A few weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of speaking at the Living Beyond Breast Cancer conference in Philadelphia, PA. I was invited to speak to an audience of men and women about managing stress and worry in the cancer context. As is often the case, part of my talk veered to the topic of self-compassion and self-care, and how at its absolute most basic, it can be as simple as one little word: no. “No” is short and definitive, and it has the power to reclaim space and time and energy when we need it most
At one point, a woman raised her hand and asked the question many people struggle with: How do I get more comfortable saying no? I answered this question and a few others to the best of my ability before calling on a woman in back who said she actually has the opposite problem. She told us that she is actually very good at saying no. She is good at taking time for herself and doing the things that fulfill her and make her happy. The problem, she stated, is that she receives a lot of judgment as a result. People in her life label her selfish, see her as someone who does not think of others.
I say all of this because it makes me think of a gentleman I was speaking to recently who was talking to me about his wife. His wife, he told me, felt completely comfortable extricating herself from a social situation if she needed space and silence. She knew when she did not want to engage with family or friends anymore and simply declared “I need to leave” and did. She knew when she did or did not want to attend social functions and would simply declare this to be the case. The husband said to me, “She is really good at taking care of herself.”
This phrase stuck with me and I referred back to it a number of times in our conversation. She is really good at TAKING CARE OF HERSELF. What a wonderful way to reframe and understand that sometimes, a behavior that others can see as confusing or even selfish is really just the simple act of taking care of oneself. Of defining and understanding boundaries, comfort levels, and energy. Energy is not an infinite resource. We all need to figure out what it is that will help us heal, rejuvenate, and reconnect. For some, that may be getting out and being social. For others, it may be retreating to the sofa with a bowl of pasta and a good book. This is not about the people around us, it is about what we need to simply take care of ourselves.
I can’t tell you how often I speak with patients and caregivers about their fear of being perceived as or in fact being “selfish”. I often reference the excellent (and dense) collection of essays “The Virtue of Selfishness” by Ayn Rand. This is one of the themes she laid forth in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, too. It is simple: You are a finite resource. You have infinite potential for good. You cannot do the good you were meant to do if you are depleted. Others may not understand this, but you cannot serve your family or your community or society at large if you have no energy to do so. So take care of yourself.
So maybe this being selfish business is not so bad after all. I don’t know why it is so difficult for others to respect and understand, and I know that when you are feeling unwell (or caring for someone who is), it is all the harder to take the energy to explain yourself or to set boundaries for people. Again. But the path of least resistance, simply giving in and saying “yes” because of what other people expect is, as Maya Angelou would say, “like getting pecked to death by ducks”.
“No” is a word we get to use and feel comfortable with. Particularly when it is a word that helps us be more fully who we are. When it means we rest more, feel calmer, are more centered, and more present for the things that we decide to say “yes” to. There is this notion/misconception that we need to be selfless…to continue to give to everyone who asks, and that when that doesn’t feel comfortable for us, it is indicative of some sort of deficiency on our part. I’m here to tell you that this is simply not right.
The very word “selfless” is a horrible one. Really. Think about that. We all talk so much about knowing and being our true selves, and yet we aspire to and use the language of “selfless” to describe this sort of ideal. One who gives so much of themselves that they are without self. Eroded. Gone.
I am going to propose a word here that I think makes more sense than selfish to describe acting on your own behalf, or selfless to describe acting only on behalf of others. And that word is Self-full. To act in ways that allow you to connect to and nurture your truest self. To be full of life and what it means to you. To know that in figuring out how to take care of yourself, to say “no” when you need to, that you are filling the well so that you can give more. The more you give, the less you’ve got. But what if your well is constantly refilling? What if it is you who are filling the well?
I invite each of you to sit with the idea of what feels comfortable, healing, and true to who you are and to make a choice to move closer to it. To be self-full. To know that saying “no” or asking for what you need is not selfish. It is learning how to be good at taking care of yourself. To know that you and your energy are finite resources. That your energy is precious and special and everyone around you will love to feel a more centered, full version of that energy than you have been giving to them. Than you have been giving to yourself.