The real reason behind selfishness. ?????
This is my first ever retreat. A few days in, I'm already feeling the power of this setup, with a small group of people, really deep conversations, and really strong energy. In fact, on the first day of the retreat, I cried twice. Why? I uncovered something big within myself - something that explains all my business positioning, slow replies to messages, and numerous behaviors that permeate my life.
This something is called selfishness.
What is selfishness?
Before I start, the disclaimer is that the selfishness here means the real selfishness - not individualism. Many people from collectivistic cultures would throw the "selfish" label at individualistic cultures: but it is not how I define it. In my point of view, the majority of the collectivism available in the world right now is actually codependency. I envision the world moving towards healthy individualism: that each person takes full responsibility for their own needs, while interacting with others as team members for more enriching life experiences. Therefore, the selfishness I mean in this newsletter, is the hyperfocus on one's own needs, and the inability to attend to other people's needs even when their own needs are fulfilled.
I thought selfishness was mislabeled.
For a long time, whenever I heard people saying "The future is community!" or "The point of traveling is people, not the place!", I felt a strong feeling of resentment. For as long as I remembered, I was introverted, happy spending time alone, and felt too overwhelmed by people. I questioned why "the society" emphasized the social element so much, and treated introversion as being anti-social, and individualism as selfishness?
During the opening event of the Retreat Retreat by Daniel Lawson, I found myself saying "Those who are selfish actually didn't mean to be selfish... their needs were probably chronically ignored in their childhood, that as adults, they have no capacity to look after other people's needs."
It took me a while to realize that I was talking about myself. I saw the qualitative difference between real selfishness and mislabeled selfishness (which is actually healthy individualism): and yes, I had been carrying a brand of real selfishness.
Let's time travel to 20+ years back...
I was constantly told that my needs were less important than others' needs.
As the eldest among my cousins, I was told that my younger cousin grabbing my toys was okay, and I should have been just more tolerant since I was the older one; While she was taking my toys, how she physically hurt me was also something to be shoved off, because she was "too young"; and I should have taken even more initiatives, to generously give my stuff to her.
As the child of the eldest son in the family, my grandmother dragged me to a corner when I was 4 years old, how much trauma my father carried, and how I should already took responsibility to "share his burden".
As the child of a housewife, I grew up being the venting partner of my mother, especially after each and every fight she and my father had. I had to play the adult: Every time they fought, I was crying, screaming, and calling my grandparents to come to my rescue. Every time after the fight, there would be days that my mother complained to me, about how she hated being a housewife, how my father's family treated her badly, and how my father spent too much time socializing with his colleagues and showed no initiative to take care of the family.
As the highest-performing student in the class, but not nearly the prettiest, most outgoing, or coming from the richest family already acquainted with the teachers, I spent my years in school breaking my head at why I only had a few close friends, but never seemed to be able to get the whole class to like me. Nevertheless, since I was well-behaved, I was arranged by the teacher to sit next to some of the naughtiest kids, so that I could be the "little teacher" to their naughty behaviors.
Dark thoughts of a 9-year-old
I remember vividly, what happened in a summer camp when I was 9 years old.
I was in a dorm of 10 girls. 9-year-old girls, already excitedly talking about marriage and kids in the evening. They dreamt of the prince charming, talked about their vision of by which age they would have kids, and asked each one of the girls about their opinions.
I was super annoyed. ??
I not only hated the gossip and the social pressure ("Of course you would be pregnant one day because everyone would be!"). I hated the entire concept of dating, marriage, and kids. I saw my parents having small fights every 3 months, and big fights every year. I heard my mother complain to me about my father every other day. The majority of my male relatives cheated on their wives and faced no consequences. Why would I be interested in this game that only seems to disempower women?
I told the girls, "I would never get married and I would never have kids. Period."
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You might remember from my earlier newsletters, that I was a scientist, and I was hard set to go on the academic path.
One thing that has always been in my favor is that I'm smart. As an intelligent and introverted kid, I dreamt of becoming a scientist - and everyone around me, including my very gossipy relatives, said that I was destined to be in academia.
Having spent my pre-school years not playing with other kids in the mud, but mostly reading books with massive amounts of words (yes, I learned to read earlier than average) alone in my room: I formed a clear goal in the research I desired - I wanted to study biochemistry, and prove that love was nothing more than biochemical reactions.
I was so burnt by all the drama created by people around me, that I constantly felt happier alone than with others; I was so done with all the responsibilities people threw at me that were not meant to be mine, that I decided that I just wanted to leave. I wanted to leave all the people, all the unrealistic things people say about love, and spend all the time in my laboratory alone, to prove that all those "happily ever after" are nothing more than chemicals in the brain.
