A fine line

The character 責 in the word 責任 (responsibility) is the one for 責める(to blame) and there is a tendency to equate責任を負う (to take responsibility) to 自分を責める(to blame oneself). But there's a fine line between the two. “Taking responsibility” means that when something happens, you see it through to the end and do everything that you can. But what happened might not necessarily be your fault and there would be no need to blame yourself for it.

Let’s say that you've arranged a meeting and, on the day, you receive a notice that now you can't use the space that you were planning to use. As the person in charge, you have to sort out somewhere else to meet. So, you draw on all of your resources and look for a replacement location. But it's too last minute, a suitable meeting place can't be found and you end up with some tiny room that a little bit out of the way. On top of that, you only manage to notify people about the change two hours before the meeting...

When you’re in that kind of situation, how are you going to feel?

When this kind of thing happens, there are two types of people. There are people who will do everything they can about it but are completely unaffected emotionally and for whom it's like water off a duck's back. Then there are people who get completely thrown by unexpected circumstances and get caught up in thinking that everything's their responsibility and end up in total utter distress.

The other people involved in the meeting will probably naturally say things like “this place is a bit of a walk from the station” or “can we even fit everyone in here?” and chances are there will be people who show up late and people who don't even show up at all.

The second type of person reacts to every little thing that other people say and somehow feel that they can't face the people who turn up late. Now, the first type of person takes responsibility, but clearly understands that what has happened isn't their fault, and so isn't in the least bit fazed. They'll acknowledge how badly they have inconvenienced everyone and empathise with them for that, but they won't think that it's “their fault” and they won't blame themselves for it.

This is where the fine line is.

In Japan, there's a beautiful culture of “apologising for everything”. But there seem to be a lot of people who blame themselves excessively as a result.

Let’s say you introduce two of your friends to each other and they get married. But, some years later, they end up breaking up because of a “personality clash”. Would you then get to thinking that the divorce was somehow caused by you bringing together two people who would otherwise have never met? If so, you might be “someone who blames themselves excessively”. Yes, you're the one that introduced them, but as far as getting to the point of deciding to get married, that's the two of them. What happens after they get together is up to them.

Now, for those who would confidently say “Too right!”, would you be as confident when it comes to your children? There might be times when a kid's school results start dropping or they have a fight with their friends or they're out till the early hours bar hopping, and whenever these sorts of things happen, you might find yourself subconsciously questioning yourself thinking “Oh, if only I'd been home more” or “I spoiled them too much” and you’ll end up blaming yourself.

People who question themselves and blame themselves are not only never criticized for doing so, but are even praised for it. So, they get stuck into thinking that it's the right thing to do and for a lot of them, it just becomes a matter of course. But constantly blaming oneself like that makes the little “me” inside each of us absolutely desolate at being continuously told off. Being praised will bring up anyone's self-esteem, but having nothing but being brought down and told off will make it rapidly disappear.

So the next time you automatically think “this is all my fault” or even “my bad”, maybe you should try ascertaining whether or not it really was. Everybody does stupid things or forgets things that are important or causes problems through some misunderstanding. But, if it wasn't intentional, and you're now doing everything you can to make it right, then really, that’s the best you can do, right? We don't have to tell ourselves off or talk smack about ourselves any more. Instead, we can try accepting that “there's nothing I can do about it – what's done is done” and go easy on ourselves.

There's a world of difference between not blaming yourself and being irresponsible. Try seeing the super fine line that's there and do yourself a favour: forgive yourself.

 [You can find the original article”紙一重（かみひとえ）" in Japanese here. It was posted in April 2012.]

Taking care of things

I was saying one time that my firewood was too long for my fireplace and a friend of mine brought a chainsaw over to cut it up for me. He did an amazing job in absolutely no time at all and when he was done he asked me, seemingly not yet had his fill, “What else?” Since he was so kind as to offer, I got him to cut down two dead trees that had been bothering me. He looked them over completely, from the topmost branches all the way down: his felling method was textbook. He effortlessly put the blade in at the right angle and applied the right amount of force without having to think about it and had judged everything perfectly.

