how to distinguish between selfishness, satisfaction of needs and manifestation of oneself

It would be great if you learned to dis­tin­guish between these three con­cepts, because, unfor­tu­nate­ly, very often peo­ple get con­fused about them. Let’s take this exam­ple: in a train­ing ses­sion, one par­tic­i­pant gets up and decides to turn off the air con­di­tion­er because she thinks the room is too cold. Hear­ing from me that before turn­ing off the air con­di­tion­er, it would be nice to ask the oth­er mem­bers of the group if they are cold, the girl was embar­rassed.

She replied that she just sat­is­fied her need, which she learned in our own train­ings … Anoth­er par­tic­i­pant said that such behav­ior was just a man­ner of show­ing up. I had to inter­rupt the train­ing for a few min­utes in order to clear­ly explain the dif­fer­ence in these terms to all par­tic­i­pants. This is what prompt­ed me to share my thoughts on this top­ic with you.

READ ALSO: Test from Liz Bur­bo: can you lis­ten

If each of us decid­ed to sat­is­fy our needs, for­get­ting that we all live in soci­ety, anar­chy would rule the world.

Indeed, we must know our needs and do our best to meet them. How­ev­er, if this means that the peo­ple around you also have to meet your needs at the expense of their own, this is called self­ish­ness. This must be repeat­ed con­stant­ly because our ego does not allow us to remem­ber it.

BE SELFISH is want­i­ng the oth­er per­son to meet our needs with­out lis­ten­ing to our own. This often hap­pens in sit­u­a­tions where we want the oth­er per­son to please us as proof of their love.

Obvi­ous­ly, this can lead to con­fu­sion. For exam­ple, a woman returns from work and she is so tired that she decides not to have din­ner, but just to rest. If she tells her hus­band and chil­dren that there will be no din­ner this evening, this is self­ish­ness. If she tells them that she does­n’t want to eat din­ner her­self, but that they can eat what­ev­er they want or have what­ev­er they want deliv­ered to their homes, she will sat­is­fy her needs with­out stop­ping oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers from doing the same.

I know many women who decide to change their eat­ing habits by read­ing a book about food or by decid­ing to lose weight. And they began to pre­pare food for the whole fam­i­ly accord­ing to their own pref­er­ences, mak­ing them believe that every­thing is done out of love for them. How­ev­er, such behav­ior is self­ish­ness, not love for oth­ers.

Also, we need to be atten­tive to what exact­ly we call a need. Is it real­ly a need, or rather a desire or a whim? To find out if this is your true need, ask your­self the ques­tion: will this allow me to be who or what? Let’s return to the par­tic­i­pant of our train­ings from the first exam­ple. She could say that she had a need to feel com­fort­able in order to bet­ter absorb the train­ing. And then it would be enough for her to ask some­one for a blan­ket or a scarf, or to be asked to move to anoth­er place where she would not be cold.

In many cas­es peo­ple think that man­i­fest is to say or do what they want. In anoth­er train­ing, one young man con­stant­ly inter­rupt­ed me or oth­er par­tic­i­pants to ask a ques­tion with­out rais­ing his hand. He admit­ted that for him this was a way of express­ing him­self, and that now he prac­ticed it every­where: after all, before, with his par­ents, he was nev­er allowed to do this. To man­i­fest is to clear­ly express one’s thought, opin­ion and inten­tion, accord­ing to one’s own val­ues ​​and needs. Thus, the young man did not show him­self, but forced oth­er peo­ple to lis­ten to him when it suit­ed him. Such behav­ior is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of strong self­ish­ness, as well as a lack of respect for oth­er peo­ple.

When we tru­ly man­i­fest, oth­er peo­ple feel that we are speak­ing from the heart, express­ing only our needs. Take, for exam­ple, a man who feels the need to be in nature, which will help him calm down after a busy work week. To do this, he decides to sign up for a game of golf.

When he sees that his girl­friend and his chil­dren do not agree with this, he man­i­fests him­self by stat­ing that it is impor­tant for him to sat­is­fy this need. They have the right to dis­agree with him, but this will not change his deci­sion. He wants to decide for him­self if this is right for him to sat­is­fy his need for calm­ness and he needs to play golf for a while to find out if this is so.

In this case, the man does not pre­vent his girl­friend and chil­dren from sat­is­fy­ing their own needs.

To man­i­fest is also to be able to express one’s requests to sat­is­fy one’s needs. How­ev­er, do you remem­ber that the per­son you ask for some­thing has the right to say “no” to you? If so, all you have to do is find anoth­er per­son to whom you can present your request. This is how you talk about your need with­out impos­ing any­thing on any­one, and there­fore do it with­out self­ish­ness and con­trol.

We must all remem­ber that it is not pos­si­ble for all mem­bers of a cou­ple or fam­i­ly to have the same needs at the same time. And this is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn true love, which is about accept­ing oth­er peo­ple’s dif­fer­ences, even if we don’t agree, even if we don’t under­stand.

So, I rec­om­mend that you start prac­tic­ing express­ing your needs, show­ing up clear­ly and clear­ly, and mak­ing your requests as soon as pos­si­ble. If you wait too long to allow your­self to man­i­fest, your request may become a com­plaint or a demand.

Let’s say your work col­league inter­rupts you fre­quent­ly and it annoys you. It throws you off your mind and makes it dif­fi­cult for you to con­tin­ue work­ing. If you wait too long to show up and ask him to respect your space, chances are you’ll get angry and it won’t be a request but more of an accu­sa­tion. Remem­ber that as soon as you show emo­tions, you stop hear­ing your true needs and, of course, stop express­ing your­self.

With love, Liz Bur­bo

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In her sem­i­nars, Liz teach­es in a sim­ple and acces­si­ble way the right atti­tude towards your body, helps to work out psy­cho-emo­tion­al trau­ma and launch pos­i­tive pro­grams in your life. Changes will not keep you wait­ing!

LIZ BURBO in Kyiv:

March 9 — Your Body Lan­guage: The Code of Love

March 10–12 — Lis­ten to your soul

March 14–15 — Five trau­mas of the soul

Details on the site +380506092799

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