GoodTherapy | 'You're So Impressionable' Isn't the Insult You Think It IsWhen I was a child, I heard a phrase that stuck in my memory: “You’re so impressionable.” I mulled over this phrase, trying to understand its meaning. One thing that was clear was that it was a criticism. It was wrong to be impressionable—to allow others to influence you, affect your behavior, change your mind. If you were deemed impressionable, it meant you were weak, you had no personality of your own, and you were easy prey for others to manipulate.

These seem like legitimate concerns. Clearly, there are dangers in being too impressionable, too easily swayed by others’ opinions or actions, and unable to choose for yourself. Heed the parental warning: “If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?”

But we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just as every coin has two sides, so does being impressionable. There are positive attributes to being impressionable that should be encouraged. The ability to allow people, ideas, and experiences outside of ourselves to make an impression on us is also a gift and a skill.

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It’s a gift when a person can read an inspiring quote and become inspired. To be susceptible to the powers of a good movie or book to alter our perspectives on an issue, a person, or even ourselves is growth. Art has the power to alter our view of the world in very positive ways, if we allow it.

Being impressionable doesn’t only lead to changing our beliefs, but also to changing our behaviors. The truth is human beings were designed to be impressionable. We are supposed to pick up the clues, from our families and society, which show us how to behave so we’ll be safe and socially accepted. But why stop there?

Being impressionable doesn’t only lead to changing our beliefs, but also to changing our behaviors. The truth is human beings were designed to be impressionable. We are supposed to pick up the clues, from our families and society, which show us how to behave so we’ll be safe and socially accepted. But why stop there?

The world is full of people who have learned things we could all learn, enjoying things we could all enjoy, behaving in ways that would benefit us all. Whether it’s learning compassion from Mother Theresa or the joy of baking from Martha Stewart, the more we let others influence us, the fuller we get.

Years ago, I observed with awe as my friend Lorraine moved through a room full of strangers, greeting people warmly as if she were the host. It was amazing to see people respond to her, sometimes welcoming and sometimes dismissing, while she floated through the crowd unfazed by rejection, enjoying herself. This presented a new way of behaving for me. I usually just chatted with the one or two people I was with. I admired her freedom and playfulness. She took me for a lap around the room and I got to experience firsthand what it was like to be that friendly and engaging. Ever since I have attempted to incorporate her behavior into my own.

In therapy, I often see people who experience depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. The scale of what is influencing them is imbalanced. Fear, self-criticism, and negative beliefs are being listened to as if they’re gospel. Positive beliefs, on the other hand, such as hope, love, and beauty, are banging on a locked, steel door, hoping to be let in. These people would benefit greatly from becoming more easily influenced by positive messages in their lives.

There is no denying that life can be difficult. In life, there is both pain and fear. But there is also no shortage of beauty and inspiration surrounding us. To become impressionable to beauty might allow the sunlight, caught in a raindrop on a leaf, to spread the warmth of happiness through your chest, like sipping a warm cup of tea. Hearing a beautiful piece of music might reignite your faith in humankind.

Those inspiring quotes on Hallmark cards, Facebook, or Pinterest might actually be speaking to you. And they just might serve you better than the fear and loathing in your head.

A man and woman hold up a frame together in a fieldI want to be loved. I want to be fit. I want to have a job I’m proud of. We all have hopes and dreams, but sometimes we take too little action to make them come true.

What is it that gets in the way of taking the actions necessary to fulfill our dreams? How do unfulfilled dreams and a lack of action affect a person’s experience of life?

The pursuit of a goal can give your life purpose, energy, hope, and excitement, but it can also bring anxiety, insecurity, and overwhelm. Sometimes, simply acknowledging what you want can arouse feelings of longing and despair. Some choose to avoid those uncomfortable feelings by disengaging from their pursuit. Avoidance might resolve the discomfort in the short term, but in the long term, refusing to participate in your pursuit of happiness, and facing the mixed bag of feelings that come with that pursuit, can leave a person feeling stuck, depressed, or empty.

It would be wonderful to have all of the energy and excitement of the chase without the fear and self-doubt. The more you want something, the more it matters to you, the less likely you will be relaxed about it.

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There are many reasons a person may become afraid to do something they want or need to do. Here’s a short list:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” —Norman Vincent Peale

GoodTherapy | Is Being 'Thick-Skinned' Your Strength or Your Weakness?You’re strong. You’re thick-skinned. You don’t take it personally when someone vents emotional distress on you.

