you feel good not because it keeps you from feeling bad. Selfish from the mind avoids pain, selfish or self-full from the heart is done for the primary purpose to seek love, create peace and add more joy and happiness to yourself, your spouse, your family and the world. Whenever you help, love and value yourself first, you automatically ensure that you move positively through the world, while being less of a burden. You become efficient without society needed to take care of you. That means another person doesn’t have to help save you. Another benefit of not being a burden to anybody is that all of your energy is reserved for adding to this world. I believe that the religious context of guilt sometime takes us ways from the spiritual concept of helping others first through helping ourselves and then teaching others how to do the same. It was already assumed that if you have been given this amazing gift of life that you would choose to preserve it and help yourself first. What purpose and good are you really in the long run, and who will help you once you become sick. Help those by teaching them that their life is a gift. Help the world by showing them what joy looks like, in this way you can be purposeful and inspire those around you. There may be some truth to the expression the world helps those that help themselves.

Why is this world always thinking about debt instead of wealth? Why does this world have poverty, why does this world have war and disease? Entertain the possibility that people are taught the wrong version of selfish. Can you imagine if everybody actually took care of themselves? We would help those that are really are unable to help themselves, not the ones that are unable or been “enabled to be emotional disabled” because our survival programs have inadvertently taken their ability to feel, learn and make choices.

What a concept; being nice, loving and open because it feels good to you, can you think of any other reason to be nice, open and loving? This kind of selfish is positive, it is self-full and it rewards and pays you three times; it pays you and the people around you in the present moment, shines light into your past to clean any hurt and allows you to have an effect for your future. Being self-full makes you feel peaceful while allowing those around you to see your light.

Can you list all the advantages to becoming Self-full?

4. Are you stuck in the Numb Zone?

The NumbZone, is not a destination, thing or idea, it is a far too common state of not being fully alive. The NumbZone is the mind’s protective state; it protects us from feeling and living fully in the present moment. It is the part of our mind’s survival reflex that distracts us from any possible past hurts being recreated. This state exists by moving through life day-by-day without communicating or checking in with your own feelings.

You can even outwardly seem to be very emotional when in fact you’re true feelings are effectively blocked. A person trapped in the NumbZone is unaware that a deep survival reflex is constantly working in the background in a crude attempt to protect you from the reoccurrence of similar past hurts. The Numb Zone is a state of limited freedom and creativity where you are not really unhappy or happy. You may even identify this state as “being happy” or “being content” when in fact it is a state of just “not being miserable”. This NumbZone can become so much a part of your life that you spend your bank of time as though it had no value; months, days and hours pass where you are surviving rather than thriving. You may find yourself marking the days as though there was a severe shortage of love and happiness. Rather than living a life of direction and purpose, you wander through a maze of seemingly never-ending responsibilities, obstacles and diversions. You slave away at jobs that don't fulfill you and struggle with relationships that merely distract you from being alone rather than creating more love.

All in all, you've become increasingly protected, disconnected, stuck and shut down from the most precious thing of all: your very own living life. You have become comfortably numb. You have entered, mastered and become comfortable and safe in the NumbZone.

Feeling the NumbZone

One of the obvious problems with the being stuck in the NumbZone is that you cannot feel yourself in it, hence the word numb. You cannot feel yourself living or moving in either a positive or negative way. Even though you may have a sense of being stuck, out of control, trapped or powerless, you end up merely coping and surviving. You live your life without any significant contrast, and there is not enough energy left to promote change or even bring about awareness of the net in which you are entrapped.

To understand the purpose of a "feeling" for your life when it comes to position and direction, you must invite energy and awareness. Would you agree that if you followed a life of integrity or truth, you would have a higher chance of health, peace and happiness and your feelings would reflect that? Would you also agree that if you did the opposite you would have a higher chance of being unhealthy and unhappy? Feeling is the first part of awakening from the numbness, and you can begin today even if the feeling is only nameable as “numb”.

Awakening from the NumbZone

Never underestimate the power of suffering and adversity or a heart attack to move someone to change. You could spend years in the NumbZone until enough time, pain or suffering has past to push or awaken you from the numbzone. A breaking from the NumbZone is called an awakening and this happens when you have been unable to avoid and distract from your sadness, suffering or ill-health.  It is when you become aware of the troubled sense that your life should be different and you eventually come face-to-face with the fact that life, time and possibly health are slipping through your fingers. It is when you are unable to block the aloneness that lingers underneath when you look in the mirror with regret wondering where your life went. Awakening starts when you ask yourself the simple but challenging question, how do I feel?. 


If you knew that you where driving your car in the wrong way or direction would you change it? What if it was moving towards a cliff? What if people that you cared about were in the car? What would it take to alter your direction? Just like physically being awaken by your alarm, moving from the numbzone takes a shift or emotional bump to shake you to a feeling. To start the change in direction, you have to ask yourself the question, how do you feel, are you happy or sad? It is at that moment that you can clearly get an answer back, it is also at that moment that you can say, it is my time to change!!

4. This crazy thing called hurt

“Hurt” in this context, is an episode of childhood pain (physical and or emotional) significant enough to evoke your protective survival reflex. The reflex role is to protect the person from any repeat of the original hurt. The reflex is crude and has actions limited to shielding or moving away to prevent any future similar hurts. For a hurtful experience to alter your future behavior in a self protective way enough to detrimentally affect you, it had to be traumatic enough to feel any variation of rejected, abandoned, scared, powerless, out of control, alone, confused, sad, unwanted, unloved or unaccepted. These types of significant hurts that trigger a survival reflex are called factory or core hurts. A core hurt always as you can imagine involves a protective or survival reflex.

Core hurts represent a point in time when a child suffers without the proper love or understanding needed to process it. In other words, no one was there to “kiss the boo-boo or kiss it all better.” Ask yourself: if every time after experiencing a hurt, you also had received love and were told that everything would be okay; would the hurt have hurt so much? Would you have moved to an open more loving state faster?

It’s important to know that everyone experiences hurt and everyone has a core hurt. If you have lived you have been hurt and most likely the hurt was associated to someone that was supposed to love or protect you. For instance even if a child was hurt by a stranger, not only would the memory of the actual episode of hurt and the corresponding protections be there, but also the hurt of being rejected, abandoned, alone. The child would have not felt protected, safe or valued by the home and family. 

From person to person you really cannot compare hurts, whatever you’re greatest hurts is, it’s your greatest hurt. You hurt is yours, and your friend’s is your friends. It is true that our individual core hurts occurred in very different ways, but how we initially react to the event is the same. No matter what may have caused these feelings of powerlessness, rejection, abandonement, aloneness, out of control, fear and unworthiness, they all resulted in a protective survival reflex being activated. They also all resulted in the childhood version of unworthy or unlovable.

We all protected from hurt using our survival reflex to; stand still, attack or run away and hide. If left unresolved these protective reflexes become compounded with additional walls, fears and triggers. They can steal away time, freedom, creativity opportunities, health and our capacity to trust, experience optimal joy and to love. The first step is always the awakening that you are not your hurt, that you are not your mind and that the hurt and the corresponding survival reflex that leads your life is a reflex that can be changed.