How do you feel about being intentionally selfish?

This week we're talking about the importance and benefits of being selfish more in our lives. We chat about the underlying feelings of unworthiness that come up for many when we prioitise others' needs over our own.

We emphasize the long-term benefits of self-care and sitting with discomfort to gain clarity and worthiness. When we build a "worthiness muscle" through small daily acts of self-care, it can help us to feel grounded and confident serving others from a place of fulfillment.

We talk about practicing acts of selfishness for ourselves and also practicing holding the icky emotions and the rational understanding of the importance of selfishness simultaneously.

This week, we encourage you to go out and do something selfish, just for you and let us know over on our Instagram page @outsidethesquarepodcast how you go.

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We often think of wellbeing as one-dimensional. What if we look at it from a different perspective?

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My name is Fiona. I'm a corporate wellness facilitator, body image and eating psychology coach and a lover of joyful experiences.

And I'm Josephine, a dietitian, somatic release therapist and a recovering people pleaser and perfectionist.

Welcome to Outside the Square.

Welcome everyone. Before we get into today's episode, I would love to remind you that our live program, 12 weeks to confidence, is now open at the early bird price up until the end of March, the 31st of March.

And this program is for those who want more confidence with food, body and their emotions. We created it for those who think, oh, there's something more to life or I wish they felt more here and here and here in those three areas of their life, body and emotions.

So take a look at the link here if it sounds like it's for you and without further ado we'll get into today's episode.

Hello everyone, we're back and today we are talking about it's okay to be selfish sometimes.

In particular, we're talking about giving the gift of putting yourself first, whether that be time for yourself, whether that be feeding yourself first before the rest of your family, whether it's spending some money on the food you want, we're talking about adding a little bit of selfishness and how far that can go.

I think there's such negative connotations with that word selfish, isn't it? There's that we sort of go, oh that feels selfish as opposed to I'm putting myself first. I want to say embrace the word selfish because I think we all need a little bit of that in our lives.

And Fiona and I are using the word selfish today intentionally because this feels icky and yeah, expect it to feel hard when you prioritise yourself or others and let's play with this selfishness.

I think so many of us like to serve others. You know I was having a conversation with my sister the other day and we sort of said oh one of the things we like to do for others is like serve others. She hasn't got a car at the moment so I said I'll come and drive you to wherever that you need to be which is completely and utterly out of my way right totally out of my way but it's something that I wanted to offer because I know that she would offer that to me, and yet on the day when it was meant to happen, I thought, this is actually not going to work for me. And I rang her and I said, do you think you could get here to make it easier for me?

And I apologised when I was doing it, because I was like, hold on. I was putting myself out, and now I'm, now I'm not. Now I need to ask for something for me to make it work better for me and that felt really icky in the moment. And yet she was like, yeah it’s totally easy, I'll catch a bus here and I'll meet you there and it'll all work out and it was easy and in flow, but making that phone call and asking to change up and not give all of myself to make it terribly inconvenient for me and to ask for some convenience back was really hard to do.

I know they're feeling too.

So how do we go about feeling okay about being selfish? How do we go about feeling like it's okay to ask for what we need or to prioritise ourselves?

Because I think if we flipped the coin, if it was my sister, for example, who had rung me and said, look, I'm not going to be able to come all the way out to get you. Do you mind to come meet me somewhere in the middle that works? I would have immediately said yes, like it’s not a problem because you were already doing me a favour. So I think sometimes it's all about our perception of what's going on. We feel like we don't want to inconvenience other people. We'd rather inconvenience ourselves a lot of the time. And I think we need to flip that narrative. So how do we feel okay about that, what do you think is the first step?

As always, it's sitting in what feels like really uncomfortable, like what is this ickiness? Like so, can I ask you, when you had to call your sister, what feeling do you have? Like what is it that comes up with you about supposedly letting her down?

It's funny because with a family relationship, it's probably a little bit different to other relationships, but I think deep down it is about my own self-worth.

So it is a sense of if I haven't been there for you or if I'm not there providing that service, you will leave the relationship. That's a very extreme view, but that's sort of the ultimate fear that sits underneath that for me. Is that you will turn your back on me because I'm not good enough.

Mmm, perfect.

