Is self-care selfish?

Wow, have I been struggling with self-care this past week. This is really hard to admit. I felt like I was walking on clouds the week before. I was doing what I love and living the dream–being active, inspiring others to be active and working directly with some to start being active. Then at 1:22 am Saturday the wretched sound of throwing up woke me out of deep slumber. My 10 year old was violently ill for the next 18 hours (and is still home sick as I write this.) This meant Mommy mode set in. I know that it is OK and totally normal to shift into taking care of this little human and making her my number one priority. Binge watching our favorite show on Netflix, not leaving the house to even get a breath of fresh air. (There was also a blizzard happening, which means I probably wouldn’t have anyway.) The hard part though is reconciling the feelings I am having. I think it must have something to do with where I was just a few years ago. When mama bear was my sole identity. I had left my job to care for my two girls and threw myself into carrying the weight of taking care of these humans (all of this despite having an incredibly supportive husband that was better at changing diapers than I was.) But those years of daycare my first daughter experienced weighed heavy on me. Did I miss some kind of bonding moment? Did they really do all of the hard work? (One teacher literally said that to me when we left one of the daycares.) Did I even know how to do this? So I went fully in and forgot about myself. The forgetting was easy, I had spent a lifetime learning how to detach from myself. Do you know that I thought that when I gave birth to my second child without the epidural that someone else had actually inhabited my body? I thought that it couldn’t possibly have been me that was that strong. It may sound like I am full of regret but I am not. Instead I am grateful that I had that experience. And that I can now look from the other side and realize how little that served anyone around me. I thought asking for help was futile and, in turn, doing anything for myself was selfish.

What I have learned over the last 8 years is that self-care and being selfish have nothing to do with each other. Merriam-Websters dictionary defines self-care as “care for oneself” and selfish as “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.” I am sorry, but if you are reading this and relating at all, my guess is that there is no way your self-care falls into the selfish “without regard to others” category.

This past week has reminded me of just how hard it is to reconcile the difference. And, how easy it is to fall prey to the shame spiral of not doing the things that are supposed to make me a better person for my family and the rest of the world. My shame spiral was different a few years ago, first being a working mom, was I there enough for my baby and could I put enough into my career and my family? When I decided that I was not able to do that and made the choice to stay home (also, 2 kids in daycare=my salary), a new shame spiral began, did I give up on myself and my career, what kind of role model could I possibly for my girls, am I reliving the 1950’s? Why all the shame? Well, that’s a subject that needs a lot more attention and there needs to be some major changes in parenting roles before that will go away. Instead, I want to look at how I manage it. This sounds so simple and like I am a broken record, yes, you guessed it: SELF-CARE! And, when I release myself from the shame spiral, I can be creative again.

BUT, yes there is a but, why weren’t my same practices providing me with the space? I went on a couple of runs and I did my yoga practice, but I still felt unable to create and be present with all of these thoughts swirling around. What I have come to realize is that self-care not only looks different for everyone, but it can look different for me at different times of my life. Cooking for my family and myself, catching up (twice!) with a close friend, journaling, listening to new podcasts all of these things were what I needed. I know that I also need to turn to my meditation and have taken my own coaching advice and have blocked the time in my calendar.

Why do I share this? Why do I find myself sharing my deep dark thoughts? Why do I choose this space to get all vulnerable? My gut tells me that there must be another soul out there waiting patiently or searching vigilantly for a hand to reach out or a voice to say, it’s ok to take care of yourself, and it’s not going to be ok, if you don’t. If you don’t put that oxygen mask on yourself first–no one will be ok. It’s not selfish, it’s self-care.