Guilt - Self Centered?

My daily meditation....struck a chord thought I'd share...any thought would be appreciated.

Women keep a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed. - Cornelia Otis Skinner

"We are so ready to take responsibility for everything that we are constantly feeling guilty.
If our spouse is feeling down or depressed it must be something we have done. If our children aren't doing well, it must be our fault. If the deadline isn't met we should have put in more time. Women are so ready to take on the guilt of the world. It makes no difference if we have committed these transgressions. If they exist, we must be responsible. Unfortunately,
there are plenty of people around us who are happy to support us in these illusions of guilt.
We have never really stopped to see how self centered it is to take on the responsibility for everything that happens, whether we are involved or not. When we take on the guilt for everything that happens around us, we make ourselves the center of everything." -

Meditations for women who do too much , Anne Wilson Schaef
Nov 30th

This is interesting but after considering it, I really think that the author is wrong that guilt is about being self centered. I think that her accusation of us being self centered is just her way of trying to guilt us into NOT feeling guilty. LOL.

But it doesn't give any insight into why some are this way. Generalisation. Plus men can feel this way too.

very insightful. i feel this way all the time.

When I was reading it... I thought it was more descriptive of a person with codependent tendencies and not "women"... but I found the part about it as being self centered as an interesting perspective. I have codependent tendencies and my T said to think about whether I do things to "need" to be "needed"... would that be concidered "self centered"?

I found the self centered thing hard to swallow as well, RS brings up a good point too. The quote and the self appointing guilt , I do this.

Earthmamma / RS - the book is written for women, I agree men can feel this way.

RS-its an interesting question you pose. I get my needs met by meeting others needs, so I guess that would be self centered too, however being self centered doesn't have to be a bad thing right? I mean it has an ugly connotation to it, but it can be a good thing too as I see therapy as very self centered.

I think self centered does have an ugly connotation. I think what my T said last night about a different subject applies to this as well. We were talking about emotions and needs. She pointed out that when you don't let yourself admit you have any needs... and then you start to feel and voice your needs you think you are the world's most neediest person because it is so foreign...

I think in the same way...when you put everyone else's needs in front of yours... and then you actually start to just "take care of yourself" like admiting you need to meet your basic physical needs for sleep, medicine, etx... It feels like you are being self centered because it is so foreign...

so long answer to that I think "self centered" in general is definitely a perspective thing...

But sometimes I do ask myself... what do I get out of it... what need is getting met by allowing bad boundaries?

Yes, I cant find the happy medium between self less and selfish.


Sadly for me the answer is always, "they seem to like me"

I think there's a difference between "self-centered", where everything is about you and focused on you, and "centered within oneself" where your strength comes from within you and you are balanced and not dependent on the opinions of others for how you see yourself.

Logically I get this, but as RD said...its so foreign that to me it feels kinda , for lack of a better term, dirty to me.

Ugh I so struggle with this. Sadly "dirty" is the word that pops into my head too. Sorry. This has been thrown in my face numerous times about how I am such a horrible selfish person that even my constant guilt is because I am so self centered and think everything's about me. So sadly I end up feeling guilty and ashamed even more for my guilt and it just goes round and round. yuck

Guilt is a tough one.... and then there is shame, the 2 emotions I wish I could get away from. I'm sorry to Murray, I know how bad that feels.

Now I feel guilty about being self-centered. Maybe it is being self-centered to think I should be able to make everything right for everyone else. I mean, who am I to think I can do that?

T and I were talking a bit about this yesterday. I feel guilty that I don't take as good care of my father's needs as my sister does since my mother died. Like I can really even know what his needs are and I should be able to meet them from 375 miles away.

Just to add a different perspective .... I've got tons of baggage and issues, but doing too much for other people and putting their needs ahead of mine is NOT one of them. I do like to do things for other people but not to the point that I don't take care of myself. So I guess that makes me really and truly selfish??? It seems to me that people who do for others are NOT being selfish at all. I am the selfish one because I don't do.

I think it may have something to do with the importance aspect:
I have huge problems with feeling unimportant and insignificant. So maybe these are feelings that people are trying to avoid by making themselves "important" by doing for others all the time?? IDK - this is an interesting thread. It's making me think. Always a dangerous thing ....

