Why people confuse Self-care with being Selfish

Working with people with chronic pain, I often see a pattern of people feeling guilty or even selfish when they even think about self-care.  Lots of us, somewhere along the line, get the message that Selfish is Bad and Selfless is Good.

• To be selfless can be translated as, everyone else’s needs are more important than mine.
• To be selfish can be translated as my needs are more important than everyone else’s.

These are black and white, 3rd Dimensional, or duality-based beliefs.  Intellectually it makes sense that there is a middle ground, right?  There should be some middle ground between being totally selfless and totally selfish, because everyone has  a “self!”  Even if intellectually that makes sense, when our duality-based beliefs get triggered, it doesn’t feel that way.  It can just feel like I felt bad, like I was being selfish when I tried to take 15 minutes for myself, so I stopped trying.

Feeling selfish can translate in the brain into feeling “bad,” because of that belief “selfish = bad.”  So then guess what I find?  Even though people feel like they should be doing self-care, they don’t.  After awhile though, the self will get our attention when we ignore it for too long.  One very popular way our self gets our attention is through pain.

The GOOD NEWS IS: you can get out of this black and white thinking!

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What if, we thought of self-care as a DYNAMIC!  Sometimes you are selfish, sometimes you are selfless, and sometimes you’re both.  With this, you take into account your actions as a whole.  Yes you take care of people you love, and your commitments, but you can’t keep doing that if you burn yourself out, hurt all the time, or feel grumpy because you are neglecting yourself.  For the people who work all day, take care your kids, parents, spouses, loved ones… I know it is hard.  But just remember, your self matters too.  Even giving yourself the gift of your own attention for 5-15 minutes a day can be profound.

If you find yourself having a hard time shifting this belief or program, I have helped many people upgrade their Belief Book and help to get to the source of these beliefs to shift them in their mind, body, emotions, and spirit during Akashic Record Consultations.