Divine Selfishness: Why You Need To Be More Selfish

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about the need to be selfish and the type of selfishness that I'm referring to is the type of selfishness that is tied to self-responsibility,

Self-accountability,

Self-compassion,

Self-knowledge,

Self-understanding,

Humility,

And the selfishness that's tied to the type of awareness that helps us bring about positive changes in our behavior.

I think for centuries,

If not lifetimes,

Many of us have been groomed to think that it is bad to care about the self.

Many of us have been raised and watched either our mother or father cater to the needs of others,

Acquiesce to the rage of another person,

Tone themselves down because of someone else's disapproval.

Many of us have been infused with this idea,

This codependent idea that our worth is tied to something outside of us.

So if my boss finds value in me,

If my salary is a particular amount,

If I live in a particular city,

State,

Building,

Or home,

Or area,

Then I am enough.

If I am married versus single,

Or I'm single versus married,

Then I am enough.

If I have this car,

That plane,

If I have this vacation under my belt,

If I know this person,

If this person speaks highly of me,

Then I am enough.

So there's this idea that we are codependent or we are dependent upon something outside of the self for value,

For a sense of worth,

For a sense of I am enough.

And when I refer to selfishness,

I'm referring to the need to come back to the I,

The need to take back all of your power,

The right you have to take back your power from such ridiculous and debilitating concepts and ideas.

Many of us have been raised by family who is religious,

And many religions and cultures teach us that you're supposed to put other people above yourself.

And even in the healing industry and the idea of serving others,

Which I think is a beautiful thing,

But it makes no sense to serve someone at the expense of yourself.

It makes no sense to do for someone else because in the doing of this other person,

You gain a sense of self.

Your sense of self should just be tied to I am enough.

Regardless of what I do for other people,

Your value should not come from how well other people speak of you because then your value is something that at any point in time can be stripped from you.

If your value comes from only servicing other people,

Then your value relies upon the fact that someone else is always going to need you rather than this idea that if I can take care of myself,

Then my sense of self is no longer tied to this idea that someone needs me.

So we give up this idea that in order for me to feel good about myself,

I need someone who needs me.

Wouldn't it be a better place or a healthier place if we all could take care of the self,

If we all just loved and accepted one another,

Rather than this idea that we attain value?

If that's the case,

Not everybody gives because they attain value from giving.

There are people who give because they can and they want to help people out and encourage people to be able to take care of themselves so that they are not dependent and needy any longer.

It's not about enabling a situation in which I get to feel better about myself.

In studying codependency,

What I came across was how there was literature and studies proven that when the co-alcoholic,

I.

E.

The codependent,

Realized that the alcoholic was becoming sober,

The codependent struggled with their sense of self.

Who am I if I'm not managing the life of my alcoholic?

Who am I if I'm not the giver?

Who am I if I'm not acting powerless at the hands of the alcoholic?

Who and what am I if I am not managing the chaos of someone else's life?

Who am I?

That got me thinking about how destructive it is to give because in the giving,

I am receiving a particular identity and how much more spiritual I believe it is and meaningful it is to give in the mindset of knowing that the person that I'm giving to is completely capable given the right support and if they have the right mindset to shift their life.

To see everyone as capable and to not see myself above someone and in the role of giver so that I can achieve a sense of self.

When I become selfish,

Divinely selfish,

I recognize my own sense of value is just in the being of who I am regardless of who I help and don't help.

So in other words,

That just because someone is of service doesn't make them of any more value or less value to someone who is not of service.

And so being selfish,

Divinely selfish means that I'm willing to be responsible for my dreams.

I'm going to find a way to cultivate enough desire so that I can create momentum and make my dreams come true.

And I'm not going to step on anyone's head to do that.

I don't feel entitled to take from someone something that I have not gained.

I'm willing to work for it because I know that I can because I'm a human being.

I have free will and there are tremendous resources available to me if I keep looking for them to help me make my life more beneficial than it is today.

But it takes effort and it takes drive and it takes tenacity and it takes the ability to stick through a goal until the goal is accomplished.

And far too often human beings give up and there are plenty of us who have encountered enablers along the way who will say,

Oh,

Let me take care of that for you.

And when that happens,

Then we are denied the ability to recognize the power that we have to actually rely on ourselves.

In order to develop self-esteem,

We have to be responsible,

We have to be accountable,

We have to look at the challenges that we face in our lives and know that within us is the ability to overcome them.

But we can't do that unless we become divinely selfish.

I can't follow through my dreams unless I cut the cord to what my mother and father think,

Want and believe.

If my parents don't think that I can become a writer and they surely could not,

And yet I am publishing my seventh book this year,

My parents didn't think that I could go out and create a business on my own without my ex-husband and yet here we are.

My family didn't believe in the value that I had and could share with other people to inspire them and motivate them to be more than they are today,

To believe in themselves.