All over like a 10-minute drive, which when you think back about it, that's where we're going, how are we coming to these big statements from something that actually can be managed in a much smaller, easier way?

Yeah, exactly, because your rational brain knew that actually you were the one being inconvenienced, yet there's this conditioning within you that says, I'm unlovable if I don't deprioritise myself and keep other people happy.

And I feel that there are going to be so many people resonating with that sentence right now.

Yeah, and I think what we're talking about now is us being the cycle breakers and breaking that generational pattern of I must do… to be enough. I must do things for others. I must do things to proceed our families. Well, whatever little threads have come through your family, that start to impact these little day-to-day decisions.

Yeah, so sitting with the ickiness. Okay, so for you, it was unlovable and worthy. So that's a hard feeling to sit with it can feel like anxiety. It can feel like restlessness. If I don't do something, I'm going to something terrible is going to happen. It can feel like extreme unsafety so like to sit with that is really hard.

But we've given you the tool to do that episode three season one of how to sit with a emotion and if you haven't done that for a while, if you haven't heard that episode, please go and try it because it gives you a beautiful framework to sit with that ickiness for 90 seconds.

And that's all it takes. Once you can feel something that intense for 90 seconds, you've felt through a layer of it and it's not going to keep coming up again. You can just keep gently feeling it and see what there is to feel on the other side and often it is worthiness.

Like, oh yeah, of course I can just call her and have this conversation. I feel really grounded and peaceful and worthy of doing that now. It's 90 seconds away but we just don't get taught how to sit with things that are so deep in our psyche.

And I think the more and more that we do that. I get asked a lot, so you've just healed your relationship with food now, have you?

When clients are approaching me, that's the question. So you're all fixed now. And I say, well, to a point. I said the behaviours still come up. I noticed my patterns, so when I noticed my eating behaviours, my unwanted eating behaviours starting to come back into my life, I now am able to say, Oh, something else is going on in a way that I never used to be able to.

So in a way, yes, that has been fixed. But those patterns continue to come up because life continues to happen. So the more that we take that time, the more that we practice these things, the more you will be able to spot what's going on for you and the more you will be able to hold space for both sides.

So in that moment where I was feeling icky because I had to call my sister, there was an icky feeling.

And when I sat with that feeling for a bit longer, I was able to see at exactly the same time as having that feeling, also being able to say, this is easy, you can ring. It's okay, you are worthy to do that. I was able to hold both of those things at the same time. And there was a time in my life where I couldn't. It was always a backwards reflection. So it was always after I'd done all of the things and had all of the panics that I went back days, weeks later thinking about how that could have played out differently.

For me, healing comes when I'm closer and closer and closer in that reflection, where being able to hold both sides of that coin, what I'm feeling and what I know is true at the same time is golden for me. For me, that is healing.

And life is always going to throw you the next step that you have to heal next, right. Some other icky feeling’s going to come up and then you heal that so, yeah, the work gets easier and it gets simpler because you know how, doesn't mean there's not discomfort. Yeah, I have the same question. Yeah.

And so I think when we talk about this aspect of selfishness and these icky feelings that can come when we think I need to do something for myself, what is the rational part that you can also hold that you might only have previously been able to see weeks later down the line. After maybe you didn't prioritise yourself and you burnt yourself out or you got sick or you missed something that was important to you and you went back and thought, hold on, what was going on with that? How can you bring that closer to being able to see that in the moment? And that exercise where you can sit for that 90 seconds gives you the space to make that connection.

Yeah, absolutely. And so often we say to ourselves, I don't have time to go to the gym this week. I don't have time to sit down and read a magazine and have a cup of tea. Wouldn’t that be so nice if I had the time to do that sort of with a resentful tone in our voice? And this is where we're challenging you, hang on, you don't have time for an hour for yourself.

That actually maybe we need to think about that again, and sit through the discomfort of what that, of actually creating that for yourself. Feel the worthiness of being worth that hour and strategically put it in.

Yeah. I read this thing the other day, I use a couple of different decision-making models in my work, and I've got one of them up on my Instagram. I'm going to cross it over and pop it onto the outside the square Instagram so that you can see it. It's a little four-square grid to help you understand. when someone asks something of you or you've got a task to do, you can decide whether it's something that you need to be doing.