I think it is sort of two fold - thinking one could have done something (the guilty part) gives one power in a sense but the sort of deferential position which makes it less direct and second it does keep a person in the game. I actually do not struggle much with this - I don't feel guilty about choices other people make or think I could/should have saved them (I have many other things, just not that particular one) - so I could be completely wrong. So I do understand the quote some and agree with it sort of. NOt as a condemnation, but as it is a choice one makes. I do see it as a way to keep a focus on oneself. My mother bludgeoned us with her self guilt so it is an area I probably have a reaction to. I often wanted to yell that it was not about her and to just get away because it had nothing to do with her.

We all have needs and they are generally "selfish" needs. But unless we are babies, we must take some responsibility for meeting those needs.

"I'm not selfish. I'm taking responsibility for my own needs."

I think anyone who has/had a martyr mother gets the idea in this meditation. Like most things, it's a question of balance and emotional pay-off.

But it's not always the fault of the individual, nor comes from a place of self-centeredness; society does a good job of inculcating this perspective.

I really think self-centered here is referring to the sphere of control and not a mind set of importance.

It's more akin to ego in the popular sense, not Freudian sense.

It is a bit of magical thinking to believe that we are responsible for all the bad things that happen around us.

We do not and can not control the world.

Kind of like thinking "I can control the waves at the beach".

it's a very human trait to but ourselves and our thoughts at the center. It's also a very human trait I think to believe that everything emanates from us.

It's also quite wrong.

Things are already in the saddle and, all to often, ride mankind - to paraphrase a famous quote.

[quote=TheBunnyWithin;2739505]Just to add a different perspective .... I've got tons of baggage and issues, but doing too much for other people and putting their needs ahead of mine is NOT one of them. I do like to do things for other people but not to the point that I don't take care of myself. So I guess that makes me really and truly selfish??? It seems to me that people who do for others are NOT being selfish at all. I am the selfish one because I don't do./quote]

This is what I aspire to. I think what you are talking about here is a balance between your needs and the needs of others. In the context of parenting and probably more general with partners/spouses, the thing is often put on your own oxygen mask, then put on the other person's. Selfish and self centered are different things. A healthy person is self centered in a balanced way; a selfish person is self centered in a complete the world is all about me. It's also about reciprocity, I think, in that a selfish person never reciprocates, whether it's emotional warmth or other intangibles, and in the first person to demand that you pick them up from hours away if their car breaks down, but if you need a ride 5 minutes away to the doctor, they are unavailable. A healthy, self centered person makes sure that they don't comprise their own needs for the less important needs of others, and reciprocates in a healthy way and doesn't deal with others who fail to respond reciprocally. Not in a bean counting way, but in a general way of equitableness within the relationship.

This is me too.

I feel guilty because I don't do anything for anyone else. I DON'T care enough...and this makes me feel quite guilty.

And yeah, the downside is that I feel very invisible and inconsequential.

I don't know which kind of guilt is worse.

I think Anne2.0 is right in seeking a balance between our needs and the needs of others. Everyone has needs - even us. Whose needs are the most important varies according to what's going on in our lives. It's like doing triage. No one's needs should take precedence all the time. So I know in order for me to feel less selfish, I need to put others' needs ahead of mine sometimes when it's really important to them.

Balance, balance, balance ... why is that such a difficult thing for me?

I don't see one's needs/desires versus/along with someone else's needs/desires as the same concept as in the original quote. And I think it is very easy to confuse needs and desires.
But the original quote - about feeling guilty when the thing one feels guilty about has no bearing/was not within the control on/of one, is a bit self centered it seems to me. It keeps the focus on oneself and not the other. I don't feel guilty about not feeling guilty about things that I have no control over and that ultimately have nothing to do with me.(so maybe I am a bad guy, but I don't feel guilty about being a bad guy for not feeling guilty enough). Now if I make some whose day is going badly, feel worse because I was more than usually thoughtless or mean or what ever - then guilt seems appropriate and I will apologize or help out or something - and then go on with my life. Or I accept that I was a jerk and can decide do I want to be a jerk or do I want to change and then change - but continuing to feel guilty without the change is an indulgence as is feeling guilty over the fact that we live after the fall.
Sometimes when I observe others going on about how guilty they are about x, y, or z, it seems the guilt is being used as an excuse or indulgence.