Encouraging self-centredness... whatever next? Perhaps part of you is thinking it’s a selfish and deplorable suggestion? Though my guess is another part of you is dying to find out what I mean and why focusing on your ‘self’ is so important.
Most of us want to feel happy, content and fulfilled, and probably more so than we do currently. Exploring it further, I believe this contentment and fulfilment is about being able to be ourselves fully in all areas of our lives, and to feel solid and happy in who we are, or to put it another way - to know our centre.
As we are all unique, we have different needs and ways of being. What suits one person and makes them happy will be the opposite of someone else. So, the key is learning the ingredients in life, and the way in which these combine, which suit you.
How many of us...
..forget ourselves and spend much of our energy focused on changing others or things outside of ourselves?
..aspire to an external idea of what others say brings happiness, rather than daring to explore inside ourselves what actually brings us happiness?
..try to find our centre outside ourselves, in our partners, kids, money, career, status, achievement etc?
It is not easy in our fast pace, ever changing world to make and take the space to hear ourselves, and find our own individual way to live happily. We are caught in our social conditioning of what is ‘acceptable’ or ‘right’ and bombarded with messages and information by the media on how to live and ‘the’ way to succeed. It is easy to follow the norm and an external definition of success rather than discover and live our own version, when human nature drives us to belong and connect with others.
Yet, at some point we find ourselves in some kind of pain and searching for a way forwards; we may feel empty and be looking for someone or something to make us feel whole or loved, we may be unable to sustain the stress and become physically or mentally ill and wonder why we can’t hack it, we may find ourselves trapped in an addiction or habit to try to block out the need to change.
In our family life, and as we enter into relationships with others, we learn more about ourselves. In particular we feel the tension of being an individual in relationship and the differences between what the relationship needs and what we as an individual need. How we handle these differences is important.
How do we hold onto our sense of ourselves, and our centre, in relationships, both with people and things?
How do we recover ourselves and our centre when we lose it?
After all, it’s a natural phase in new relationships where you fall ‘in love’ whether with a partner, or a new baby, to become engrossed in the other and lose yourself in some sort of union. Many of us know that feeling early in a relationship when you’re ‘in love’, where you feel so close it’s hard to tell where you both begin and end. In this phase couples are focused on creating an ‘us’ rather than on their individual identities.
It is no surprise that mothers often talk about losing themselves. I know myself how all consuming a new baby is, and how powerful and natural the mother-baby bond, to the point that we identify with being a mother over individual needs for a while.
Some people feel so compelled by their career that they are drawn into working longer and longer hours and living more of their life through work. In this case maintaining and furthering a work identity and title dominates over their individual needs.
This is not sustainable.
The new lovers cannot live life as an ‘us’ forever, and have to find themselves again whilst exploring how to still be in the relationship. The new mother cannot physically and emotionally keep going if she fails to remember her own needs and look after herself. The careerist reaches a point where changing the balance in their life is essential to avoid adverse affects from the increasing stress.
I believe the answer to recovering and moving through these stages lies is learning about being self-centred - being yourself, with awareness and responsibility for your own needs. Mature or adult self-centredness comes from combining self-awareness with taking personal responsibility and being aware of the world around you.
Without this responsibility, it becomes a childish selfishness, where the focus is solely on the individual at the cost of relationship. Mature self-centredness does not stop you from being able to focus on and reach out to others; it increases your capacity to do so, as you have a solid foundation for relationship.
Different generations learn different things - until the 80s and Margaret Thatcher’s time ‘selfishness’ was generally judged harshly and ‘sacrifice’ rewarded in the UK. However, a shift towards rewarding more individualistic behaviour since seems to be taking things to the other extreme with a focus on self, but often without responsibility, that feels childish and selfish.
What if we discover a middle ground of mature self-centredness, where we have our own needs and can be in healthy relationships? Isn’t this what we yearn for?
I believe it is time for a new awareness and view of ‘self’ with an ability to recover this ‘centre’, so that we can be happy in ourselves as individuals and build healthy, happy relationships and families.
10 Ways for starters...
Through my coaching, dialogue, reading and personal experience I have identified many of the elements involved with becoming more self-centred, along with creating many practical and tangible ways for individuals to explore the process.
Here are 10 simple pointers to experiment with:
1) Write down what you really want in your life right now
2) Take an action towards something you’ve realised you want
3) Notice your emotions and the message behind them
4) Stop analysing a decision or problem and trust your gut instincts
5) Imagine your ideal future as if you were there
6) Notice what you excel at and how great it feels
7) Give yourself what you’re always giving others
8) Enjoy your unique perspective, where what is obvious to you is not to others
9) Be quiet and just be with yourself
10) Explore your creativity without aiming at a result
I will share more depth and context for these over time, however please contact me if you are interested in hearing more.
I want to acknowledge and thank Danusia Malina-Derben, as through our dialogue and work together we created the ‘Centring Model’ and started to articulate the importance of putting your ‘self’ at the centre. Since running our Centring Workshops together in 2004 / 2005 we have followed our individual journeys. This is my personal expression of our self-centring philosophy, which has evolved over the last few years.
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