Even though it had been cloudy up to that point, our good friend the sun had come out and I had worked up a bit of a sweat just snapping all of the twigs. Having cut everything down to fireplace size, my friend put down his tools and asked “Do you have a screwdriver and a spanner?” I went back into the house and one by one I opened up the drawers of my medicine chest where I keep such things. The drawers have the names of different medicinal plants written on them in kanji, so I should remember that kuzu has the screwdriver and that the spanner is in saiko and put them back there, but I still can't.

When I came back with the tools, my friend reset the now jammed blades on his saw with an experienced hand. He's probably been using that same old chainsaw for a long time, repairing it like this all the while. When I asked him about it, he said “I've been using it for around 20 years”. He's enjoyed doing DIY since he was a young man and has sunk a lot of money into it, buying good tools. “With good tools, you can keep fixing them and using them no matter how many years go by.”

I thought back to when I went to England for the first time. It was the early 80s and Japan was awash with things. I'd jumped to the conclusion that the lifestyle I had caught a glimpse of during a brief homestay in America was “the Western way of life” and was surprised when I saw the appliances the British were using: deafening, wailing vacuum cleaners with external bags, antique-looking irons that must have weighed three kilos, machines that were designed to push the wrinkles out of sheets with sheer elbow grease.

These British people just loved using their old appliances. Even though these machines were big and heavy and loud, they wouldn't throw them out. Their philosophy was that as long as you can fix it, you keep repairing it until it finally gives. Being British, my ex-husband was great at repairing bikes and washing machines....And that's how he got four broken toaster-ovens out of a rubbish dump in Roppongi, banged them back into good nick, lined them all up and had a Robata style barbecue party at his place.... It was in his roots. 

Now, at the time, I had been brainwashed into thinking that small, lightweight plastic products were the height of sophistication and it was a long time before I realised the profundity of this British, old-fashioned way of living.

In the old days, Japanese people all took care of their things. My 86 year old father is still a pro at fixing things. A vacuum cleaner that's short circuited after taking a tumble, a telephone receiver that's got water in it and you can't hear anything out of, a sluggish tape measure that won't wind back up properly – he can take anything apart and fix it right up. Up until last year he was the standing grounds manager for a high school baseball pitch and even there he would be telling the high school kids “Don't just throw things away” and teaching them how to fix things.

When did we start throwing things away willy-nilly? We can't just bury everything in the ground. We're digging ourselves into a hole burying our cellphones and computers and all these things that poison the Earth. The era of us replacing our old things without a care in the world even if they're not broken, buying up the newest model for no other reason than the fact that it's just come out, is at an end.

As we speak, my friend is oiling his chainsaw, polishing it up as good as new.

The dead tree I got him to cut down for me.

(Technically it's my neighbour's tree but I gave him some firewood in exchange for letting me chop it down).

[You can find the original article in Japanese 「モノを大切に」here. It was posted in July 2012.]

Enter stage left

At home, at school, in the workplace, in the community – no matter where we are, our lives are spent crossing paths with all sorts of people. Some encounters are delightful and some are trying – you might come across someone wonderful, while at other times you might get tied up with someone more difficult. But our encounters with people and the effect they have on us are no mere act of chance. The universe carefully selects one person for another person and sends us the person most suited to our needs.

Let's say you have an impossibly horrible boss. You take your work seriously and keep your head down and they don't even glance your way. Then, if you make one tiny little mistake or something doesn't go the way they want, it gets blown completely out of proportion and you get screamed at, being reprimanded and blamed for it. “They're so mean!”, you think to yourself, but, face to face, the words just aren't there. And so you tremblingly get back to work lest the heavens open up on you again and if they start screaming at you again, you end up cowering like a child...

People outside the situation might want to say

            Why would you stay in a place like that?

