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Is It Selfish to Put Yourself First? Why Women Feel Guilty for Having Needs.
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Is It Selfish to Put Yourself First? Why Women Feel Guilty for Having Needs.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word selfish. It came up in a coaching conversation the other day, and it’s got me rattled.

It’s bugging me because of how often it gets used to describe women doing things that aren’t selfish at all. And how easily we apply it to ourselves. And how much it costs us.

Here’s the thing…

For years, when we lived in the UK, I went to a 5 Rhythms dance class most Monday nights. An hour’s drive to Oxford, two hours of moving, an hour’s drive home. It was the single most nourishing thing in my week. The thing that kept me sane. Genuinely. I was a good person because of that class! 😉

And most weeks, it was fine. The kids were at school, I’d been around all weekend, I’d see them again on Tuesday night. No big deal.

But every so often there’d be a stretch like this. I’d been travelling the weekend before. I was home for one Monday. I was travelling again later in the week. Which meant if I went to dance that night, I genuinely wouldn’t see my kids much that week at all, except to get them off to school with all en ensuant drama and heartache that that always seemed to involve.

Those nights, my inner critic had some very strong opinions on my dance class.

“That’s pretty selfish. You haven’t seen them all weekend. You’re about to be away again. And you’re choosing a dance class?”

I’d sit with it. Sometimes I’d go anyway. Sometimes the guilt would win and I’d stay.

But here’s what I noticed. The weeks I went, even the hard ones, I came home a better mother. Calmer. More patient. More actually present when I was with them, not just physically in the room while I seethed with resentment and my nervous system rattled. The weeks I stayed home out of guilt, I was often a worse mother than I would have been if I’d gone. Snappy. Unkind. Distant at best.

The thing that “selfish” was talking me out of was the very thing that made me able to be the mother I actually wanted to be.

Selfish.

I’ve often reflected on that word.

Where did this word come from? Who taught us to use it like that?

Because I’ll tell you what isn’t selfish. Filling your own cup so there’s something in it to pour from. Taking the walk so you don’t bite your partner’s head off at dinner. Going to the class that regulates your nervous system so you can come home and actually listen to your teenager. Eating the strawberries you bought for everyone else, because your blood sugar matters too.

None of that is selfish. That’s self-preservation.

I’m not even talking about pleasure, desire or joy here. Just plain old self-preservation.

But somewhere along the way, we got taught the two words mean the same thing.

I think it starts young. We are trained, from when we are tiny, to be “kind”. Be kind to your brother. Share with your friend. Don’t be greedy. Don’t take the bigger piece. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t be a bother. Be helpful to your mum, your dad, your teacher, your grandma. And what “being kind” so often comes to mean, in practice, is sacrifice. In other words: give up what you want, give up what you need, make sure everyone else is OK first.

By the time we’re grown women, the message is in our bones.

Wanting something for yourself? Selfish. Needing rest? Selfish. Spending money on your own development when there’s family holidays to plan, and Laser Tag sessions for kids and your parents birthday celebrations to think about? Selfish. Saying no to the request that’s going to drain you? Selfish. Taking the evening, the weekend, the morning, the hour? Selfish, selfish, selfish.

So we don’t.

We restrict ourselves to free YouTube videos and ten minute podcasts in the car. We tell ourselves the spa day is a luxury. The osteopath is an indulgence. The dance class, the walk, the friend’s weekend away, the conference, the coach, the course… all “nice to haves.” We put ourselves so far down the list that by the time we get to our own name, the week is already over.

And we wonder why we get tired, snappy and eventually… burned out.

Here’s the thing I want you to sit with this week.

What you need is not the same thing as what you want.

What you need is what keeps you OK. Not jumping off the walls with energy. Just OK.

It’s what keeps your nervous system regulated… What keeps you out of pain…. What keeps your mental health in shape.

Without those things, what f**king hope do we have?

Genuinely. What hope do any of us have, of being the women we want to be, in the lives we want to be living, if we keep treating our own wellbeing as the optional extra to be done after everything else is sorted? Because everything else will never be sorted. There will always be one more email, one more load of washing, one more person who needs something.

The list doesn’t end. You have look after your needs anyway.

So this week, I want to invite you to notice. Just notice. Every time you hear that word arrive in your own head, selfish, get curious about it. Whose voice is that, really? What were you about to do for yourself that triggered it? And what would actually be true if you took the word away?

Because I’ll bet you anything, more often than not, what you were calling selfish was just you, trying to keep yourself alive and not anxious or depressed. Its a pretty low baseline we allow ourselves huh?

And there is nothing selfish about that.

Oh, and speaking of doing the thing that keeps us sane. The One Woman Conference is 13-14 June in London, and there are still seats. Two days in a room full of women learning this lesson too. Come join us?

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Joanna Martin
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