Balance & Beyond
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Balance & Beyond
Moment: The Selfish Myth: How Generations of Women Got Trapped Between Martyrdom and Ambition
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Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly dose of insight, wisdom and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect and reset. Let's dive in. There is one word that has powerful women shaking in their boots. It's one of the biggest insults you can throw at her, and it is amending and impacting our behavior in ways you wouldn't believe. What's that word? It's the word selfish. To be called selfish as a woman. It's the word selfish To be called selfish as a woman, and particularly a mother, has deep roots in much of our conditioning. So today I want to share with you where this comes from and the mindset shift that can truly set you free of ever thinking that you are being selfish, ever, ever again.
Speaker 1:So what does selfish actually mean? It's a word that is I call this a loaded word that is thrown around at women and we often worry ourselves about oh, I don't want to be selfish. And the dictionary definition is of being concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself, seeking to concentrate on one's own pleasure or well-being without regard for others. Now, there's a lot of words in there about exclusively with oneself without regard for others, and when this is thrown at women or when we worry ourselves about being selfish, it is usually said in a way that implies that you have a big ego and that you're self-centered, that you are full of pride or bordering sometimes on narcissism. And some women I know when this word is leveled at them it's almost as powerful as being implying that they are neglecting their family, and neglect is a very, very big word. So if they're selfish, they are neglecting their family. But you'll notice, this definition talks about excessively or exclusively with oneself. What's interesting is, as women, we are so worried about being accused or perceived as selfish that we go right the other way and don't have any concern for ourselves and never think about ourselves in respect of others. This is something that has fascinated me over time.
Speaker 1:As I speak to more and more women, this word selfish comes up again and again. It's interesting because we've been conditioned this way. A lot of this results relates to our childhood conditioning, when girls and even those of us that grew up in the 80s even though it was, you know we were burning bras and our mothers had done some of that work for us. There's many studies that have shown that even in the 80s, girls were still taught to share more than boys. Girls were still taught to play nicely, to be quiet, to not fight. Meanwhile, there were some boys beating each other up over the Tonka track in the playground. Now I know things have shifted a lot since then, but if you're listening to this and you're over 30, this is the conditioning that has really impacted you.
Speaker 1:What also is coming through in this conditioning is, as children of the 80s, we were also brought up in the same token. There was some of these gender stereotypes that were starting to gradually be broken down, but we were also told in the same breath that we could do anything. We were told we could fly the moon, we could be prime minister or president, we could do whatever we wanted. And we could fly the moon, we could be prime minister or president, we could do whatever we wanted. And we looked at this and went hmm, okay, you told us we could do anything, but you're also telling us to share and play nicely. And when I look at my main female role model, usually my mother, what we saw happening in the 80s what was role modeled as a good mother was a good mother does everything for her children. She sacrifices everything for her kids. She doesn't put her own needs first, she puts the needs of everybody else first. She stays up to a midnight baking cupcakes for the school bake sale. She makes things from scratch. She wears an apron and is kind of trapped in the 1950s. So we've got this really fascinating dichotomy of mothers who are still operating off their conditioning society that's bringing in this girl power message and then some mashup of the two. And is it any wonder that this is where things have landed for us and we're finding ourselves caught between worlds and incredibly confused?
Speaker 1:Now in the 80s was the rise also of the power woman who was injuring the corporate world. This is when women were first really starting to have careers. As such, most of the people who had careers in the 80s, who progressed as women, didn't have children, and it was very much the expectation that if you're a woman who had children, you weren't able to progress your career because you then didn't love your children, and mothers who did things for themselves were selfish. You were a bad mother. If you left your children to be raised by a nanny, you're a bad mother. You didn't care about them. If you pursued a career versus them. Well, you loved your career more than your children. Who does that?
Speaker 1:But those mothers who didn't perhaps have a career, who wanted one, were usually grumpy and resentful and then found significance in becoming the martyr who does so much for everyone and yet resents the fact that they do everything for everyone without being asked and then get no recognition and no one does anything back. So can you see these dichotomies? Have a career, pursue it? Oh. But then you're the working girl and then you are a neglectful mother. And then, in order to be a good mother, you have to be a martyr and do everything for everyone. But then you end up grumpy and resentful and the working woman's grumpy and resentful, and nobody is happy. And we've now, this generation, grown up in that environment and now gone.
Speaker 1:Oh, the word selfish is thrown around both ways. A mother can't be selfish and put her needs first, because she needs to be a good housewife and look after the children. And if I'm selfish and want a career, well then I'm going to be grumpy and I'm neglecting my children. So what do I do? I know I will just work like I don't have children and be parent like I don't work. And so we've tried to do both, thinking right, I can do anything. Sure, I'll hold two paradigms that don't actually work well together. Is it any wonder we are burning out? So what is happening with our generation after being caught between these two worlds is the word selfish is still incredibly loaded.
Speaker 1:We're selfish for working. Then we consider ourselves selfish for wanting some alone time and not necessarily being with our children every waking second that we're not working, because that's what we should want, because a good mother wants to spend time with her children. We feel guilty for being out, away from our children working. So if we're not working with them, we must be with them.
Speaker 1:And this selfish, or this fear of being branded selfish or being worried about being selfish we fall into some of those traps that our mothers did when they were the martyrs. We get incredibly resentful that nobody ever gives us any space and yet we never asked for it, we never held it and we never took it. We overgive and become chronic overgivers by saying yes to everything that people-pleaser in us runs rampant. But then we get resentful when people don't overgive back to us and they don't stay up all night doing something that we expected to do, even though we tell ourselves. They don't have to do it, and yet we secretly expect them to. We think we're being the good people by putting ourselves last, because that's what makes a good mother, that's what makes a good woman. But everybody I talk to and I talk to hundreds of women each month are saying to me Jo, I'm not my best self, I'm running on fumes, I'm grumpy everywhere. I feel like I'm failing at everything. I'm a bad mother. I'm not my best self at work.
Speaker 1:So where is this fear of being selfish actually getting us? Well, my friends, it's not getting us anywhere, and we are completely giving away our own personal power to this fear that doesn't belong to us. We have inherited this word and we have weaponized it against us. We weaponize it in so many ways. It against us. We weaponize it in so many ways. Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today, and don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite-sized breakthroughs. See you next time.
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