Self Serving Activity

Self Serving Activity is a state of conditioning where we use mindless activity to distract ourselves from personal problems by creating ways to isolate and insulate ourselves from others. Self Serving Activity is any activity used to psychically honor an ability to follow our own path so others cannot have an affect on us. Common Self Serving Activities are shopping, TV, reading, and sporting and entertainment events. Sometimes we get into dueling activities where if one partner asserts their right to do what they want, we turn around and assert our right to do what we want. It is common to use these activities to send subtle messages to others about how important they are relative to the activities we pursue. This type of game playing frequently escalates as participants increasingly discount each other by trying to make their activities appear more fun, interesting or useful than the other person’s activities. Self Serving Activity reflects all the ways of operating that we believe we have earned by dealing with the pain and struggle of life. Self Serving Activities are always selfishly motivated, yet framed as a benefit to others. This does not mean that all the activities we do are Self Serving, but when we are acting from a Self Serving motive, we go on automatic pilot and do not want others to demand anything from us that is outside of our expectations.

Self Serving Activities can be any activity that permits us to assert our way of connecting independent of others input. In any Self Serving Activity we operate selfishly rather than being available to others to support their process at the same time. In short, they are ways of escaping our common everyday stresses by tuning out normal communication and connection requirements. Ironically, these activities become naturally mechanical or habitual. The difference between Self Serving Activity and other forms of entertainment is that we are always protective of our space and our choice, and we believe we are owed the opportunity to participate in this way. When we are not doing a Self Serving Activity, we are flexible, responsive and can interact with others without feeling resentful. It is interesting to note how many of the Self Serving Activities we perform are isolating and passive and do not require interaction in any real way. It is because of this that individuals doing Self Serving Activity cannot see the unavailability of others doing the same.

The motive of Self Serving Activity reflects the context that we need to protect our self by having a mindless activity that helps us escape. Every Self Serving Activity enables us to distract ourselves from our personal problems by establishing a framework where others cannot intrude upon us without our permission. We usually justify Self Serving activity by the amount of effort or work we do in our life. Self Serving Activity reflects that believe we deserve a break. By asserting our choices about how we will spend time, we maximize our personal leverage over others by making them come to us on our terms. We learn, when doing Self Serving activities, only to offer to others what we possess in abundance, so that others will feel compelled to give us what we lack. We commonly use the needs of others to justify our own demands so we maintain a sense of control over how we operate in our life. This can be easily validated in behavior where others ignore us because they feel hurt in our demands or disappear to do things to take care of themselves because they think our demands are unreasonable.

The hidden belief is to maximize the pursuit of pleasure without being seen as selfish. Sometimes we hide our selfishness by being stubborn and unwilling to compromise ourselves. In many situations it is easy to justify our selfishness as a benefit to others rather than honor it as just a request we have. Self Serving Activity is not known for its “truth telling”. Most white lies are ways we protect others from knowing what is going on with us, because we feel they may be hurt by our actions. Frequently we distance ourselves from others by believing that we are someone who deserves a break, unlike others around us who have it much easier. These types of rationalizations or explanations keep us from even considering the deeper truth— we want what we want when we want it. It is important that we not back down from our truth of what we want and need and can be seen as being up front with what’s appropriate for us, so we do not fall into resentful sabotaging behavior. It is also important not to always blame others for what we are not creating in our life. It is very easy to make others wrong for their Self Serving Activities by falling into the perception that they are not worthwhile or productive when, in fact, they do serve a personal need. It is time now to air out these differences with others whenever there is resentment, fear and tension about our use of time and priorities. The more we can creatively enjoy our work, the less we will use independent Self Serving Activities to distance ourselves from others.

Now we will address how to heal our Self Serving Activity conditioning. Let us see how our lives are a balance between activities performed for others and for our self. Let us imagine the perfection of this balance as it is. Instead of feeling contracted when we take care of ourselves, let us expand into the knowing that many times our selfishness is actually supported through our transpersonal desire to sustain our contribution(s) to others. Let us begin to see how our natural desire to take care of ourselves actually empowers us in our ability to be with others more. Instead of getting caught up in endless fears of being compromised, let us resolve these conflicts within ourselves by seeing the perfection of how we unfold in ways that work to balance us. When we honor our natural contribution, we no longer need the respect and esteem of others, and instead of demanding it, we can graciously provide it to them. Let us operate from our inner knowing so that our ability to be in service to others can grow and become more substantial.

