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I am so grateful that this lesson did not confuse me.
Because there was definitely a time when I confused self-care with selfishness, and that time is not now.
Don’t give away your banana pudding
Lesson 30 begins with an embarrassing anecdote that I am unfortunately very able to relate to.
Katherine tells us about “an attractive, educated woman” named Andrea who went on a first date with a guy that got excited when he found out Andrea made a mean banana pudding.
He suggested they meet the following weekend for a picnic, and she was psyched. She went out the next day and bought all the ingredients for her renowned banana pudding, and then…he never called.
Of course this is where we would hope the story would end with Andrea making that pudding for herself, or maybe devouring it with a few friends.
But nope. Despite receiving no contact from her date, Andrea took it upon herself to bring a large bowl of banana pudding to his house the following weekend.
When he answered the door, another woman was behind him.
It’s all about those boundaries
Before I understood about boundaries—which, if you’ll recall from Lesson 10, did not happen until my late twenties—I was about as bad as Andrea.
Once I met a guy at a party, and when he didn’t call me the next night like he said he would, the following morning I “coincidentally” went for a jog in his neighborhood in hopes of locating his apartment.
The only other thing I knew about him was that he worked at Blockbuster (remember those?!), so I also looked up every location in New York.
Granted, I did not actually visit any of the video stores, but my behavior was nonetheless a classic example of what Katherine calls “over-attachment,” and I cringe to think of how often I used to do it.
(I also cringe to confess those behaviors now, but, really, the only difference between me and tons of other people is that I am admitting it.)
These days, I way, WAY less likely to attach myself to someone I barely know.
And that’s because not only do I have boundaries, but I have learned how to be appropriately selfish.
Selfishness is the precursor to selflessness
As I mentioned in Lesson 29, you can’t give away what you don’t have.
So before you can be selfless, you have to be selfish.
You have to know who you are before you can share all that you are.
And that means cultivating a sense of what Katherine terms “healthy selfishness.”
“‘Healthy selfishness’ means you know your limits, and you set them. It means you prioritize self-care over caring for others. It insists that you communicate your feelings, even when your feelings are inconvenient to others. It includes the ability to rest when tired, and to ask for what you want and need, when you want and need it. It is the healthy expression of entitlement.”
It took me a long time to claim my rights to self-care and honest expression.
And even now I can struggle to exercise them, particularly within an intimate relationship.
Which is a problem, since “when we don’t honor ourselves, we attract in people who don’t honor us either.”
I am so grateful that Paul honored me
I certainly made mistakes in my last relationship.
But for the most part, what I shared with Paul was exactly the kind of dynamic I’d always dreamed of co-creating.
From the get-go, we were each clear about our needs and priorities, and even when we wanted to be reckless and drop everything to spend time together, we very rarely did.
As Katherine puts it, “the idea that intimacy with another depends upon your ability to tolerate your own separateness, might, at first, appear paradoxical.”
And yet maintaining a strong sense of self within a partnership is precisely what’s required to resist “the pull toward fusion, which often passes for intimacy.”
Personally, now that I am 100% extricated from my partnership with Paul (no more 95% for me, haha), I can see that in the last few months I really was pulling on him unfairly.
I was afraid of where my own life was leading, and I wanted to lean into his. I had stopped fully honoring myself, but he didn’t do the same.
For that, I am truly grateful.
And as I remain committed to fully grounding myself in my own freedom (aka my intention from Lesson 23), I am increasingly appreciative of the opportunity his absence has given me.
Lesson 30 in practice
In my next intimate relationship, I absolutely will not settle for unavailability.
That’s my key takeaway from the Lesson 30 homework, although of course there are others.
(With SEVEN journaling prompts, how could there not be?)
But really, that declaration is what I need to focus on most, because unavailability is the pattern I have most allowed in my past.
Don’t have the bandwidth to share your whole cake? No prob! Just call me Ms. McCrumbs.
Feel like minimizing my needs, behaving inconsiderately, and then reminding me that you’re not responsible for how I feel? I’m all yours!
Except, NO.
Admittedly, I slipped up a bit with Paul, got a little sloppy with my self-care, allowed my insecurities to loom too large and my boundaries to get too soft.
But I was aware. And in a different context—one in which we could have continued communication instead of cutting off all contact—I truly believe we would have gotten back on a healthy track.
Who knows, maybe someday we still will.
All I know for sure is that I am getting stronger. And with the right balance of “healthy selfishness,” I know I am capable of co-creating another beautiful partnership.
Love > fear,
Christina
Want to know what happens next? Proceed to Chapter 31.
Missed what happened before? Go back to Chapter 29, or start from the beginning.
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