            You can't just put up with this kind of abuse!

            Why wouldn’t you just quit?

But it’s hard to decide when you’re in that situation whether or not you should just quit. Depending on the level of “abuse”, there are a great many instances where you shouldn't just keep on taking it. But with a lot of these types of situations, they’re a chance for you to think about the meaning of your encounter.

The first thing you might realise is that similar episodes occurred in your childhood: perhaps a father who didn't acknowledge you, a mother with a quick temper, or a grandfather that everyone was afraid of. When we were kids, we were powerless, but now that we're grownups we can overcome those very same situations. It's for that reason that that boss entered your life.

Perhaps your dad has already passed away and it's too hard to patch things up with your elderly mum. But in place of those relationships, you just might be able to work on your relationship with this boss. The people that we encounter in our lives are just like the characters in a play. One after another, the right person comes along at just the right time, all to help us grow up. So, this mean, impossible, simply awful boss is also a kind of teacher who is there that you might learn something.

 So, the next step is.......

We take hold of this “not being acknowledged” thing, and actually think about it - Why might my boss not appreciate me, even though I’m completely, desperately, throwing myself 100% into my work? The first part of the answer might be “Well, my dad was like that too” and deep within that, well hidden, lies the key. It's that, in actual fact, we don't even acknowledge us ourselves.

Maybe you’re a complete perfectionist and can't tolerate the idea of slipping up. Or maybe from the get go, you have absolutely no faith in your own abilities and hate yourself for that. It’s not easy to accept ourselves exactly as we are and we tend to judge ourselves about the parts of ourselves that we think are bad or that we don't like. And so, that boss is merely a reflection of the things about ourselves that we hate and our not appreciating ourselves.

The same thing happened with the man I married. There were things that were great and things I found challenging, exactly (I later realised...) like my mother. He was quick, good with his hands, creative, and had a great sense of style, just like my mother. He acknowledged my abilities and was someone who I could have fun working alongside, whooping with laughter the whole time.

The flipside of course being.......

He was emotional and would all of a sudden get into these bad moods and then he’d just blow up...just like her....The marriage turned sour and while I was thinking about it and all the advice I was getting, I realised that I'd met this man so that I could deal with my relationship with my mother. So, not only did I want to get to a place where I could say to him all the things that I couldn't say when face to face with my mother, I also began to think about why I encounter people like this.

I realised that I was totally unaware of my own needs; I was getting pushed down and down and down by their emotional needs and wasn't taking care of my own. It was a system wherein I wasn't taking care of my own emotional needs myself and so neither my mother nor my husband would take care of them for me.

I even believe that my soul chose my mother as the character in the play that is my life best able to get me to learn that “I need to take care of myself!” Then, since I didn’t manage to learn that lesson when I was a child, my soul chose for my husband someone who could teach me that same lesson…that’s why I met him. So my heartfelt thanks goes out to these invaluable teachers, my mother and my ex-husband.

Next time, when you meet someone difficult, maybe you can probe into the forces at work there. And the good news is that once you've properly learnt that lesson and “graduated”, you'll cease to come into contact with people who are similarly difficult. You might not be able to believe this until you actually experience it for yourself, but lessons like these, flowing out from the providence of the universe, are simple and reliable. 

So really there’s nothing to worry about. Just like with a play being performed on stage, take a step back once in a while and take a look through the audience's eyes - by doing so you can just float on through.

 [The original article in Japanese 「出会い」was posted in Nov 2011, which you can find here.]

Let's be softies

I have a feeling that we have been taught that “being hard on yourself” is a good thing. We are told never to say to ourselves “That's good enough” - we are encouraged to keep telling ourselves “you gotta keep going”, “you can't quit now”, “come on, keep it up!” People who go easy on themselves get branded with labels like “lazy, no hoper, no ambition” and an air of inferiority seems to hang about them. So the more serious someone is and the more of a straight-A student, or the perfect 1950’s housewife, or a paragon of virtue they are, the more likely they are to be constantly examining, rebuking and judging themselves, setting the bar higher and higher for themselves. But no matter how hard they try, it'll never be enough – they'll never get to a point where they'll say “I've made it.” Or rather, they won't say “I'm fine with where I am”.