Engaging in ever more open ways means letting go of Safe and Secure beliefs and habits. Let us investigate and become more comfortable in taking risks in expressing our true nature with others around us. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, imagine finding our natural way of fully being with each individual. Let us release our stubborn attachments to how we think we need to be, in order to explore how we actually could be. In this way, we are not attached to our process and we can allow our natural evolution to support our growth in relationships. The more this occurs, the less we will feel compelled to hide in Self-Serving Activity. The paradox is that by declaring our direction in life and growing authentically, we transcend our fears that we will not be seen, accepted or honored in our own way of being. Recognizing that our highest aspirations to support our Self are naturally supportive to others as well fulfills self-Serving Activity. Let us give of our self without withholding more than we need to sustain us, so we can more fully receive as well.

As we discover the inner balance between taking care of ourselves and serving others, we start to see the natural integrity of all life exchanges. Our ability to meet others as they are inspires others to meet us as we are. This virtuous cycle becomes enhanced in our relationships by operating from a set of ethics and intentions to uplift the world. We discover that our openness and commitment to larger possibilities naturally counteracts the weight of our conditioning and defensive fears where our protection exceeds our desire for growth. Developing a sense of ethics about how we are going to engage the higher possibilities means stepping beyond selfish personal perspectives. When we operate to a standard that uplifts us, it brings out the best in us and others around us. It is the best long-term way to create a better future. We can act to create the future we envision. Instead of protecting ourselves when others do not respond, we use our ethics to turn the other cheek and offer them another opportunity to step into higher possibilities.

The three belief structures of Romance, Motives, and Love particularly support, when we are engaged in Self Serving Activity, how much we can demand that others meet our needs. The underlying issue is how much we feel justified in asking others to be unselfish while we ourselves are being selfish. Operating with a motive of Self Serving Activity encourages us to deny the needs of others, while simultaneously focusing on our own needs. This creates a narcissistic preoccupation with our self-image because we are unwilling to engage anyone in a way that would reveal our own inadequacies or fears. In short, we do not want to admit that our selfishness lets desires to be born within us that are more about diminishing others than supporting our growth or that of others. Becoming conscious of Self Serving Activity lets us see that many of our demands that others honor our Life, Light, and Love over their own Life, Light, and Love are not sustainable or appropriate. We need to accept that our selfishness is okay to transcend it. The more we resist accepting our selfishness, the more we act out Self Serving Activity.

The paradox that we must be present to our Selfishness to transcend it is reflected in our energetic awareness of our self and others.  It is a contracted, fixation energy that limits our field of understanding, making it more difficult to appreciate and enjoy the presence of others. The more we deny or use Selfishness the less we can accept our true creative power. This drives us to be attached and protective of our activities because they represent the degree we are able to stand up for our Self. In Self Serving Activities, we do not want others to challenge us. We find comfort in our belief that we already know enough to be effective and successful in any activity. One of the best indicators that an activity is Self Serving is if, in doing it, we are trying to recreate past positive experiences and feelings that activity previously gave us. Self Serving Activity is where we limit our perceptions and seek comfortable reassurance that things will play out as we imagined they would. We feel our “success” in this activity is assured because we do not have to make much investment to make things work. We can be on autopilot and do not have to present in the doing of the activity.

We can also let our reactions roam freely. We see this in sporting events where we can feel bad about the outcome of the event, but still enjoy it. An extreme example might be soccer games at which the fans become violent and feel justified venting their anger. The more a situation plays out in ways we had not anticipated, the more we feel justified in blaming and shaming others for the outcome. This attachment to an outcome is also a characteristic of Self Serving Activity. More

common situations may involve an impersonal challenge, such as shopping to get the best deal on what we want to buy. The objective of Self Serving Activity is to release tension that we have built up in ourselves by being overly attached to problems in our life. This may be the case even in a passive activity like watching TV if we place ourselves in roles of the TV characters and, thereby, take a temporary vacation from our own problems.