These are admirable, useful qualities. Having thick skin makes it easier for people to be themselves with you, and for you to be with other people. It allows you to hear the message beneath the emotion, protecting you from the outburst. If you didn’t have thick skin, you could be emotionally overwhelmed or your ego could be crushed by the anger or criticism of others.

But everything has two sides. The potential negative side of being thick-skinned is being too permissive and accepting verbal abuse. The worst-case scenario is your thick skin keeps you in relationships that devolve into physical abuse. It’s important to consider when a strength has become a weakness.

Here are some questions worth asking when you feel your thick skin being tested:

  1. Is the person displacing anger on you? An example of displacement is when a person is angry at a coworker but yells at the dog. It usually occurs when people can’t express anger at the person or entity they’re actually angry at: a boss, a parent, an unjust society. It happens sometimes, but if it happens often, you may have become the dumping ground for another person’s anger.
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  2. Is the person’s expression of anger or criticism an attempt to repair a problem? Anger can alert us to the fact we’re unhappy about something. An expression of these feelings can be an attempt to improve your relationship. When a person’s expression of anger or criticism is controlled and respectful and the goal is improvement, a thick skin is valuable in helping you remain open to hearing what the other person is trying to communicate.
  3. Is the person’s anger or criticism an attempt to hurt you? Instead of trying to improve the relationship, sometimes the goal is to hurt you. It’s never OK for someone to try to hurt you. Your thick skin could be detrimental if it allows you to ignore hurtful behavior.
  4. Is the anger mild or high intensity? The intensity of anger runs on a spectrum from calm, respectful communication to red-faced shouting that is disrespectful and threatening. Your strength is a weakness if it’s allowing you to tolerate dangerous and disrespectful outbursts.
  5. Is this anger coming at me typical behavior for this relationship or is it a rare outburst? If hostility toward you is typical and frequent for your relationship, your tolerance is too high. Even if you think you can take it, the anger and criticism can take a toll on your health and mental well-being. A high-intensity incident, even if rare, is cause for concern and shouldn’t be ignored.
  6. Is the experience of tolerating other people’s anger isolated to one relationship or do you experience it in multiple relationships? If multiple people are getting upset with you about the same thing, then that could be an indication you have a problematic behavior you should confront. On the other hand, if multiple people—your boss, your neighbor, your friends—are all displacing their anger on you, then your thick skin may have unconsciously made you into a safe target for other people’s aggression.

The bottom line is other people shouldn’t hurt you. You might be able to take it, but maybe you shouldn’t.

group therapyI was at a party chatting with a stranger when he asked me what sort of work I do. I told him I am a marriage and family therapist who specializes in group therapy. “Group therapy!” he said. “I thought that went away after the ’60s.”

I’m happy to report that group therapy did not, in fact, go away in the 1960s. However, many people, like the guy at the party, don’t realize that group therapy exists as a powerful therapeutic option to consider instead of, or in addition to, individual therapy.

People may dismiss group therapy because it’s a therapeutic approach more often utilized in hospitals and treatment centers than in private practices. It can be difficult to find private practice therapists who run groups. Sometimes, it requires a lot of research and phone calls to find a group. However, plenty of therapists do run groups in their private practices, and this unique experience is worth the effort it might take to find it.

So, what’s so special about group therapy?

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No, group therapy is not dead. All around the country, people are gathering in groups to be more truthful, more engaged in relationships, and more open to insight than they are the rest of the time. Group therapy is very much alive! Are you ready to give it a try?

GoodTherapy | What to Do When You’re the JerkI’ve been a jerk many times in my life. But one time that stands out for me happened when I was 13. I had been invited to the bat mitzvah of a girl I barely knew. A bat mitzvah is a big event; at least 100 people were there. After singing “Happy Birthday,” some kid usually started chanting, “Skip around the room, skip around the room, we won’t shut up until you skip around the room.” Obviously, the intent was to make the birthday child … skip around the room.

On this occasion, I started the chant, but it fell flat on its face. Not a single person joined the chant with me.

It wasn’t until I was in college, recalling this embarrassing incident, that I finally realized my shameful behavior. The birthday girl, who appeared in class sporadically, sometimes showed up on crutches and sometimes arrived in a wheelchair. I had completely forgotten about her disability because she had put them aside for her bat mitzvah. Ignorantly, obliviously, I had thrown her illness in everyone’s face. What a horrible child!

It’s easier to forgive a child’s behavior than an adult’s. It’s also easier to forgive unintentional cruelty than intentional harm. But regardless, I will always feel a little ashamed that I hurt that girl and her family that day.

