97: The Line Between Selfish and Selfless

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Hey there, welcome. I'm so glad you tuned in today. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. We're all about redefining your superwoman here. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, a life and relationship coach, and a motivational speaker, and I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. Connect with me by texting the word JOIN to 38470 or go to my website at drzoeshaw.com. Today's topic is the fine line between selfishness and selflessness. Selflessness is actually a word, but that sounds weird the way I said it. But first, my superwoman win and my superwoman fail. If you're tuning in for the first time, the reason why I share these is because I come to you guys weekly and I talk about psychological issues. I talk about gaining strength. I talk about Being a woman who is redefining the concept of Superwoman. And I do this from a place of an expert, which I am, but I share my wins and my fails because there is no one doing it perfectly. And yes, even experts don't get it all right. It's not that we're perfect, it's that we're practicing. It's that we are spending a lot of time and energy in our life learning so that we can help others. But we're also doing this life thing ourselves too. That's why I share it. it with you. So I give you advice, I give you practical knowledge, I give you inspiration and motivation. I am also doing life myself, and sometimes winning and sometimes killing it and sometimes failing. I honor both of those, and I invite you to honor both of those as well. That being said, my wins and my fails this week are not doozies. If you want to hear some doozies, you can listen to past episodes. This week, we dropped our son off at college, which was huge for us. And regular listeners knew this was coming up for me. It's a win. It's a win. I raised a baby to just about adulthood, and now he has left the house and he's off at college doing his own thing. It's a bittersweet process, but it is a win. My fail, of course, is that just like Shonda Rhimes says, when you are killing it in one area, you're often failing miserably in another. And this whole couple of weeks has been about preparing and getting ready for my son to go to college. And of course, I've dropped some balls, mainly on my billing. So I don't get paid unless I bill. I'm an independent practitioner and I'm not employed. And the downside of entrepreneurship is that you gotta make sure you're taking care of the money coming in. And I've just been lax on that, so that will hit me. So I am going to take care of some billing right after I finish recording this episode. Onto the topic at hand, the fine line between selfish and selfless. I'm talking about this today because I have had 3 women in this past week ask me in my office with pleading or guilty eyes, am I being selfish? And most of the time this happens, they're talking about a basic need, usually in a relationship, that can't really be construed as selfish. Now, I have to note that I have never had a man ask me this question in session, and 40% of my practice are men. You guys might be surprised to know that. I have had men state, maybe that's just selfish, usually when they're actually doing something selfish. So they'll talk about what they're doing and comment that it's a selfish thing. But I've I've never had a man look at me and say, am I being selfish? I need to mention that dichotomy because it's an interesting one. Women agonize so much over their decisions based on how they are affecting other people in their lives. And sometimes, especially for busy women, as we're doing a lot of things, we guilt ourselves into thinking that our self-preserving Behaviors are actually selfish. So here's what makes this whole concept of selfishness difficult: you can be completely giving and selfless in some aspects of your life, and completely the opposite in other aspects. No one is always one, and that's okay. I know that a part of my life that I am unforgiving about—maybe you could consider it selfish, but I do not—is my workout time. I do try to make sure to schedule it around. Family things, but believe me, I'm going to get it in, and I have to be selfish about making that happen. In my personal life, I'm probably too selfless when it comes to my sleep, my time. I legit let my family interrupt it when I really need to have healthier boundaries there. That's just a small real-life example. But basically, there are 2 competing trends right now. One is women's self-empowerment, and admittedly, I'm on that train. I'm all about empowering women. But that trend is all about women— focus on yourself, yourself, self, self. The other is a growing movement of debunking that narcissistic-seeming self-mantra and getting back to a focus on other. Now, I'm always going to call out either extreme on the pendulum because both sides are unhealthy. Remember that? I say it a lot. So which one is right? Well, if both sides are unhealthy, I'm not for the whole movement of self-only and self-first because I know that part of our feminine being is as nurturers, which in many ways is selfless. And I honor that, and I'm happy to give. Of that part of me to my family and to the world. I really do feel it's the highest calling of womanhood. And we as humans do not exist in a healthy way when we are only coming from a place of self. But I am more than a nurturer. I am a creator. I am a warrior, and I do have a self. So how do we ride this fine line between selfish and selfless? First, what is a self and what is selfish? The more I researched this topic, the more I remembered from some of my undergraduate studies that self is not a static concept. It's a social construct to an extent. Some cultures don't have a developed sense of self separate from others in the community. Other cultures, like the American culture, is founded on a well-developed