It is easy to be caught between being unwilling to be selfish and, therefore, unwilling to speak up for our self or falling into a covert selfish pattern of projecting on them and expecting others to fulfill our needs. In the area of Romance, the expectation that we should compromise for each other establishes a framework where our power is measured and actualized by how much our partner is willing to compromise for us. We measure how much they love us by the apparent degree of compromise they demonstrate. It is simplistic to imagine that they love us only to the degree they compromise for us, but we do limit our self and our perceptions in this way when we are doing Self Serving Activity. We either feel victimized by their unwillingness to compromise to meet our needs (which reflects our lack of self value) or we feel acknowledged in our power when they are willing to do what we want.

Since many of these Self Serving Activities reflect our personal desires and are not really a cooperative activity, it is easy to justify that we (or our partners) can do whatever we want without consequences. This is because we do not expect there to be any Co-Creative or cooperative interaction in a Self Serving Activity. For example, encouraging our partner to go shopping, to a sporting event with their friends, or relax in front of the TV as a way of dealing with their stress, is commonly seen as being supportive. In reality, this encouragement lets us put distance between our self and our partner and not confront our different values, motives, or mission in life.

Usually we do no notice this distancing of others because we are distancing our self from our Self. It is the idea of our “personality self” image that preoccupies our attention and keeps us from being connected within our Self. As long as we judge and constantly compare our self to others, this distance will remain. On the other hand, by ceasing to judge and constantly evaluate our self in terms of others, it opens up opportunities to connect and be with others in ways that are more uplifting and creative. The core issue that prevents this is our fixation on protecting our self from the judgment of others by anticipating their judgment and judging our self first. It is this “self” objectification process that denies our inner spirit and keeps us from accepting that our behavior has a definite impact on others. As long as we are preoccupied with how others affect us, we cannot see how we affect them. This is one of the primary indications that we are doing Self Serving Activity.

Forgiving our self for objectifying who we are opens us up to the pain that underlies the expression of Self Serving Activity. Who we are as a creative being is greatly diminished when we objectify ourselves in this way. Since objectification is a preoccupation with the outer experience at the cost of our motives and lessons, we do not acknowledge our natural growth and evolution. Instead, we tend to hold on to old perspectives that invalidate our natural creative expression. As a result, we continually act out how we want to be seen in ways that were denied to us in childhood. We can easily identify this we see ourselves just wanting something our way and are unwilling to consider any other possibility. Instead of resisting this, let us honor this impulse and we conscious of it, so that we can see how we were denied and now that we are not being denied this opportunity. Let us build a love of our self that allows us to be as selfish as we want in any situation.

A degree of selfishness is necessary to maintain our integrity and sustain our capacity to contribute in the world. Without selfishness, we would have no motivation to take care of ourselves, so that we can continue to support the activities going on around us. Instead, we would become fixated on how each activity reflects the degree of power we experience in relationship to others. When we are no longer judgmental about our selfishness, we would learn to flow with others in ways that would not interfere with our interactions.  The more we are attached to being selfish or not being selfish, the greater the distance we have to keep from others, because we do not want them to discover this secret about us. It is our enlightened self interest that helps to bring our personality structure into balance. When our creative essence is disconnected from our personality, our personality beliefs predominate, and our issues about selfishness define how much Self Serving Activity we do. The more we creatively embody a connection to our self where our personality expresses our higher possibilities, the less judgmental we are about our personality self which allows us to establish a more appropriate connection with others. The solution therefore to Self Serving Activity is to gradually come into greater acceptance of the need of selfishness to become part of our process. Over time, it becomes more affectively integrated in our system and no longer distances us from others. By loving our selfishness, it no longer dominates our interactions.

The hidden denied belief is the default assumption that we operate from when we are unconscious. This reflects the worst-case scenario about Self Serving Activity – the more we fall into patterns that isolate us from others, the more alone we feel. Our loneliness often becomes the justification to pull others down. This process is called ugly pleasures and reflects that, if we cannot feel good, it is more comfortable for us if we can make others feel bad, too. For example, when we see someone who seems self-assured, confident, and happy with their self, and we do not feel this way about our self, we feel driven to discredit them or make them uncomfortable in some way to make ourselves feel better. Self Serving Activity can be a way to distance our self from our pain. It also can be a way to make sure that when we are in pain, others will feel our pain. Through ugly pleasures, we demand that others share our pain so they do not, in a way, escape seeing the dark, gritty side of the situation. If we can get others to feel our pain, we feel better because then we are not alone in our pain.

