If you suffered from chronic abuse chances are that you are really bad at self-preservation. Because the purpose of abuse is to create a win-lose dynamic, this being done to you repeatedly creates a lot of bad habits that will keep someone self-sabotaging even after the abuse is over.
So what is self preservation? In a nutshell self-preservation is ones capacity to take care of himself.
It is not selfishness is simply the recognition of the responsibility you have for your body and happiness. In order to consider self-preservation selfish is when is done at the expense of other people happiness. Self-preservation at any cost is the definition of evil. Just because you are taking care of yourself doesn't mean that you have to hurt other
There are two aspects of self-preservation:
If you have had a vice for a long period of time this generally happens true the suppression of the truth. Which maintains your confusion about your felling not associating the action you take with the bad emotions. And the way to restore your capacity to self-preserve is true a commitment to be honest with yourself and the people around you.
Like most of the ancient classic philosophers argued to do is to know. When you really know something is it hard to really don`t act upon it because your emotions change.
Likely the solution is pretty much the same as in the first case, only that here you have to be honest with others. The magic word for the most part is NO, which is starting to become a lost art in to our culture.Turning down people when you consider the trade unfair is key, this can be simply done true being honest with them.
The antidote to manipulation is honesty. If someone is making you do something that is unfair most likely than not you will get an appropriate emotion from your body. Rather than making excuses or lying to them i found out that is the best to just tell them how you fell. My mantra when i am in a similar situation like this, to say something between the line: "i don't feel comfortable doing that".
Self preservation is the attempt of Making happy the people that make you happy, while self sabotage is make happy the people that make you unhappy. You have no obligation to do anything for anybody at the end of the day.
