Are you afraid of being selfish?

The fear of being selfish (or being perceived as selfish) comes up often for people socialized as women. 

We’ve been taught to believe taking care of ourselves and putting our needs, wants, and desires first is selfish.

We ’ve been taught that our value as a human being comes from how much we do for others. How much we are willing to sacrifice ourselves at the altar of other people’s wants, needs, comfort, demands, and requests.

And we’ve been taught being selfish is unarguably terrible.

So we spend all this time and energy proving to the world that we aren’t. Going overboard at our own expense.

I could go on and on about how women have been socialized to believe that they should be taking care of everyone but themselves and that anything less than that is selfish.

And how that line of thinking impacts women (and the world) negatively.

And how the idea that being selfish is a bad thing is completely made up. An opinion that you don't have to buy into at all.

And how "selfishness" is entirely subjective.

But as a first step, I just want you to get curious.

Next time you think you’re being selfish or worry about being seen that way, ask yourself:

How is this actually selfless? How will this help the people I love? How will I show up differently if I take care of myself?

Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean you can’t give to others. It means you’re not constantly giving at your own expense while feeling resentful, negflected, and stuck. 

Putting yourself first allows you to be selfless on a bigger scale (if you want to). 

Where have you held back on taking care of yourself because you think it’s selfish? How would doing that actually benefit others?

IMPORTANT NOTE: This exercise isn’t intended to encourage you to be “selfish” only when you can justify it because it helps people around you. Instead, it’s a way to create some wiggle room in your brain around the idea of selfishness and the meaning and morality you are giving it. Once you create that wiggle room, you can expand it even further to decide whether you want to subscribe any meaning or morality to selfishness at all, and if so, what exactly that looks like for you.