You’re Not Selfish. You’ve Been Taught to Ignore Your Needs.

As I move toward becoming a therapist, alongside my work as a yoga teacher, I’m leading my first therapy group: Mindful Boundaries.

Preparing for it has brought me back to a question that reaches well beyond the therapy room:

Why is it so hard to believe we’re allowed to have needs?

Most of us can say that everyone deserves love, respect, and a voice. But ask us what we need, and suddenly there are conditions.

As long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone.As long as everyone else is okay first.As long as nobody thinks I'm selfish.

We can become remarkably skilled at making room for everyone around us while barely leaving ourselves a place to sit.

And somewhere in all that accommodating, we may lose touch with what we actually want.

When having needs hasn’t felt safe

For people who have experienced abuse or sexual assault, recognizing and expressing needs can be especially complicated. Having your choices disregarded can affect your sense of safety, trust, and connection with yourself. Some survivors also carry shame or responsibility for harm that was never theirs to carry.

If saying no was ignored, punished, or followed by the withdrawal of affection, staying quiet may have felt safer. If someone else’s mood determined what happened next, paying close attention to that person may have become more urgent than noticing your own feelings.

You might learn to ask, What do they need me to be? before you ever ask, How am I doing?

Those responses deserve understanding. They may have helped someone navigate circumstances in which their choices were limited.

And this matters: difficulty setting a boundary did not cause the abuse. The responsibility belongs to the person who caused harm.

Healing can include discovering, slowly and with support, that your voice deserves a place in your relationships. There is no deadline for that discovery.

Different paths, an invitation to include ourselves

I’m drawn to the places where spiritual practice, yoga, and counseling invite us to consider how we relate to ourselves.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” —Matthew 22:39.

I find myself lingering over those last two words: as yourself.

As I reflect on this teaching, I wonder whether we can offer ourselves some of the patience, consideration, and grace we extend to the people we love.

In Jewish teaching, Hillel asks, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” He also asks what we become if we care only for ourselves. Those questions make room for both self-respect and responsibility to others. I hear an invitation to recognize that my needs belong in the conversation alongside yours.

In Islam, the Qur’an speaks of the dignity bestowed on humanity: “We have certainly honored the children of Adam.” —Qur’an 17:70. As I reflect on that teaching, I’m reminded that dignity isn’t something we earn by being useful, agreeable, or endlessly available. It invites me to consider how honoring our humanity might include listening to our needs, respecting our limits, and allowing ourselves to take up space.

In yoga, ahimsa, often translated as non-harming, invites us to consider how we treat others and ourselves. That includes noticing how we speak to ourselves and whether we continually dismiss our own limits. How does your inner critic speak to you? Does he or she say things that you would NEVER say to someone else?

Svadhyaya, or self-study, offers a practice of turning inward with curiosity: What do I believe? What am I feeling? What matters to me?

These traditions have their own histories and meanings. As I reflect on them, I find encouragement to include myself in the care I offer.

I can love my neighbor and acknowledge my limits.I can care for my family and need rest.I can be generous and have a preference.

Caring for others and caring for ourselves can belong to the same life.

And perhaps self-discovery begins with giving ourselves enough room to ask: What is happening within me—and can I meet it with compassion?

Having a preference doesn’t make you selfish

Sometimes this work starts with something surprisingly ordinary.

Where would you like to eat? Would you rather have company or a quiet evening? Do you actually want to say yes?

“I don’t care” may be an honest answer.

But sometimes it means I have a preference, and I’m afraid of what it will cost to express it.

What if I said...Having a need, want, or preference means you are a human being with your own inner life. It doesn’t make you bad, difficult, or selfish.

It also doesn’t mean every desire must become an action, or that everyone else must accommodate it. We can recognize what we want and consider our responsibilities, values, and the needs of others.

Acknowledging a desire gives us something honest to work with.

From there, we can ask: Does this fit my values? Does it support the life I want to build? What might pursuing it require? Is there a small, thoughtful step I can take?

Our feelings, thoughts, and intuition deserve attention. They give us information to explore, even when the next step isn’t immediately clear.

We deserve the freedom to understand ourselves—and to consider pursuing the things that feel meaningful and aligned with who we are.

When guilt turns into shame

Even when we understand all of this, setting a boundary can still feel uncomfortable.

You decline an invitation because you’re exhausted, and a thought appears: I’m such a bad friend.

Notice how quickly a decision about your availability became a judgment about your character.

A useful distinction is that guilt focuses on a behavior: I did something I regret. Shame turns toward our identity: There is something wrong with me.

Guilt can help us recognize harm and make repairs. But feeling guilty doesn’t automatically mean we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes we feel guilty because we’ve disappointed someone or stepped outside a familiar role.

Before taking back your no, you might ask:

Did I act against my values, or did I act against someone’s expectations?

The answer deserves an honest look. Perhaps there is something to repair. Perhaps there is a boundary to keep.

Either way, you can respond without deciding that having needs makes you unworthy of love.

What happens when we keep guessing?

When we organize our lives around what we think other people want, we’re often working with incomplete information.

We say yes before anyone asks us to. We hide a preference and hope someone notices. We offer something we imagine will make another person happy, then feel hurt when it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, the people around us may never get to know what we truly think, enjoy, or have to offer.

That is one of the quiet costs of continually setting ourselves aside. Our relationships lose access to parts of us.

And we can build a life that looks perfectly reasonable from the outside while feeling increasingly disconnected from it on the inside.

Our interests, ideas, and desires deserve exploration. They may point toward meaningful work, deeper relationships, creativity, or changes we haven’t yet allowed ourselves to consider.

When we give those parts of ourselves room to develop, we also give the world a chance to receive what we can uniquely offer.

Permission can begin small

On the mat, we practice noticing. There is effort. There is breath. There is a limit today that may be different tomorrow.

We can bring that curiosity into daily life.

Before your next automatic yes, pause and ask:

What am I noticing? What do I need? What would I choose if I believed my answer mattered?

You might begin with:

“I’d like a little time to think.”

“I have a different preference.”

“I care about you, and I need to rest.”

You don’t have to feel completely confident before practicing. You don’t have to love every part of yourself before treating yourself with care.

And if expressing a need could put your safety at risk, permission can begin privately—with recognizing that need and seeking support. You get to move at your own pace.

As I begin this first Mindful Boundaries group, this is the invitation I keep coming back to: give yourself a chance to be known, including by you.

Your needs belong in the conversation.

Coming next in The Neighborhood Flow

And if you’re thinking, Okay, but what do I actually want or need?—that’s where we’re going next.

In my next Neighborhood Flow post, “Using Somatics to Live Authentically,” we’ll explore how noticing sensations in the body can help us get curious about needs and preferences we may have learned to overlook.

Sometimes we begin with a breath, a pause, and enough room to listen.

Warmly,

Kristin