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Self-Care Tip #233 – Stop moralizing behaviors and emotions to be a real friend to yourself.
Responses to yesterday’s blog-post, I believe, revealed my point in time position in moralizing behaviors. It is no excuse, but yesterday for reasons of my own limited perspective, personalizing behaviors, perceived judgment from myself and others, and cultural biases including some good old-fashioned well-intentioned holy roller atmosphere, I hooned in on that darned word selfish.
That word, selfish, reminds me of any class bully who hurts others but maybe not for the reasons assigned by observers. It is more than that though. Inherent to its own definition, morality is more than implied. In efforts to destigmatize it, evolutionaries, such as George C. Williams, coined the term, “the selfish gene.” We as well, in efforts to peel it off of us “self-carers” here at FriendtoYourself.com, have discussed some of the biopsychosocial reasons for behaving in ways that disregard the needs of others. We have talked about freedom to choose and losing abilities to choose. Because we believe in magic, or miracles, or yet unexplained science – however each of us prefers to describe the unknown – we claim some awareness that we still haven’t yet given over fair perspective, despite our intentions.
The wonderful, ever articulate, gentle writer, reader and commenter, Cindy Taylor, reminded me of this yesterday, saying simply,
I found that taking an adrenal supplement has improved my sleeping patterns greatly.
What a girl! That one and only Cin.
Yet yesterday, somehow, I didn’t say much about those things.
Questions: What does “selfish” mean to you? Why and how do you extricate yourself and others from it even though they appear to be just that – selfish? Please tell me your story.
Related Articles
- Emotions – The Sixth Sense and Moralizing Self-Care (friendtoyourself.com)
- Still Interested In Self-Care? (friendtoyourself.com)
- Dawkins in Maryland [EvolutionBlog] (scienceblogs.com)
Filed under: Anxiety, Depression, Morality, self care, Sleep, Stigma Tagged: Atheism, Catholic Church, Cindy Taylor, Darwinism, George C. Williams, health, Morality, Neo-Darwinism, Religion and Spirituality, Richard Dawkins, self care, Selfish Gene, The Selfish Gene
