This is an excellent answer to a question many people can relate to, myself included! There seems to be an epidemic of "codependency" in the culture I grew up. From a young age I was taught by my family and friends(?) to equate "love" with self-denial for the benefit of others. As a woman especially, I was conditioned to feel ashamed of having ambitious dreams or self-esteem if my reasons for being happy didn't match up with the expectations others set for me. Up until recently, I was in a romantic relationship with a person who was in the throws of a deep depression, which left him/her feeling numb, isolated, and withdrawn. S/he cared for me, but was unable to meet me half-way in a reciprocal relationship. We ended up parting because of that. We both realized the need to work on ourselves. Both of us happen to come from abusive households. As a result, we have some work to do in order to overcome the developmental roadblocks in our path by learning to value and take care of ourselves first and foremost. It's hard not to feel selfish doing this, but with each passing day, it's been getting easier for me (as I hope it will for all of you too).
I'm at a rather weird junction in my own life where I'm learning to set boundaries for the first time. Up until quite recently, I have been systematically conditioned by my family to expect my physical and psychological boundaries to be violated; so as a protective mechanism, I learned at a young age not to have personal boundaries. My mother told me that it was "selfish" to do things for myself. During one particular instance when I was a teenager, she accompanied me to day-long retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I wanted to learn how to be happy on without conditions. My mother had nothing but criticism for my efforts at the end of the day. On the car ride home, she denigrated the teacher (Jack Kornfield), calling him "godless" and "smug" and glibly mentioning that the attendees had no "real" problems.
At the time, her words hurt me deeply since I took them to heart. After that, I was afraid to mention anything about personal development out of fear of being judged as "selfish." After finding a good community of friends online and in person, I gradually overcame most of my aversion to being labeled as "selfish." My friends taught me what real, reciprocal exchanges are all about. They taught me to love myself and that I have no obligation to martyr myself the way my mother did. I can see which people are truly happy and doing good things for the world. They are not the judgmental types who sit around doing little more than micromanaging and gossip. They are the ones who are the most destructive kind of selfish: malignant narcissists.
Keep thinking for yourselves, peeps. Don't let corruption in the world and at home bring you down. Trust your intuition, logic, and the people who truly love you and inspire you. Take excellent care of yourselves!
Sincerely with love, qbit <3
