Selflessness, self-sacrifice and compromise is out. Enough of giving away your true dreams and desires to old beliefs and thinking that have been holding you back in your life. Knowing your own true innate selfishness is the new revolutionary way of thinking that can turn your life around. The Selfish Self is the new, awakened you!

The truth is that we are all selfish. We just don’t want to admit it! We have been conditioned to believe that a selfish person is egotistical and self-centered. When someone calls you ‘selfish’ it is a personal criticism, an insult!

But let’s take a closer look at this. Our common understanding is that an egotistical, selfish person has an exaggerated sense of his or her own importance. How can that be possible? How can anybody have an exaggerated sense of self? Aren’t you the most important person to you? Do you not want what is best for you? Do you not want to create a life that is filled with joy, happiness and personal accomplishments for you? Don’t you create your life around you being at the centre?

Of course you do, and if you don’t, you should. Everyone wants their life to have meaning and be filled with joy. You are the centre of your world whether you realize it or not. Your life does revolve around you. You should embrace this concept about yourselves. It is time in our human evolution to recognize our self importance and start focusing on the type of relationships and life that we truly do want.

The Selfish Self is an innovative way of thinking. When you learn to think and work through The Selfish Self concepts you will be able to recognize your true inner thoughts, feelings and desires. The Selfish Self process is about focusing on you, so that you get back the personal empowerment and happiness in all areas of your life, including your relationships.

A healthy selfishness is the powerful driving force that motivates us to strive for what ever we want in our lives. Do you know what you want in your life? Do you know what will make you happy? Or do you expect other people to give you happiness?

People are struggling to find happiness in their lives, careers and relationships because over time it has been ingrained into our belief systems that we must not think of ourselves as important, we must not be selfish or self-centered and we should always put other people’s needs before our own. This type of faulty and destructive thinking has caused people to become confused about how much is acceptable self-interest and how to down play their own self indulgent desire to strive for happiness and success.

How many people tell you that they just can’t say no, when asked to do something that they really don’t want to do? How many people find themselves living their lives for the sake of everyone else because they have been conditioned to believe that forsaking their own happiness for someone else is an admirable trait? How many people find themselves putting up with misery and discontent in their jobs and relationships expecting that they will be acknowledged and given empathy for their self-sacrificing qualities? Do you want someone to sympathize with you for the life you have created for yourself?

When a person continually thinks with these disparaging thought patterns they are suppressing their innate human desire to strive for happiness in their own lives. This leads to further problems. People who have an embedded mind-set that being selfish is bad and being unselfish is admirable, live their lives with the belief that their unselfish and self-sacrificing attributes will be acknowledged and rewarded. In accordance with this belief there is an expectation that others should be the same, and if they aren’t, they are criticized and demeaned for their selfishness. This is particularly true when it comes to relationships.

Relationship problems occur when couples struggle with societal attitudes that they need to be selfless and compromising to have a happy relationship. A person may have a belief that their partner should not be selfish, but rather prove their love and commitment by being selfless and compromising. When both people in the relationship have the same expectation that their partner should make them happy by putting their wishes first and their own desires second, the relationship will eventually fall apart.

We enter a relationship with a natural selfish desire to enhance our lives. We selfishly want our relationship to make our life better, not worse, and certainly not to be a slave to our own destructive entrenched beliefs that it is our responsibility to make our partner happy. These types of demands and expectations that are placed on people will only lead to resentment and regret with in the relationship. When both people in the relationship focus on their own Selfish Self and strive to create and fulfill their own wants and desires, the relationship will naturally evolve and grow.

By applying The Selfish Self concepts in your relationship, you eliminate the guess work and the constant fear of feeling that you are not loved enough because your partner has not validated you as often as you ‘need’. Anna, a client of mine, came to see me because her boyfriend of three years told her that he wanted to end the relationship. She explained to me that in the beginning they were inseparable and that he always did things for her and told her he loved her all the time. Now he hardly ever spent any time with her and they always argued about stupid stuff. Anna went on to explain that during the first two years of the relationship she felt happy and confident about herself. She had always wanted to study make up artistry and forge forward with her career, but once she was in a serious relationship with her boyfriend she didn’t pursue her dreams because she wanted to spend more time with him. At the time she thought she was doing ‘the right thing’ because she wanted to be there for him and make him happy. She thought that this would show that she really loved him because she was doing it all for him.