As kids, these people tend to have had strict fathers or nagging mothers and would have been flooded by people around them all telling them “Keep going! Don't stop! More!”. Thanks to this, strict rules and unachievable goals then become the norm and even when they've grown up they will continue to judge themselves. Now, these rules and yardsticks aren't things you can see, so usually you don’t even know that these kinds of things have been going on inside you. And the ones who can tell what’s happening still find it hard to change.

People who undervalue themselves and beat themselves up, and people who blame themselves, racked with guilt, may get praised and admired and sympathised with, but they hardly ever get criticised and as a result it is all the more likely that it won't even occur to them that they have to make a change in themselves.

Constantly blaming and judging yourself wears you down. Your energy disappears and both your heart and your body grow heavy. This is a sign that your soul is weeping. It's like a child who only ever gets told off, flinching and shrinking back in fear. Now if once in a while you get praised or noticed, your soul will brighten up in a flash and be jumping around for joy. But, as soon as you start self-evaluating again, it'll slump right back down.

You might wonder whether we can overcome these old habits. The answer is we can, no matter how old we are. As well as our bodies being instilled with miraculous powers of healing, our hearts and minds are capable of immense flexibility. The only reason you can’t change is because you think you can’t, you think you can’t do it. If you change those thoughts, anything and everything is possible. Then, all you have to do is slacken those rules you made for yourself and let yourself go a little soft.

Go easy on yourself! It’s not all about being a straight-A student. Getting 60% is pretty awesome and if once in a while you get 35%, that's ok too. And if you get 35% you don’t have to go back over every little thing. Why can't we just let it go and say “Well, it was one of those days”? And then, when you get 45% the next time around, shower yourself with praise.

If for decades now you've been a “strict parent” on yourself, you should start being a softie and treating yourself a little, starting today. Use your intuition and you can walk the line between the two. And if you need a bit of guidance, the universe will tell you what you should do.

Why don’t we just relax and go a bit soft on ourselves and on other people?

[You can find the original article in Japanese 「甘い人になろう」 here. ]

Your own voice

So, I was watching a British psychology experiment on TV.

They have a person give six year old children these huge boxes saying “Here's a present. Open it up.” The kids’ eyes light up and they open up the box but inside there's nothing but a single, pre-used pencil or perhaps a single odd sock. When they ask the child “Do you like your present?” most of the girls shyly force a smile and say “Yes, thank you.” In contrast, when the boys got the sock they would say “Is this it?” and if they got asked “Do you like it?” they answer “No way!”

In another experiment, they got the same kids to drink some juice that had salt in it. The ones who simply said “Yuck!” the moment it passed their lips were mostly boys. As for the girls, they would clearly scrunch up their faces but, when they got asked “Is it yummy?” they would whisper “yes”.

The conclusion:

Where most girls will give a “polite” answer, most boys, without worrying about politeness, will express their true feelings and these differences between the attitudes of men and women are already apparent in six year olds.

This was a huge shock - the gender gap already exists at the age of six!

The boys casually told the adults in the experiment exactly what they were thinking but the girls hid their true feelings and answered “politely”.

It's about having an obligation to thank an adult who gives you     a  present, no matter what it is, and replying “yes” when asked if juice that has been tampered with is tasty, right? Because that's what it means to “be polite”.

Obedient and deft at handling such situations, these girls have already mastered the art of such “manners” at the age of six and speak and act exactly as they are expected to in accordance with both the time and the situation. And the validation they then receive from adults further incentivises these girls’ “polite” behaviour. A child who doesn't say thank you, or cries out “yuck” is a child who is rude and is ignorant of proper manners...

