I was told from childhood to take care of those around me. “Told” through language and through observation. I was also “told” through social programming and by watching the women around me, namely my mother and grandmother. I watched my Polish-American mother cater to my father and grandfather, doing all the cooking, the cleaning, fixing my fathers woes and caring for everyone but herself. My mother and grandmother lost sleep fixing my sniffles and fixing everything between laundry and death.
My mother and grandmother never said no and I was taught at a young age that, in a woman’s life, everyone else should come first. So when I was called “selfish” recently by a former boyfriend, I immediately felt like a failure of some sort. No, it wasn’t because I wanted more sex, or because I ate all the Oreos, or because we only rented “my” movies. It went deeper than that. It was about not offering support. It was about me not being there, or showing enough love. And, truthfully, he had valid points. But the kicker was that I had some heavy shit going down in my life. I had my own heart to mend, and there was no energy left for me to take care of anyone but myself at the time.
But the word selfish haunted me for weeks. Selfish…me?…hmmmmm….was it time for a wake up call? I mean after all, it’s my desire to serve others. I’ve been a teacher, a counselor and instructor to all ages, and I am currently a life coach and a writer, so I value the aspect of giving and helping others. Then one of my uber-cool chick friends said magic words. She said, “Why were you selfish, because you were taking care of yourself?”
And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I stuttered , “Uh, yeah, ” and felt like a retard for not seeing the light (but at least I no longer felt like a selfish retard.)
It’s taken me 36 years to learn how to say ”no.” Somehow I always felt obligated to say yes first, especially to people I love. However, over the course of about a year I’ve learned that “no” is the new black. It can actually feel good to say no, to clear up space in my head, to let go of feeling obligated to take care of others if it means jeopardizing my own mental / emotional health.
I don’t remember when I learned to speak, but “no” was one of the most important discoveries of my childhood. “Yes” is only a good word when it comes from the heart and if the heart speaks a few good yes’s it most likely needs to speak few good no’s to balance it out. I think the secret to the word no is making peace with saying it internally. Check your heart. If the no feels good, say it. In the long run your friends and lovers will respect you more for keeping it real. (And if that makes you a selfish bitch, so be it. )