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There is nothing reprehensible in the desire to do something for loved ones. But is it worth it to forget about your own desires, to break yourself in order to please another? And where are the origins of this behavior?
“You can’t be selfish. It’s bad to think about ourselves, ”how often we repeat these phrases to ourselves … We condemn, reproach ourselves for the slightest attempt to do what we need, instead of again giving up our own desires for the sake of another. We strive to be useful, good enough for everyone. And this desire is understandable. After all, climbers are wonderful people. Everyone loves them. True, for some reason they are not particularly considered.
Where does our desire to give up ourselves for the happiness of others come from? What is the reason for striving to be convenient for everyone?
Where did the desire to be good come from?
Look inside yourself. What is behind altruism? As a rule, an excessive desire to be good is born on the basis of guilt, the feeling that you are not good enough, that no one needs you just like that, on your own. It seems to us that we need to make an effort to earn respect and love.
To get to the bottom of these feelings, try an experiment. It will only take a couple of minutes.
- Focus, close your eyes, then try to find this feeling in yourself: that you are not good enough, that you are to blame for everyone. Perhaps, in the process of searching, you will find other negative judgments about yourself.
- Think about it. Pay attention: where, in what part of the body do these thoughts “respond”? Focus on them, allow yourself to be transported to a moment in the past when such experiences were especially strong. How old were you? Who was there? What’s happened? Why do you think there is something wrong with you? Take a look at what happened to you a long time ago. “View” your memories like a movie series.
- And then think about how these particular moments (or one of them) affected you, your opinion about yourself, about others, about life.
Perhaps this short experiment will help answer the question: how did it happen that you became a person convenient for others.
Why do we try to please others?
After doing the exercise and getting some answers, we will see that in trying to please everyone, we first of all do it for ourselves. This is our way to compensate for our negative experiences from the past. So we try not to feel guilty, bad, unnecessary.
We are not alone in this endeavor. And self-help always begins with the realization that if you feel guilty, it does not mean that you are really guilty. Just because you feel like you’re not good enough doesn’t mean you’re really not good enough. Perhaps you are living in the thrall of cognitive distortions, because our brain is often inclined to interpret any facts in favor of what we believe.
But it’s just a way of explaining why we experience what we experience. In fact, at one time we simply chose this way to protect ourselves from traumatic situations. Our ideas like “I’m guilty”, “I’m bad”, “I can’t be loved and accepted just like that” do not make us really guilty and bad.
How to become comfortable for yourself?
What to do if the feeling that others do not need us just like that, without the sacrifices that we make, does not let go, causes pain and discomfort? Of course, it is best to “take” it to a psychologist. In the meantime, “carry”, pay attention: it is impossible to get rid of the repetitive thoughts that are spinning in the head by an effort of will. It is impossible to destroy the obsessive image. But you can choose whether to focus your attention on these ideas or on objective reality.
Yes, in order to completely destroy the belief in one’s own inferiority, the work of a specialist is needed. But this does not mean that without therapy we cannot help ourselves.
Try to observe what will happen if you do not try to destroy these emotions, but also do not follow their lead. A strong feeling will most likely take you over. You will lose control and awareness and again succumb to it.
It’s okay, don’t beat yourself up. After all, the task of the psyche is to control your behavior through emotions. But when we allow the feeling to be, allow ourselves to experience it, it is easier for us to look at it from the outside. And it also passes faster, leaves us, since we do not plunge into it.
Over and over again doing the exercises described above, we begin to separate ourselves from our feelings, cease to be identical to our ideas and experiences.
Sooner or later, we will master the art of consciously choosing whether to do something for another or remember ourselves. We will learn to free ourselves from negative attitudes, make decisions in our favor, and allow ourselves not to be liked by others and not be convenient for them if we want to.