But, this is all really very strange.

Why should they have to say thank you after receiving a solitary, unmatched sock? Wouldn't it be better if they did clearly say “yuck!” having being made to drink something filled with salt?

According to the American therapist Beverly Engel, there are a number of cultural, physiological and psychological factors contributing to women being largely incapable of expressing their own true feelings. Even among the most successful business women, artists, and actresses in America, there are lots of cases of women marginalising themselves, acting against their own interests and being unable to express their true selves when around men. Such is the reality of America which looks at first glance like “the country where women can best put themselves on a level playing field with men”.

Engel labels such women “Disappearing Women” and there are remarkable differences in the degree to which this happens depending on the country and the culture. Just as there are women who are completely covered from head to toe and are not permitted to even leave the house without being accompanied by a male, there are also women like those in this country who worked together with men and were the very first to secure a woman's right to vote. But, that doesn't necessarily mean that each and every one of these formidable women is able to express their true selves completely openly.

It is said that from a young age girls are taught to make those around them happy, even at the expense of themselves: the experiment from before is a perfect testament to that. As long as women continue to be modest and be a support to those around them at home, at school and out in the world, they are going to be praised for being ladylike, attentive and mindful and the chances of anyone seeing anything wrong with this state of affairs are rather slim.

And let’s say you keep this up when you're in a relationship and you play it safe and do your best not to rock the boat. Then you get betrayed by the man who you've sacrificing yourself like this for or your body starts to waste away from self-neglect... it's when it gets to that point that we see what's wrong.

   Why have I been keeping myself underfoot this whole time?
   Why couldn't I say that I needed to think about myself more?     
   Why did I let this keep going on for so long?

That moment of realisation is the first step on the road to self-empowerment.

There are people who, when they hear that “divorce rates are high”, see it only as a bad thing, but the way society works is not that simple. It is by the very fact that oppressed and enslaved peoples rise up that we have civil wars and it's when the existing establishment needs to be brought down that things end up changing. Between a woman who is suffering through a marriage because she's afraid of having to stand alone and a woman who has plucked up the courage to take that first step towards finding out who she really is, you can't simply compare them and say which of them is better off or which one of them is happier.

But there's been that realisation - your soul might say “I'm kind of ready”.

You switch from being on auto-pilot to manual control. And then you start asking yourself all sorts of questions.

   Is this something that I really want to do?
   Can I actually say what I want to say?
   Can’t I be more assertive now?

If the present in the giant box is just a tiny pencil, it's normal to be shocked and say “Is that it?” If the adults appear to not know that their juice tastes bad, isn't it better to help them out and tell them “this is gross”?

That's real communication.

Let's set our voices free! 

[You can find the original article in Japanese 「自分の声」 here. ]

Unspoken Expectations

The new carpet in my house is all done. Weeks of preparation paid off, and when it came the actual laying of the carpet on the day it was done before I knew it. The softness of the wool beneath my bare feet feels amazing; spreading out like a starfish on carpet pre-warmed by the sun – ahhhhhhhh, it’s all done.

Right away, I get up and start tidying things away back into the cupboards and onto the bookshelves where they belong. Everything slots back in nicely, as if all my things are now back home after a long time away. All of a sudden I realise it's somehow night-time already. I'm hungry, but physical limitations being what they are, I don't feel like actually making anything.

My daughter's living with me at the moment and a thought pops into my head - “She could make me something tasty for dinner...” She texted me earlier in the day saying “All going well?” so maybe she’ll be heading home early and will cook something for me. Surely she knows that I've been working for ages, all leading up to today, and I'm tired and...

Let's say it was you. What would you do at this point?

 

Would you wait for them to guess how you're feeling and come home for you?

Or would you ask them to come home early and do the cooking?

The old me would be the first one - it’s only natural that they should understand how I’m feeling – I shouldn’t have to come out and actually ask for such things.