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Shame, that gut-wrenching, nauseating feeling, keeps people from acknowledging when they’ve been hurtful. So often, admitting that you’re guilty means being overcome with shame. We all want to be the good guy. It’s awful to discover that we’ve been the villain.

The other thing that stops people from admitting when they’ve been wrong is punishment. Often, the punishment is shame: “Shame on you!” If a person admits to a spouse that he or she has been overreactive or harsh toward the spouse, will the person be understood and forgiven or will he/she be punished and repeatedly shamed?

Being able to take responsibility for one’s bad behavior is in everyone’s best interest. Being condescending, being harshly critical, being explosive, being prejudiced—these behaviors and more may occur for all of us, but unacknowledged and unchecked, they can become a person’s identity, overshadowing higher qualities and damaging or destroying relationships.

What to do:

What not to do:
Twelve-step groups, support groups, and psychotherapy can assist individuals in regaining clarity and self-compassion in order to end abusive behaviors, including the abusive behavior of self-loathing and self-abuse.

These suggestions are sometimes easier said than done. It can take time, patience, and emotional support to work through these steps. A person may not get the understanding and forgiveness he or she desires. It’s important to do it anyway, regardless of the reaction. Just because someone becomes aware of his or her behavior doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. Hopefully, with repeated awareness and commitment, the person can learn to stop it faster.

In families that carry histories of substance abuse and/or physical abuse, the level of damage can be extreme, resulting in a greater need to justify, ignore, or suppress awareness of these behaviors. Twelve-step groups, support groups, and psychotherapy can assist individuals in regaining clarity and self-compassion in order to end abusive behaviors, including the abusive behavior of self-loathing and self-abuse.

No one is perfect. There is no shame in learning, growing, and striving to be your best self.

hand heart shape love sunsetBeing in relationships is a natural and necessary part of life. Human beings are designed to form bonds with each other. In fact, a lack of healthy bonds with other people can cause a variety of symptoms, including depression, anxiety, addictive behaviors, and so on.

But if it’s so natural, why is it so difficult for many people to form healthy attachments? The relationship lessons that they have received in life may be at fault.

If you watch most small children, you will see that they are natural-born relationship seekers. On the playground, they will spot other children, rush up to them, stare them in the eyes, maybe even take their hands, and begin to play together. If they’re very small, they’ll just sit near each other, playing separately in the sand, separate but together.

It’s similar to dogs. Dogs are also social animals. When they see another dog, they want to engage. “Hello, you’re a dog. I’m a dog, too. Let’s get to know each other.” We can learn a lot from dogs.

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Infants seek out the eyes of everyone around them. Sometimes it feels like you’re being pulled in by powerful magnets, the intensity of their stare is so strong. “I see you. Do you see me?”

But then children grow up and stop being so unabashed about their desire to connect. Many adults still long for connection but have learned to hide their wanting.

Most of the knowledge that we’ve received about how to be in relationships comes from the ways in which our immediate families interacted. As children, we experienced how our families related to us—attentive, dismissive, or unpredictable. We observed how family members related to each other. We learned which emotions can be expressed and which are seemingly better off repressed. We learned strategies to get the love, attention, and connection we needed, or we learned to give up on getting those needs met.

Most of the knowledge that we’ve received about how to be in relationships comes from the ways in which our immediate families interacted.

If you want connection but avoid it; if there’s always a wedge between yourself and others because you’ve learned to hide your true feelings; if you repeat behaviors that result in people distancing themselves from you, it might just mean that you have more to learn. You may have had lousy teachers, a poor lesson plan, or come to the wrong conclusions about the meanings of the lessons.

Here is an example of a common misunderstanding:

Lesson: A person doesn’t love you.

Wrong answer No. 1: You are unworthy of his or her love.

Wrong answer No. 2: He or she is a bad person.

Possible correct answer No. 1: That person does not love you for reasons you may not be able to understand, and it may have nothing to do with you. It doesn’t mean he or she is a bad person.

Possible correct answer No. 2: You may have behaviors that cause others to distance themselves from you. It could be beneficial to learn about those behaviors so you can have more control over them. Those behaviors don’t mean you’re unworthy of love.

The lesson here is that it’s in our nature for people to love and be loved, but it can be a complicated one to learn. The first step is to forgive ourselves for our difficulties. The second step is to seek out new teachers and reexamine old conclusions. We may never be able to return to the open-eyed trust of our infancy, but we may be able to restore some of our natural ability to form relationships.