The real reason behind selfishness
Reading all the above, you probably won't be surprised that I carry this brand of real selfishness - because my needs were systematically ignored, shamed, and deprioritized over other people's needs.
Upon turning an adult, I've been living away from my parents and gossipy relatives, and have been living in more individualistic societies. Words cannot describe how liberating it feels - and it only gets more liberating, every time I make changes in my life.
The self-liberation process led me to solopreneurship.
Since 7 years ago, I've been physically, emotionally, and financially independent.
What an achievement, coming from such controlling, codependent, and overprotective environments!
But I didn't often feel it. Part of me was still operating like the resentful 9-year-old, on a mission to prove the whole world wrong, and break down all that's warm into cold formulas.
Having seen the majority of the people around me ignoring my needs, I was conditioned to have default negative beliefs towards people in general.
The first place for all of these to show is my solopreneur business.
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I wondered for a long time, why I struggled to reply to my DMs timely, unless they were of urgency.
I wondered why every time people told me to make my content more about my audience, I resented.
It became all clear on the first day of the Retreat Retreat. Because the 9-year-old me was still screaming, WHAT ABOUT ME???
Now I'm fully self-sufficient, with a loving boyfriend, many many friends, many many supportive people on the internet that I haven't all talked with. My parents are changing for the better, and I am not in touch with any of the gossipy relatives anymore. I consciously know, my cup is full, and I'm able to give to others. But unconsciously, there was this black hole that was never filled, and it constantly made me feel that no matter how much money I had, how many friends I had, I still didn't feel loved, my needs still felt insignificant, and I still believed that love was nothing more than biochemical reactions.
What the Retreat Retreat does to me
Upon realizing this, I cried like crazy during Daniel Lawson's session.
The next session by Hristina Mitovska made me cry even more.
She facilitated a business constellation session. I told her, I wanted to find my higher business purpose. Simple, no other information was given.
Then, she told me to pick one person from the crowd to represent myself, and another person to represent my higher business purpose - purely by intuition.
Then I saw how the two people moved around, their physical distance, their emotional reactions... they were a bit distant, the person who represented me said they couldn't see the purpose clearly...
Then Hristina picked another person, to represent my blockage. Then another person, to represent those, to whom my blockage belongs.
None of these people knew the full story I just shared above. They just played out the scenario from their own intuition. But everything just made so much sense. It was just like how it's been happening inside of me.
When I saw the people representing my blockage, and to whom my blockage belongs to, moved closer to each other and then away from the center of the stage, my tears couldn't stop flowing.
The blockage is not mine!
I'm not responsible for any of the things that led the 9-year-old to the dark realizations.
The people that affected me in the past operated with their own blockages, and it is their own decision whether to keep those blockages or not. In any case, IT'S NOT MINE.
Then the people who represented me and my higher vision got closer, and could see each other.
I joined the stage, became the real me - and hugged the person who represented my higher vision for a long time.
Thereafter, lots of people came to ask how I was, give their support, assure me that I'm well on my way to my mission...
There's so much power, so much energy, in this experience. The people are so good - and so different, from many people I remembered from my early years, being judgmental, selfish (yeah, now I realized that this is theirs, not mine), codependent. I'm happier with these people, than spending all the time alone in my room. I want to interact with these people, share, give, chat, laugh for no reason - because there's trust: I trust myself for still taking radical self-responsibiity, and I trust the people here to hold me, warmly and gently.
Transformative experiences
How many times in your life have you felt that your life was changed?
I'm fortunate to say that this has happened many times in the past few years: relationship coaching with Galina Singer, health coaching with Linh Le, the 1st Bosnia Nomad Fest, and now this Retreat Retreat when we aren't even half way through yet.
I managed to grow so much in a short period of time, to come so far in my self-empowerment journey, with the support of all these people and all these experiences.
Transformations are not describable in words. It goes beyond the conscious, cognitive knowledge. It's not all in your head. It happens through tears, hugs, cooking with people, going on walks with people - all the emotional and somatic experiences. You dig deeper and deeper, and find more and more shit from the past - but you learn to let go of them. You learn to say to the shit, you're not mine. And gradually, unconsciously, you're through - things that bothered you before don't bother you anymore. You see your past as invitations, as instruments to gain strength. And you move ahead on this journey called life, more liberated, more empowered, more YOU...
Can I help you with your transformative experiences? Most people offer free discovery calls for 30 minutes, but I have decided to offer 60 minutes, because that is the depth I would like to go in for each individual. If my writings speak with you, but we haven't spoken before: you're welcomed to book a free 60-min call and I will share all that I know to help you.
How about you?
Have you been on a retreat before?
Thank you for reading and see you next week ??