But there was another one that I saw recently which I liked as well because it got a little bit more of a reflection around it which was thinking about when you've got a task, is it something that I need to do? Is it something I want to do or is it something that others expect me to do?

And I think that's a really interesting way to think about things when they come across for you in terms of how do you find that time? Well, I don't have time because I'm doing all these other things. Well, are they things that need to be done?

Are they things that you want to do or are they just things that other people are expecting of you and actually other people could do? And I think having a clear framework around thinking about where you can create that space, how you can delegate things that maybe you don't really need to be doing, that you're adding more in of the things that you want to be doing, that it's also aligned with where you want to go.

Yeah, I really love that. I had a really good example of this on the weekend. I was about to drive out of town for a day to have a day with my plant witches, my girlfriends where we talk all about plants and medicine and it’s incredible and it fills my cup up like four weeks, know, like this is it for me. And then as we're about to go, both my husband and Monty started to feel sick. And I was just like, the guilt starts to come up, you know, like should I be going? Is this just going to drain me and I'm coming home to look after the end. Could I make the whole party of witches sick with their COVID, you know.

And I went and for the first part of the drive, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and forgot about it and had a great day.

Came home and it turns out they both had hayfever. I was like, ah, I was so close to discounting my needs for something that was going to serve them ultimately for weeks, right? So close. It's so easy just to take yourself out your needs out of the equation and revert back.

Yeah, and I think that's something really important where you just said you take your needs out of the equation and you are part of the equation and so your needs are part of the equation.

Far too often, we just take our needs out completely and push them away rather than bringing them in and looking at how that works as part of the equation, how do we solve this? And that can feel like more work. It sometimes feels easier to just go, I'll just inconvenience myself, but when we're thinking about being our true selves, our authentic selves, having that energy, having that confidence, being glowing, all of the things that we talk about achieving and wanting to be and how we show up in the world, we do that by having our needs met, not by taking them out of the equation.

So, it may feel icky to have them in there. It may feel like it takes more time. It may feel like more of an inconvenience to have that conversation and lay that foundation by having them in there, but actually, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

And I think as the worthiness muscle gets built, as you take that one hour for you, and you feel that energy and glow come back in, the things you want to do become actually, I need to do these, the wants become needs and they become so valuable that then you're taking a day out of the week, or whatever it may be that you actually need a bit of time every day, maybe, to just sit and do nothing.

It's almost like the need and what is combined so it actually should be both of those for you to go ahead and do it. I need it and I want it.

Yeah. And I would argue that time alone, is not a want but a need. Like that for me now I have it in my life is the time where things just land. Like it's not when I'm sitting at the computer doing my work when the brilliant idea drops or the intuitive hit that I've got a call of friend comes. It's when I'm just doing that thing and then to know that oh my gosh I actually have that I've got time to do that right now. I'm thinking of a friend I'll call that friend because this is my time to do whatever I want and there's something so magical about that, having time in your week for these little synchronicities to pop in these little magical moments to pop in. To be able to call a friend when you think about them. It does become a need like that is a need for me now that's not a want anymore.

I love that.

I think that can sometimes feel hard as well. I think the first time when you start making time, it is really hard to not think how can I be productive during this time. We often have that go go go go go go mindset that I do this I go right I've got a whole weekend ahead of me, I'm going to get this done and that done and this done and that done and I'm going to get all of these things sorted because I've carved out this time and sometimes I get stuff done sometimes I don't and it sometimes doesn't always feel as magical as it could because I've put expectations on it.

Or because when you have space is when your emotions start to come up, so if you've been pushing emotions down all week and you have some time to yourself, the shit’s going to come to the surface.

But I tell this story for the long term effect. It's like, actually, this is going to feel icky. You're going to feel selfish. Stuff's going to come up to the surface for you to heal. But long term, there is this, like, incredible space and this belief, this deep knowing that you are not what you do, you are who you are in the being. You are worthy, even if you do nothing.

And the way I started feeling that was actually spending time in nature, and I see a lot of people start the healing in nature because that is the place you just get to be. You can go to the river and just watch it. You can walk to the top of the hill and just look. You can lie on the ground outside and look at a sunflower for however long it takes your attention and you are being, you're not doing and that that's how it started for me. I'm being, but it feels like being in nature is more purposeful somehow.