Man alone Why is it so difficult for some people to allow themselves to be helped? If there was a spectrum on which one end was total independence and the other was complete dependence, where would you say you fall? Ideally, it would be somewhere in the middle or fluidly moving back and forth along the spectrum as circumstances required. But many people get stuck at the independence end of the spectrum and only rarely dare to ask for assistance.

We are all influenced by societal beliefs about independence and dependence. However, those who are rigidly independent may need to look more closely at their personal experiences as dependent children in order to uncover their deep resistance to accepting help from others.

Independence is a healthy and important aspect of human development. It’s also supported by many popular beliefs:

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All of these beliefs contain truth, but not the whole truth.

Freedom at What Cost?

Rigidly independent people may be free to do what they want, but they have to do it alone. Healthy relationships require both partners to sometimes give up control and put the other partner’s needs first. By relying only on themselves, rigidly independent people actually limit their lives. They cannot accomplish large tasks that require the assistance of others. They limit their life experiences by missing out on camping trips, concerts, hobbies, and other shared life events. Rigidly independent people also limit their own emotional and intellectual growth by resisting the knowledge and input of others.

Are You Really Safer?

While taking care of yourself does increase your safety, your safety increases even more when you have a network of friends, family, and public services that you can rely on in times of need. The rigidly independent sometimes endanger themselves by being unwilling to accept assistance. Think of the elderly person who refuses to accept a caregiver and then accidentally burns the house down; the teen who drives drunk because he or she is unwilling to call a parent for help; or the woman who is too proud of her independence to ask a friend to walk her to her car late at night.

Who Feels Respected?

People respect independence, but not when it’s unyielding. People respect those who respect them back. Rigid independence devalues the contributions of others; it implies that they have nothing to offer you; and it disrespects their skills, wisdom, and generosity.

However, even those who are aware of the benefits of letting go of their rigid independence may find themselves unable to do so. For these people, this may be the time to examine their own negative views and possible past experiences with dependency. A person who experienced shame, danger, or betrayal as a child may not have the ability as an adult to find safe, trustworthy people to rely on.

We were all completely dependent on others when we were small children—and may need to be again as we age or become disabled. But even if we don’t require physical assistance, the fact is people still need each other. There’s no shame in it. Find safe people and let go of rigid independence … because we all need a little help sometimes.

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” —H.E. Luccock

fallen ice cream cone by feetLife is unfair! Why does he have more money than me? Why is she prettier? Why does that guy get away with everything?

Injustice is a bitter pill to swallow, and some people seem to choke on it on a regular basis. If you are very sensitive to injustice, you become aware of its existence all around you; the reckless driver speeding down the street, risking other people’s lives; the coffee shop barista, friendly to young hotties but dismissive of old fogies. Injustice can stir many painful feelings: anger, frustration, helplessness, sadness, vengeance.

Revenge is the desire for justice. It isn’t fair that they should get away with that; for it to be fair, they must feel the repercussions of their actions. So people fantasize about the driver getting a speeding ticket or humiliating the young barista with sharp wit. But the revenge fantasy doesn’t make the pain go away. In fact, it makes it last longer, feeds the anger and helplessness, keeps it alive, and adds shame and guilt to already unpleasant feelings. And if you were to actually enact revenge, the consequences for you would be far worse.

“He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.” —John Milton

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Many people experience this cycle of emotions: recognition of injustice, turning to rage, desire for revenge, shame, and then hopelessness, on an all-too-often basis.

Everyone experiences injustice, but why do some people suffer over it more than others? One reason may be that the people regularly plagued by injustice have experienced more extreme and blatant examples of injustice in their lives. They’ve been bullied, discriminated against, poor. However, not all people in similar situations share this painful obsession with injustice. In addition, people who have experienced relatively minor injustices can be just as sensitive to it.

One thing that people sensitive to injustice seem to have in common is a “me against them” attitude that can quickly stir them to anger; causing disruption in their relationships with other people and leading to isolation. It’s like you’re always in a fight with an invisible other person or group.

So what do you do if you’re a person whose feelings are painfully stirred by an encounter with injustice? Ask yourself the questions, “What am I feeling? What is my view of humanity? Is my anger a call to action or a cry of helplessness? Do I think that I, alone, experience injustice, whereas everyone else in the world is dealt with fairly?”

In other words, if you experience this injustice cycle frequently, it’s time to take your view off what is going on in the world and look inward at what is going on within you.