I think there’s probably been lots of times when I’ve not said anything and waited for others to do something for me. Perhaps I thought that when it comes to family that you’ve been living with for a long time, these sorts of feelings somehow can be conveyed telepathically.

“Here, have some tea.”

“The bath’s ready!”

“I made some soup.”

Not only at home, but also in the workplace, people who are mindful and notice such things are considered to be “able”.

“I’ve already made some copies of those documents, just in case.”

“Everything’s booked up through to next week.”

These kinds of able people can read any kind of situation instantly and take the initiative. Then, when someone’s bad at doing that, it’s like “Can’t you do anything unless I spell it out for you?” In a “culture of consideration” people make a virtue out of being attuned to people without them having to say anything. However, there’re lots of way in which this can result in misunderstanding, disappointment and a whole web of all sorts of feelings. And the closer they are to you, the higher the chances are that this will happen.

            He’s my husband; he’ll understand.

            She’s my wife; I won’t have to say anything.

            With my dad, surely….

            She’s my daughter; she’ll understand what it’s like.

But there’re a lot of husbands who don’t know how their partner feels and wives who have to be told how things are and this results in disappointment, anger and sadness.

“I shouldn’t have to say anything, they should be able to tell what I’m thinking!”

If you think about it, that’s a huge expectation.

Perhaps these kinds of expectations are carried over from a time when people lived together in single-clan villages and were always around each other. But now, in a society where everyone moves around and everything’s so complicated and things are changing all the time, it’s near impossible to divine what those around us are thinking or what kind of mood they’re in at any given time. I had these sorts of expectations of my non-Japanese husband and, long story short, it didn’t end happily ever after.  

But, once we notice that we’re putting all these kinds of expectations on the people around us, it dawns on us that we are in fact ultimately responsible for those things that we would be blaming them for.

This is good news because you can’t change other people, but you can change yourself. Instead of not saying anything and putting the expectation on other people, you can try actually telling people what your needs are. If you’re expecting someone to do something for you, and they don’t follow through, then you’re already going to be too disappointed and angry to calmly tell them what it is that you need.

So, when you’re thinking “Man, it would be great if they did this for me”, try something new and say “Could I get you to do this?” If asked gently like this, they might just answer with “Sure!” Even if you get told “no” don’t get all angry and be like “Why not?!” Say “Come on, this is what’s going on and it would be really helpful if I could get you to do this for me” and clearly communicate to them what your needs are. If you still get a “no”, ask their reasons for saying that. If you have conflicting needs at that time, then you can try negotiating.

Real communication is something that takes time and patience. I’ve put a lot of years into it and I’m only now getting to a point where I can do it right.

So, on that night, I sent my daughter a text and made my needs clear. “The carpet’s all done. It feels so nice! But I’m really tired, so can I get you to take care of dinner? Takeaways is fine – I just want to eat something delicious.” Next thing, I got her reply of “Sure!” and she came home an hour later with some delicious Lao food - and all was well throughout the land.

I think me enjoying the food I’d asked her for and appreciating her, saying “Oh, I was so tired. Thank you so much for buying this for me” had a much greater educational effect than would be had from me silently expecting things and then lecturing her saying “How inconsiderate can you be? You should…..”

What do you think?

 [You can find the original article in Japanese 「無言の期待」here. ] 

Try a little jikochuu

The expression jikochuu 自己中(self-centredness) is used for people who think about nothing other than getting themselves ahead. In English too, the word “self-centred” carries negative connotations and having a “selfless” attitude is praised.

Of course people who are indiscriminate in pursuing their own profit, power, fame and status and don’t give a thought to the trouble that may result for those around them or the destruction of the environment are nothing but self-centred.

Conversely, there is nothing but gratitude and admiration for the courage of people who throw themselves into the raging sea to rescue someone who’s drowning or fire fighters who, without a thought for their own lives, save children from inside burning buildings. Putting one’s interests aside and thinking about others is incredibly important and it’s for this very reason that it gets taught so strongly both at school and at home.