And I think we've talked in some of our previous episodes about different hobbies, those things we talked about in our episode around success, you know those times where we are just so involved in what we're doing or in the thing that we love to do where you are just existing within, it might be your crafting or your painting or your puzzling or you know those sorts of things that that draw you in and allow you just to be where you are.

Yeah and I remember a coach on my journey said to me one time like oh for God's sake just take some time off and watch some Netflix. I was like what how the heck is that going to help me. But what she was saying is like work through the guilt and spend an hour of your work day doing something that you think is just way too selfish to be possible. Like, practice it.

And I hated her at the time but you know three years later I look back and I think that was really nice yeah.

Because it is about working through that feeling of guilt and when we talk about selfishness as you said right at the beginning we're conditioned to, we use that to say you know oh you're being selfish as though that's a bad thing. And there are times when we're not thinking about others or not considering others that we could say, yeah, actually we should have, included or thought about that.

But that's not the spaces we're talking about here. We're talking about that intentional selfishness and being able to manage those feelings of guilt because you are going to get benefit from it at the other end, you are going to be able to serve those others better. You are going to be able to consider everything else in that equation with a clearer head and with a calmer mind. And it's actually going to benefit you to do that. And it doesn't always feel like that when you first start, as you say, it’s taken you three years to go, that was actually really good advice back then, but at the time I hated it.

And for many people who are listening, you might be listening in and thinking, I would feel too guilty, I can't do that. So what would help you to manage that guilt? What do you need to not feel guilty about doing that? I'd love to ask that question. I'd love for you to consider that and think about what that might look like, because the answer comes from within you.

Yeah, and you know what time of the day where things start to unravel, where your stress gets to a point where you actually aren't being supportive of the people around you, where the emotional volatility within you becomes disruptive. And so look at the time just before that, maybe that's when you need the time for yourself. It might be five minutes before you do the kindy pick up, where you eat an apple and have a glass of water so that you are fuelled for their afternoon tea time.

Or who knows, it might be five minutes in the car to have a coffee before you go into work, allowing yourself to be a little bit late to be grounded. Where can you start to put these spaces and time in what you can just feel?

I love that one about being late. I used to be like a stickler for time, and when I used to go into my office, I was lucky enough that I didn't have to be there at a certain time. It wasn't providing a service, so there wasn't an opening time where I had to be there, but I tended to arrive at the office at the same time, every day, around the same time.

And if I slept in, I would be panicking, I'm running late, I'm running late, and I had a boss who just went, there is no late, like, you'll come in, you'll get your work done, it's okay. And the moment that I just accepted, oops, I've woken up late, I'm just going to take my time, I've accepted that I'm going to be a later than I normally am, everything went more smoothly. And generally, I ended up not being as late as I would have had if I'd been in a panic to try and get there.

Because I just went, you know what, there's nothing I can do about it now, so let's just, move swiftly, but not moving with panic. And just that acceptance of, I might be a couple of minutes late. I need this for myself. I often used to think, well, there's a reason that I slept in, I needed that extra sleep. So can I create the acceptance around that?

And then I would go in and I would get my work done and, you know, maybe, I would stay a little bit later or I'd, know, stay a little later or go little early another day and I was lucky enough to be in a position where I could do that. I know that doesn't work for everybody. But when you shift your mindset around it, it actually makes everything else more smooth. And I think that's where we're getting at, at the crux of this.

What if there was no selfish? What if there was just time that was necessary for you to be the most grounded version of yourself?

Beautiful. I love that.

And I'm going to pop up onto the outside the square podcast grid as well. We'll put up a little post that has the word selfish in it. I would love for you to come across and answer that question. Come and let us know.

Yeah, make a commitment to yourself to do something selfish yourself this week. Let us know what it is. And until next time, all the best.

See you soon.

Before we finish up for today, we would like to acknowledge the original custodians of the lands on which our podcast is created, the Ngāi Tahu people of Aotearoa New Zealand,

and the Cammeraygal people of the Eora Nation Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all our listeners who identify as Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, or Maori.

We love connecting with you, our listeners and talking about the topics that mean the most to you. Reach out to us on Instagram at Outside the Square Podcast and let us know what you want to hear more of.

Until next week, keep stepping outside your square.