The fact of the matter is life is unfair. There is injustice in the world. We see it in the newspaper every day. Even as small children, we’re aware of this fact. From the first time some kid got an ice cream cone and you didn’t, or you were punished for something you didn’t do, you were dealing with it.

It may also be that you are unconsciously dealing with existential injustice; the aspects of life that we find difficult to accept—that we will all die someday, that there are no guarantees in life, and that we are ultimately responsible for our lives, regardless of the things we can’t control.

It may be helpful to remind yourself that there are a lot of wonderful things that people do to make the world a better place. Many people are out there striving to make a difference all the time. If a certain injustice becomes your call to action, you could be one of those people, doing your best to help those in need. But even if you choose to focus on helping yourself to become a happier, more peaceful, and more accepting person, that will make a much more positive impact on your life and the people around you than if you choose to spend your life angry and holding a grudge. Peace begins with you.

Two girls talking Have you ever been in a situation where you’re in a good mood, but then you talk to a friend who’s not doing so well and suddenly you feel conflicted? You want to support your friend, but you feel like you’re being pulled into the friend’s negative emotions, and you don’t want to give up your good mood. It seems like your only choice is to be pulled into the bad feelings or run away. Neither choice feels right.

This is one of the challenges that we navigate in order to have healthy relationships. But while it may seem like your only choice is between being pulled in or running away, there is a third choice: differentiation.

The psychological term for being “pulled in” is enmeshment. Enmeshment means losing our individuality and merging emotionally with others. We’re born enmeshed. As infants, we have no sense of where we end and others begin. When the brain is finally able to comprehend that we are separate beings, separation anxiety sets in, triggering existential isolation and creating a longing to merge with another.

Enmeshment can feel like love, connection, or empathy. It could be the only way you know how to be with someone else or the way you were taught you were supposed to feel. If a loved one has a feeling, you have a feeling, too. Feeling neutral can feel lonely, uncaring, or just plain wrong.

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The fact is, though, enmeshment doesn’t really help either person in the relationship. If your partner is distressed and you join them in distress, then you’re both distressed! It’s much more helpful if one of you remains calm and supportive. When your child is anxious, being anxious yourself only increases the child’s anxiety and may even send a message that the child can’t handle their feelings alone. It’s unhealthy for your own mental well-being to be so affected by the moods of others. You have enough of your own feelings without also taking on everyone else’s. Enmeshment can stop both of you from reaching your full potential as individuals.

The psychological term for “running away” is emotional cutoff. Emotional cutoff occurs when enmeshment has gone too far, becoming emotionally dangerous for you, engulfing you in painful feelings. In order to protect yourself, you react by cutting yourself off emotionally from the other person. A woman notices her husband’s sadness, feelings of helplessness or fear flare up in her, and so she cuts off these feelings by ignoring and avoiding him. As a result, her husband is left alone with his feelings, he doesn’t receive love and support when he needs it, and a chasm grows between them.

In extreme cases, a person will permanently sever the relationship. It’s not always possible or even healthy to maintain toxic relationships, but in other cases, becoming differentiated can help you achieve a healthy relationship.

Differentiation is a person’s ability to maintain individuality while remaining emotionally connected to significant relationships. Differentiation is an innate part of human development, but the conflicting demands or desires for enmeshment can thwart its development. When you are differentiated, you can be with another person and listen to what that person is feeling without being emotionally pulled in one direction or another.

As with any problematic behavior, the first step in effecting change is to become aware that there is a problem. If this article rings true for you in any way, start by paying more attention to how you’re reacting in your relationships when you are confronted by someone else’s negative emotions. Do you remember the old suggestion, “Take a deep breath and count to 10?” Try it. It works!

The goal is to create a little window of opportunity to slow down your emotional reaction to the other person so that you can become aware of it, think about it, and hopefully choose to handle it differently. Ask yourself some questions: Are you becoming emotionally activated easily? Are you distancing yourself from the person? What is the person really trying to tell you? Does he or she want you to help, or just listen?

In order to separate your reactions from the other person’s emotions, you have to focus on yourself. This might require a heavy dose of acceptance: accepting your own thoughts and feelings, accepting the loneliness of individuality, and accepting the necessity of allowing other people to work through their feelings on their own.

