This past year I have been thinking a great deal about the importance of self-care. If basic needs like adequate food, shelter and physical safety are secured, what is it that we owe to ourselves and how does that impact others?
In my twenties, I attended my first Yoga Teacher Training Program and it gave me a taste of what it was like to make yoga and meditation part of my life. Initially, the physical part was the only thing I could really integrate on a fairly regular basis. The rest of my life was still a circus with most minutes of the day accounted for across the various jobs and roles I’d willingly taken on. I made a habit of placing myself last on a very long to-do list. Practicing yoga and later daily meditation, only made it on my list because I perceived it as a means to being more through the accomplishment of doing more. Messaging around taking care of myself was very mixed up with words like not-enough, indulgent, lazy and very notably this word: selfish.
Is Self-Care Selfish?
According to the Oxford dictionary selfish is defined as “…lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.”
Let’s take the very first part…”lacking consideration for others,” and be open to the possibility that self-care like adequate sleep, exercise and a healthy diet may be the steadiest path to altruism and further that even the second part of that definition, “concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure,” may also be false when your intention is aligned with helping others and being the force of good in the world. The very practice of filling your own cup could be the very thing that allows you to have anything and everything to give to the world.
My second yoga teacher training program in my thirties was a residential program in rural Mexico. I camped and lived a yoga lifestyle that checked all the self-care boxes that I had never before made a priority. For a full month I slept well, I practised yoga asana for multiple hours a day and we ate simple, unprocessed and healthy food. There were fewer external distractions (no cell service, access to the internet or television), messaging was very positive; we sang, chanted and discussed yoga philosophy. Living in nature, regular meditation and the dynamics of being in community, provided an abundance of self-reflection on destructive story-telling alongside tangible experiences of the unique magic that each of us are capable of. It was a beautiful month.
Then…I went back to my hectic life where none of these values of self-care were supported, never mind celebrated. My time away was both a valuable gift and an experience in what seemed like an unattainable idealism for the real world. I did want to continue filling my cup but I also had responsibilities, bills to pay, dysfunctional relationships to navigate and goals I was excited about meeting. Was self-care a want? Or was it something crucial? If giving back was something I thought was important how much (if anything) was I required to give to myself first?
Decide for Yourself
When you consider self-care, can you get on-board with the basics? Can you see that if you did get eight hours of sleep each night, drank enough water, ate whole-foods including plenty of greens, exercised and spent some time in nature, that you would be starting with a fuller cup each day? If these are not current priorities, take a moment to imagine a life that includes them. How might you be available to others in meaningful ways? How might your willingness to help others increase if you weren’t exhausted, depleted and solely running on caffeine, sugar or alcohol? How might the world benefit from you investing in you?
Recall that second part of the definition of selfish, “concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.” Imagine your cup full of adequate sleep, healthy food, exercise and so on and now add things like: choosing to be with people each day who bring you joy, making laughter a priority, participating in activities that stimulate your mind and both challenge and nurture your body, using acts of kindness as activism, and regularly getting lost in activities because it makes your heart truly happy. Imagine now, how you might contribute to the world when your cup isn’t just full, it is spilling over. Is pleasure selfish then? Are using your talents to secure financial wealth selfish when you leverage opportunities to lift others up, when you support projects that empower, when you have more time and energy available to find creative solutions?
Hasn’t the pandemic been a year-long illustration of how self-care directly results in taking care of others? Keeping yourself healthy contributes to the greater good. Placing value on self-care is a gradual dawning of understanding that our interdependence is crucial for a healthier world. The practice of filling your own cup is the very thing that might allow you to have anything and everything to give to the world.