Nobody in my life believed that I could do that.

So I had to become self-responsible and it was scary and at times deafening,

Terrifying to the point where I couldn't hear.

I had so much panic happening in my body.

But one of the greatest things I think that happened to me,

Although it didn't feel great at the time,

Was that I had no one to rely on.

I knew that I could not go home and ask for help.

And so at the bottom of the barrel,

I realized that if I was going to make any changes in my life,

I had to become supremely responsible.

So instead of worrying about what other people needed,

I had to focus on what I needed,

What my children needed.

Instead of worrying about what my friends thought about me and being drained by something that I couldn't control anyway,

I knew that I had to worry about what I thought about me.

Instead of worrying about what my neighbor down the block needed,

I had to worry about what I needed because I was running on empty,

Because I was codependent,

And because I was conditioned to think that good girls worry about everybody else before themselves.

Good girls are not selfish.

Good girls have no needs.

Good girls don't make their dreams come true.

They tone themselves down for the sake of other people.

And then I wondered why I was so unhappy and why no matter how hard I tried,

Things weren't working out for me.

And then I wondered why I was doing for everyone else but myself and why I was so exhausted and I blew out my thyroid and why I became angrier and angrier and angrier.

I had a right to be angry,

But I didn't know that the reason that I was angry was because I had these subconscious beliefs running the ship,

Making me feel and believe that I did not have a right to go after my dreams.

I still had all of this static around in my head telling me that if I succeed and then I surpass any level of success that my mother achieved,

I was a bad girl.

My mother never told me,

Don't you dare have a better life than me.

But I felt it.

My father never told me that you'll never make it without a man.

Well,

Actually he did,

Not in so many words,

But he did.

He suggested to me,

Where are you going to go?

Who's going to want you?

You've got three kids,

That type of thing.

I felt it.

I knew they didn't believe in me,

But I had to believe in me.

I had to become selfish.

I had to cut the umbilical cord to my mother and to my father.

I had to accept that their reality was their reality and that their karma would be their karma.

But in my lifetime,

I had an opportunity to come off the karmic wheel.

I had a right to be selfish,

Divinely selfish.

And when I say selfish,

I don't mean steal from my neighbor.

I don't mean feel entitled to have something that I didn't earn.

I don't mean selfish in the sense that I'm going to step on the head of someone else to get ahead.

No,

I don't mean that.

I mean selfish enough to feel what I feel and believe what I believe,

To dream what I dream,

And to set intentions and goals every day that are in alignment when making those dreams happen.

And no longer refusing actually to believe that I couldn't make the dreams come true,

Cutting the cord to codependency,

Accepting that my childhood programming was my childhood programming.

And like Carl Jung says,

I did not have to accept that what was created and conditioned into my subconscious mind,

I did not have to accept that as fate.

I could change my fate if I could change my mind,

If I can change my habits,

If I could commit myself and be responsible to personal daily habits,

I could change my life and I could feel successful within my own right.

Not because I achieved any level of monetary gain or status or has nothing to do with that.

We are successful if we learn to hear our own voice and in spite of how difficult it is and in spite of how many naysayers there are and how many challenges there are and how difficult our pasts have been.

We are successful if in spite of all of the tremendous uphill battles that have been thrown at us,

We get up every day,

We focus on ourselves,

We focus on our desires,

We find a way to love ourselves and we find a way to do what needs to get done to be successful based on what we desire and what we deserve.

That is successful.

So that means if I desire to sell everything I have and go live in a cabin by the woods and fish every day or make honey with bees in the forest every day,

I'm successful because that's what I want to do.

If it means that I want to move to another country and to become part of a mission and that's really what I want to do,

Then I'm successful.

It means if I want to end a toxic relationship,

If I want to dedicate myself to personal development,

I want to invest in myself and figure out who I am so that the second part of my life is the best part of my life and in spite of who doesn't like that and has an opinion about that,

I stay on that path,

I am successful.

It means that if in my self-development work I discover things about my personality that I do not like and I wish to change and I commit myself to changing those things,

I am successful.

And so your level of success has nothing to do with anything outside of you.

Your level of success will be determined by your own roadmap and the roadmap is determined by your innate desires and your ability to cut the cords to people outside of you or to beliefs that have been preventing you from being able to achieve success in your life.

It is my sincere hope that you learn to become more divinely selfish,

More divinely self-responsible,

More divinely self-accountable and self-compassionate and self-understanding and that you gain tremendous self-knowledge because when all of these concepts come into play and they fold together,

They dovetail together,

What you will eventually discover is a roadmap to happiness.

If you are irresponsible with any area of your life,

You will never be happy.

And so the key to happiness is to become divinely selfish and self-responsible.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time,

Bye for now.

And so the key to happiness is to become divinely self-responsible and self-aware.