If you ask yourself, “I’m OK, they’re not … is that OK?” The answer is yes.

envious boy watching another boy eatPsst. I have a little secret for you. Don’t let anyone know I told you this: Be selfish. I know that sounds like terrible advice. In fact, it’s the extreme opposite of what our mothers told us growing up. What we learned was: to be selfish was a terrible thing; a dirty name; a personality trait that no good girl or boy would ever want to be accused of owning. That word can also be a wonderful tool for inducing shame and getting people to behave the way you want them to. If it were an archaic word, growing dusty on the shelf of our childhood, rarely used, I wouldn’t write this article. Instead, that word is so commonly thrown about, tossed from husband to wife, mother to child, our self to our self, leaving guilt, shame, and self-doubt in its wake, that it demands investigation.

The Webster’s Dictionary definition of selfish is: “Devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one’s own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others …” If we look at the definition closely, we can see what all those mothers were upset about: “caring only for oneself,” “concerned primarily with one’s own …” and “… regardless of others.” Those phrases do sound pretty heartless, bringing the image of Scrooge to mind. But the rest, “caring for oneself” and “concerned with one’s interests, benefits, welfare, etc.,” address a way of being that we all are, or should be, instinctually doing: taking care of ourselves. That makes it a little confusing; the word “selfish” contains both something integral to human safety, and a harsh censure against it.

This is not to say there aren’t people who act within the literal definition of “selfish,” and whoshould be made aware that their behavior is harmful to themselves and others. I’m concerned about the nonliteral, inappropriate use of the word “selfish.” I worry about the people, so wary of incurring condemnation for their actions and receiving the title of “selfish,” that they confuse healthy behavior with unhealthy, and become immobilized.

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The phrase “self-care” is the argument for the necessity of taking care of our physical and emotional well-being, becoming much more popular and widely used in recent years, encouraging people to take better care of themselves: getting regular check-ups, eating healthy foods, getting adequate sleep, enjoying their favorite activities and so on. Even if people are aware of the necessity of self-care, especially in regards to emotional well-being, it may still be hard to do.

We need to take care of ourselves, but too many people don’t. The reasons are numerous; usually stemming from lessons learned in childhood, possibly suggesting a history of neglect, low self-esteem, poor role models, and more than we can consider here. Those deep personal reasons, in combination with society’s excessive concern about not being “selfish,” may stop many people from taking care of themselves in the ways they should.

The truth is, the way the word is misused, everything we do for ourselves could be considered selfish if there is another person who doesn’t want us to do it. But what if the action we are attempting to take is important, healthy, and necessary, and the desire of the other person to stop us from doing it is selfish? No, disregarding others is not an accurate measure to determine whether you are being selfish. Sometimes we must disregard others in order to take care of ourselves. That can be an extremely difficult thing to do.

I’m sure you’ve had numerous experiences of putting your needs ahead of someone else’s: disappointing the cook by resisting the cake, refusing your child to care for yourself, saying no to the friend and yes to you. On the other hand, how many of you have regretfully eaten that cake, given in to the child, or sacrificed your own wishes for your friend’s? And if these are the small choices, how well do we manage the major ones? People acquiesce to having children they don’t want, pursuing careers they didn’t choose, marrying partners they don’t love. This doesn’t lead to happiness for anyone involved.

If we become so afraid to take care of ourselves because we fear being judged, then who is supposed to take care of us? Having received harsh warnings about selfishness, many people become dependent on others for their happiness. They hope others will know what they need and will provide it. This can become a helpless position to be in, hindering the individual’s self-awareness and self-efficacy.

It seems both a heavy burden and a confusing task to ignore your wants and needs and to instead focus on guessing and fulfilling the wants and needs of others, all while expecting others to be doing the same for you. It’s like the adage, “You wash my back and I’ll wash yours,” except that in this case, they can’t wash their backs unless the other person does it for them. Wouldn’t it make more sense if we, who should know ourselves better than anyone else, were responsible for taking care of our own needs?

So my suggestion next time the word “selfish” comes up, either with another person or with you, is that instead of shame and shutdown it leads to thought and exploration. “Selfish” can lead to greater insight into yourself or your relationships. “Selfish” should be examined on a case-by-case basis, examined to see if the accuser is attempting to get their own way, examined as a guide to what you really want, examined to see if you really are being inconsiderate of others, examined in order to generate solutions that could satisfy both parties, or, if that fails, examined to see if your personal need is important enough to you that you must proceed regardless of the other.

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” —Oscar Wilde

Important Notice

GoodTherapy is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, medical treatment, or therapy. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding any mental health symptom or medical condition. Never disregard professional psychological or medical advice nor delay in seeking professional advice or treatment because of something you have read on GoodTherapy.