  We should consider other people’s feelings.

  We should listen closely to other people’s opinions.
  We should think about things from other people’s perspectives.

I think these are all important, but if these are the only things that get taught and we neglect the message of “take care of yourself”, this might give rise to some misunderstanding. Instead of “take care of others as well as yourself”, it might come across like “Good people always put themselves second” or “Thou shalt put the needs of others before thine own”.

There are in fact parents and teachers who are unwittingly transmitting these kinds of messages to their children. For example, let’s say a family is going out for a walk together and one of the kids says “I don’t want to go”. Then they say that they want to go to so-and-so’s house down the road. If on the walk, the family stop’s by so-and-so’s house and the kid gets to go in and play, then there’s no harm done and everybody’s happy.

But there are parents who will feel like “The whole point was that the whole family was going to go for a walk together” and allow their disappointment to show, snapping “How selfish can you get! You can't just do whatever suits you”, the result being that the message the child will take away from that is “Not doing what my parents want is selfish”.

Doing the things you like, saying what you want to say and expressing yourself freely are different from “being selfish”. But, if a parent has unresolved emotional issues, these issues will get entangled and have an impact on the child. If the parents disapprove or get angry or disagree any time the child is just doing what they want to do, the child will become subservient to the parents, or at least pretend to be, in order to try to survive. Then, even after they've gone out into the world, they will continue to keep this way of getting on in the world as a “handy little trick”.

People who put others’ needs in front of their own and are “considerate” are appreciated, they are liked and they get desired... They'll have people fall in love with them and they'll live happily ever after...

Or so I thought...

I’m exhausted...I can’t be bothered...Who gives! This is ridiculous! This is so stupid! What on earth am I doing this for?

You get irritable, you get depressed and you get pissed off. But the absolute worst is when you see selfish people having all the fun.

“I've given all I have for other people. Why do I feel so empty?”

“I've put up with so much just so that I can be someone who isn't a selfish person…”

Putting your own needs “to one side”, means putting other people's needs before your own, just for the moment – it's not allowing that state of affairs to continue indefinitely. But if you're constantly being told that other people come first and act according to that, little by little you start to shrink and who you are gets pushed far away.

Then there's the paradox that if you're not looking out for yourself, you're being selfish at a time when you can’t afford to be at all.

“All I needed to do was to just put my own needs “to one side”. But, have I left them behind and abandoned them?”

If we're not in the habit of thinking about ourselves, our thoughts in every circumstance will rush immediately to others - “Well, that's what he said” “I don't think she'd think that” “How are they going to feel?”

But, at times like these, the thing we ought to be thinking about is “What do I want?” What other people think and what other people are going to do are things that only those people can ever know and as long as we're trying to “figure them out”, nothing  good can come of it. Now, if I say that, it might be met with “It's not “trying to figure them out”; it's empathy and that's a virtue!”

Of course thinking about other people is important and it's necessary to be considerate. But, if this is all that we're doing and we end up thinking “Where have I disappeared to?” then we should be entitled to put ourselves more to the fore.

 

Returning our focus to ourselves and placing ourselves at the very centre – that's a positive self-centredness. At the same time, we'd be respecting other people and leaving them to their own business. As our balance is being restored, we'll start seeing our feelings emerge from the fog. If we can acknowledge our own feelings, then surely we'll be able to convey them as well.

Being true to yourself and telling people your true feelings takes considerable courage, but by doing so you'll be able to liberate yourself and those around you, helping them move forward. Rather than 自己中 (jikochuu – self-centredness), we might call this 自己忠 (jikochuu – being loyal to yourself).

There might be some pretty severe bumps at the start, but the people who don't gel with the new you will gradually drift away and be replaced by people who do... This is just natural selection at work – there's no need to worry.

Relax and why not give it a try.

  [You can find the original article in Japanese 「自己忠の勧め」here. ]