Being more self-ish is good for everyone

If, or how you care for yourself or indeed if you put yourself first is something so many women struggle with. Women, in general, expect to be towards the back of the queue when it comes to looking after ourselves. This is a false economy. In our eagerness to please and be ‘perfect’ we tend to put others’ needs and wants first, ensuring as far as we can that others are cared for and happy and then, if there’s a shred of energy or attention left, we look at what it is we want and need.

This attitude leads to exhaustion and also leads to unhappiness and frustration. To allow yourself to be important enough to go for what you need – exercise, nutrition, enough sleep, family time, time off, more interesting projects and promotion opportunities – all these and more, only become important and on the radar for others when you make them important.

To allow yourself to let go of being a version of some super-human woman who doesn’t want to cause a fuss or wants to avoid showing others what she needs is self-defeating and dangerous. Instead, be prepared to look at what you need and want to be effective, to discuss it rather than hint or moan about it to others, is to accept you’re fallibility and your own needs. It’s to be, as I say, more self-ish. Not selfish but to care a little less about everyone else and to care a little more about yourself.

When you’re on a plane and the crew runs through the safety procedures, one of the instructions is to ‘put your oxygen mask on first’. How can you help those around you if you’re starving of oxygen yourself? The irony is often that by forgetting to look after ourselves, we end up needing to be looked after by others. The last thing we were wanting.

So, try to be more clear about what it is you need to feel good, to be healthy and to allow your own precious life-force energy to be as important – no, more important – than others’. How can you do what you want to do and contribute like you know you can if you’re empty of energy and inspiration because you’ve poured it all away to others?

Stop. You serve no-one, least of all yourself.

“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.”~ Deborah Day

(Extracted from Kay White’s 2nd Book – Title, TBA)