The more we engage in Self Serving Activities, the easier it is to use ugly pleasures to cut everyone else down to size. Our self-criticism makes it easy to find and attack the weaknesses of others, believing that this is somehow supportive to them. We falsely believe that we support and contribute to others by being critical of them. When others do not seem to see the pain of the world, we think it falls to us to share with them the misery in a way that will put them in touch with why their circumstances are not as rosy as they think they are. An example would be when, at first, we build people up only to tear them down later when they do not agree with us. The paradox is that we end up projecting our denial on them because they are more inclusive and conscious than we are and, ironically, we believe they should hold our pain because we cannot do so. This shows how misdirecting our attention only teaches us that placing the problem outside of us makes it impossible to solve.

Since Self Serving Activity reflects the combination of Personal Dominion with Personal Achievement, it is the peak of individual “Egoic” development. Self Serving Activity is where we learn to see and accept our egoic, separative nature on a conscious level. This usually means we are coming out of a phase where we were so identified with our thoughts that we could not acknowledge ourselves as the thinker behind the thoughts. We begin to move beyond Self Serving Activity when we no longer identify with our thoughts. Instead of finding our distinctiveness in our thoughts, we start to realize that our thoughts are only partial reflections of who we are. By releasing ourselves from the centralized identification with the “I” that takes action, we begin to see ourselves as part of an organic process much larger than we previously thought possible for us. People often see this as an energetic influence that transcends our physical presence.

One way we can enhance this is to realize that, as an energetic being, we are not localized in our ability to perceive our reality. Some people have been able to manifest a direct perception of any part of the Universe by placing their attention on it and energetically traveling to it. Their descriptions and insights have been profound. Another example is non-localized or remote healing where energy and thoughts are projected from a distance to effect the healing process of another being. The results are particularly impressive when the person does not limit their perception of their own energetic impact by envisioning themselves as “just” a physical being. When people are highly identified with Self Serving Activity, they usually see themselves as a physical envelope that has limited capability to interact with the Universe. Underlying this perception is an apparent neediness that is reflected in a desire to take care of ourselves because we often perceive ourselves as frail and weak. This apparently sets us up to act weak and, therefore, demand that others either live up to our expectations or we, by default, will have to live up to their expectations.

The way to transcend Self Serving Activity is to let go of our attachments to our self-image on both physical and mental levels. Instead of acting from a desire to assert ourselves or to hide from others, we need to find the middle path where our presence, playfulness, and learning process engage and invite others to fully participate. We need to step out of our self-protective frameworks where we are, in effect, closed down to new options and new possibilities and find fulfilling ways to interact. The real fear behind Self Serving Activity is that the unexpected or unknown may provoke a reaction in us where we are unable, for fear of shame, blame, or guilt, to respond effectively and resourcefully to the circumstances. We need to overcome this fear of being put on the spot or having to deal with the unexpected by recognizing that this process is an invigorating one that is quite fulfilling. Instead of looking at the unknown as something to avoid, it is possible to see embracing the unknown as a transformative endeavor of the first order.

When others cannot grow with the unknown, it is likely they will use Self Serving Activities to avoid dealing with it. On a personal note, being a person who awakens others to these unconscious patterns can provoke in them unpredictable reactions. Most of the time, withheld anger, treachery, and denial emerge because we are stimulating a portion of their being that is not yet acknowledged or accepted. It is recommended that we do not push ourselves on them or demand that they be anything different than what they present. Instead, being an example of a person with greater flexibility or responsiveness will encourage them to deal with their own feelings of inadequacy in their own time. It is critical that we do not reinforce their beliefs or judge them in a way that further increases their distance from us. Any comments that impose our beliefs about the meaning of their Self Serving Activity are likely to backfire as they usually take these comments personally.