Selfishness or self care?

Selfishness is a subject that arises in coaching conversations frequently, so what happens when we measure what selfish really means against self care?

Last week a client explored the difference between selfish and self care, and through exploring what it means to us individually they were then able to decide how they wished to use it in their personal leadership. 

Selfishness and self care are subjects that frequently come into coaching conversations. Let’s take a look at that.

I see selfishness as another of society’s unwanted gifts to our psyche - another crap thing we’ve inherited culturally (there are many of these floating round our grey matter). And another assumption for our minds to unwind and consider. 

When we start to examine our own behaviours against assumptions such as ‘I am being selfish to put myself first’ and truly question what selfish means, and what we are doing, then a gap appears and we are able to build up our own values from a place of truth. 

Thus comes authenticity. Thus comes confidence in how you show up in the world. 

Often the first step towards self care is acknowledging the need for ‘caring for self’ as a new concept. We can translate this as feeling selfish because of the cultural conditioning mentioned, and also because it’s a new thought and new thinking requires new neural pathways to develop for it to become  ‘normal’ in our minds.

Any new habit needs embedding and will feel odd at first.

This is where coaching is super useful in providing a space for exploration- we can cross examine these assumptions together, in a safe and non judgemental container, to see, understand and rebuild our relationship with them.

Selfishness and self care are opposite ends of the spectrum.

So now you understand that - what will you do with it?

There is so much work to do for every one of us - where would you like to start?