sense of individual self, autonomy, and individual rights. Now, I happen to believe that we all have souls and that our sense of self is attached to our soul. We are separate beings, and so we must take care of ourselves individually while not neglecting our need as a people to do work in harmony and connection with each other, of course, which requires some selfless acts. So how do we balance it? Where are those darn lines? No one wants to identify themselves as selfish, yet we know that not caring enough about ourselves is also unhelpful. And I hope you know this too. Too much of anything is a bad thing. Even if you use the Bible as a gauge, it talks about how important it is to put others above yourself and to lay down your life for a friend. The Bible talks a lot about the negative aspects of selfishness, often. Yet it also exemplifies the Proverbs 31 woman who was all about self-care. She adorned herself in fine linen. She takes care of her physical, mental, and spiritual health. She takes time and effort on herself that may sound selfish, but it is not. She also gave selflessly to her work and her family. So that demonstrates that it is necessary to take care of ourselves first, because how else in the world are we going to be able to be selfless? Some people, such as psychologist Craig Marker, even question if it is even possible to have a selfless act. He says that there's no such thing as an altruistic act that doesn't involve some element of self-interest, even if it's just a little bit of pride or satisfaction. And I actually wholeheartedly agree with him, but that's kind of combing through minutia. So on a basic level, how can we tell the difference? Nobody wants to be considered selfish, right? And I think it's always important to be introspective and to look at ourselves and ask ourselves these types of questions from time to time. First, you have to look for patterns in your behavior. If you just isolate one behavior, that doesn't give you a big enough picture. Just like I said, I am selfish about getting to the gym, doing my workouts. On the whole, when you make a decision, do you think about how it will affect others? Do you make adjustments as necessary? If, as you choose a behavior, you realize that maybe it's going to make somebody angry or it's going to hurt someone else, but you weigh the pros and the cons seriously and you still choose to do it, that doesn't necessarily That's right. And that doesn't necessarily make you selfish. Sometimes what's good for you isn't going to be good for someone else, but if you've considered your need and theirs and you still make that decision, that's not selfish. That's being logical and smart. And as a mom, we do this all the time. I have 5 kids altogether. It's often that I will make a decision that's good for one and not the other, and that's just a part of life. For example, it could be 9:30 at night. I'm sick. I feel horrible and my daughter wants me to read a book to her. Now it is our bedtime routine, but I know in that moment that my tank is empty and I need to fill it up so that I can be there for her again tomorrow. So it's not selfish if I skip the book. Now, if it had been a super particularly difficult day for her or something, or something else was going on with her, I may sacrifice my sleep or rest to read the book. If, however, you mostly or always do what you want to do without concern for the other at all, okay, that's selfish. Another barometer is that when loved ones tell you often that you are acting selfishly, consider what they have to say, especially if they've known you for a while. If only one person in your life tells you that you're selfish and not others, you might want to consider that person's motivation. That word selfish is so derogatory that sometimes people in our lives will use it because they know what buttons to press, and they'll use it in relationships as a means of control. So you always have to consider your source and also think about other people and how they describe you. And by the way, doing something anyway when you have mom guilt also does not make you selfish. It's ironic because I actually can't remember that I ever felt selfish until I became a mom, until I was actually in the midst of doing the most selfless things I'd ever done in my life. That's when I felt selfish. Go figure. So the difference between selfishness and self-care— true selfishness actually prevents you from giving yourself to others. Self-care enables it. As we strive to redefine your superwoman on this show, and I empower you to focus on your self-improvement as a woman, remember the purpose isn't just for self. But also so that you'll have more in your tank to be selfless. It's when we begin to selfishly love ourselves and selflessly love others that we become in touch with our humanity. So really it comes down to evaluating your motives and standing strong in your need to take care of yourself and remembering that the whole reason there is a movement towards self-empowerment for women is because we don't have enough of it. We haven't been doing enough of it. It's not because we are selfish. It's the opposite, because we are naturally geared more towards selflessness. And in the midst of our increasingly busy lives, it's not healthy to stay in that selfless place because we have to take care of ourselves. So what do you need to do today that might feel a little selfish but is actually self-care? I should actually say, what do you need to do regularly? And release that guilt. You're taking care of yourself and the world, girl. Next up is Real Talk, where I answer questions from my listeners. All questions are anonymous, of course. I keep your confidentiality seriously as if you were my own client. If you're interested in asking a question, contact me. You can email me at zoe@drzoeshaw.com. I also have an Ask Dr. Zoe column at the Grit and Grace Project. An online women's magazine. Feel free to head on