As a result of this ‘selfless’ type thinking, Anna unknowingly became resentful when she didn’t feel her boyfriend appreciated the sacrifices that she had make for him. Once Anna started to work through The Selfish Self concepts she started to understand that not only did she think that being self-sacrificing was imperative in a relationship, but she also thought that her boyfriend should think the same way. Anna’s erroneous thinking, which was reinforced by society, was that relationships are about sacrifice and NOT being selfish.

By adhering to these beliefs Anna expected her boyfriend to do things to make her happy because she would do the same for him. She would often criticize him for being selfish, which was a way that she deflected her own insecurities and dependency on him to make her happy. Her boyfriend started to pull away from the relationship. He didn’t want to be responsible for his girlfriend’s emotional wellbeing. He didn’t want to feel guilty for her Anna’s distress and be blamed for ruining their relationship. The relationship had become a burden and made his life with Anna miserable. He wanted a partnership where he could admire and respect Anna as his equal and enjoy the fruitfulness of a happy relationship.

Finally The Selfish Self in him reminded him that relationships are supposed to enhance your life, not make it WORSE, and his relationship to Anna was doing him more harm than good. He saw the strong, independent woman he had fallen in love with slowly deteriorate into a needy, energy zapping person who constantly needed him and their arguing to validate her.

Anna learnt a lot from that relationship and through our sessions together she started to see that by always referring back to The Selfish Self, she could keep her self esteem healthy, will build confidence and keep her motivated in life. I gave Anna three key points to focus on when she did meet her next partner.

1. Discuss openly with your partner what you both want in the relationship, before you make any serious commitments. Don’t use clichés or fluffy terminology, be specific. A relationship is not a guessing game.

2. Don’t be scared or intimidated by revealing your true Selfish Self. If your partner truly wants what is best for you they will admire and respect your personal strength and independence. Remember, The Selfish Self in your partner doesn’t want to have a relationship with someone that is weak and feels worthless.

3. Don’t have an expectation that your partner should change just because you think they should be more like you. If they choose to change to progress the relationship it should be their choice because it is rewarding their Selfish Self.

It goes without saying that our natural state of being is to seek happiness in all areas of our lives. The reason people are not happy is because they have not been encouraged to live through The Selfish Self focusing on who they truly are and what they want in their lives. As you could see with Anna she was, like most people, living her life by the dogmatic beliefs that society has enforced. We don’t have to look very far to see that we have an increasing problem with the failure of relationships in our society today.

This is because we enter relationships with a contaminated consciousness, believing that a relationship is about giving up something of ourselves. We wonder why less and less people want to commit to their partner. The truth is that we are all selfish and don’t want to give up who we are to be in a relationship. We don’t want to compromise our dreams and have to prove our love to our partner by exhibiting self-sacrificing behaviors. If this is what relationships are really about then who in their right mind would want to be in one? This is why we need to make Selfish the new Black, so that we can all reap the rewards of our relationships whilst growing and evolving as individuals.

Selfish is the new Black, because people in our modern world want to feel worthy, confident and self assured that they are striving towards a happy and rewarding life. The old dogmatic beliefs that being miserable deserves attention and sympathy, and being selfless and self-sacrificing is admirable, has only left us feeling sorry for ourselves and created a rising populous of people with low self-esteem, poor self-worth, depression, and lack of motivation and interest in life.

To gain greater fulfillment and happiness in our lives we need to apply innovative new thinking concepts and make The Selfish Self not only fashionable and empowering, but infectious.

In our modern world of endless opportunities and potential let’s start creating a new paradigm that Selfish is the new Black, releasing us from the old toxic convictions that being selfish is bad.

If you want to purchase Helen Owen’s new book, The Selfish Self, click here.