over there and ask me a question there, and I can answer it in my column, and I'll answer it here as well. So this listener sent a book, which is awesome. She's going through a lot right now, but I'm not gonna read the whole question because it is extensive. But basically, she's 23, her boyfriend's 26, and they've been dating for 6 years. And his family does not like her, at least his sister. She's studying to be a medical doctor. He's studying to be a dentist. There's some cultural issues there where they don't respect her profession, mainly because she's a woman going into it. But her boyfriend has proposed, and then he's taken the proposal back, and he's saying he wants to be with her, but there's a lot of kind of going back and forth, saying he kind of wants to live his life and just worry about school, and his sister doesn't approve. So I'm going to address her question. She's feeling stuck because Because she's ready to move forward with the relationship and he keeps kind of pulling back. So what I can say to any woman out there is that from my professional experience, anytime a client has pushed, prodded, or otherwise manipulated a man into committing to them, it has not turned out well. Now you can sometimes be successful in getting him to commit. That does happen. I see it a lot. I see it a lot in marriages where that happened, you know, years ago and now they're in my office. But you sacrifice the relationship and you usually don't get what you really want. Men need to be the pursuers. It's the truth. When they have pursued you and they've gotten you to commit to them, they feel accomplished, lucky, blessed, and proud. They got their prize. They're invested in their commitment. But when they've been pursued and ultimately give in, they feel burdened, resentful, and they often wonder if they should have made a different decision. They feel like you got lucky instead. Like I said, 40% of my practice are men, and they talk to me, and these are the things that they tell me. And then you're left feeling insecure. You may have thought that getting him to commit would take care of all of your insecurities, but it doesn't fix it. You were insecure in the relationship for a good reason, because he wasn't fully in. And that's what you're dealing with right now. A man who, yeah, I'm sure he loves you. Yes, there's a part of him that wants to marry you, but he's not fully in. So don't ask him about the engagement or the marriage anymore. He proposed and then he retracted his proposal. He's not ready. And he's not solid in his decision. He is easily persuaded. And yeah, he might string you along. And maybe he'll marry you years from now, but you deserve to be with a man who doesn't consider you as a maybe. I know he said that maybe you were too good for him. Now, if that's how he feels, it's also not your job to be a therapist and work on his self-esteem because you'll just end up becoming his mother and he's going to resent you. Now, if he said he wants to enjoy his years and dentist school and not be tied down by a girlfriend, believe him. He said what he meant. Now, when a guy tells you who he is, you have to believe him. The biggest issues we have in relationships isn't that people lie to us. It's really that when they tell us the truth about who they are, we don't want to believe it. We don't think they mean it. We convince ourselves that they're going to change, or we explain away why they might have said that. And then they don't change and we get hurt. So my simple answer to you is to back away. Don't take another flight out there. Don't spend more money and energy and time and emotion trying to help him stay in this relationship. Let him know honestly how you feel about him, which I think you already have, and let him know clearly that you're going to give him his space to decide what he wants to do with his life. You're going to move on, not wait for him. Move on. And then do it. He's not going to disappear off the face of the earth. If you're important enough to him, believe me, he'll pursue you. Now notice I haven't even mentioned his family in any of this, and that's because it honestly doesn't matter if it's his sister or if it's his houseplant that's motivating him to not move further with this relationship. You're wasting your time focusing on the wrong issue thinking it's family issues. And by the way, his sister will be there forever, just as she is now. So don't fool yourself into thinking that things are going to get better? If you get married, she'll most likely still feel that you're not good enough for him 20 years from now. Is that level of toxicity something you're willing to put up with for the rest of your life? And once again, it's not his sister. It's that he allows it to influence him so deeply. So thank you for reaching out. I know that this truth is a little harsh. I just don't want to see you waste one more day. You deserve better. Girl, you are killing it. You have loved him for 6 years. You're going to medical school and you're allowing his family to make you question your value. All that's got to stop now. I promise when you get some distance from this relationship, you're going to see everything that I'm talking about. So keep me updated. You've got this. Thanks for tuning in to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe so you don't miss a show and feel free to connect with me. All of my social medias at the handle @DrZoeShaw. And of course, you can also join my newsletter. I send out weekly encouragement, motivation, inspiration, and let you know when my next episodes are out. You can just text the word join to 38470. You guys have a super week.

You've been listening to The Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman, with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the Superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends and subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of the Dr. Zoe Show.