In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick, board-certified orthopedic and pelvic floor physical therapist, explores how our culture of “healing” might be making us more self-focused than connected. Inspired by Gloria Alamrew’s essay “Healing Is Making Us Mean,” Kelsy examines the balance between personal growth and community care.

In this episode:

• How “therapy language” and boundary-setting can strain friendships
• What research says about self-care, loneliness, and prosocial behavior
• The role of privilege in who gets to “heal” and focus on wellness
• Why meaningful connection requires inconvenience, conflict, and care
• How to practice self-work that strengthens, not isolates, relationships

A thoughtful conversation on the fine line between self-care and self-centeredness—and how true healing helps us show up better for others.

Resources:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-176689615 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39688189/ 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17499755231157440?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5429736/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8488814/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4026714/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

https://elke-u-weber.com/media/198_2021_journalofappliedsocpsych_schneider?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

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00:00- 00:17 Intro

00:18- 01:28 Introduction: The Shift in Healing Culture

01:29- 02:40 Personal Journey and Reflections

02:41- 04:31 The Dichotomy of Self-Care and Relationships

04:32- 06:33 The Privilege of Self-Care

06:34- 07:49 Exploring the Research on Self-Care and Relationships (Part 1)

07:49- 08:24 Safely

08:24- 13:26 Exploring the Research on Self-Care and Relationships (Part 2)

13:27- 18:00 Practical Insights and Boundaries in Friendships

18:01- 19:25 Conclusion: Embracing Messy Friendships

Mentioned in this episode:

Live Safely Sidekick

Very quickly healing became less about

connection and more about control, less

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about understanding ourselves and more

about explaining ourselves, justifying

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every boundary, every reaction,

every vibe shift with a diagnosis.

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We've developed this not so subtle

smugness, often cruel and alienating.

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Or if someone doesn't speak our

therapeutic dialect Or if they're

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not fluent in the frameworks

we've adopted, they're labeled

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unsafe, unregulated, toxic.

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Somewhere right now.

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Someone's chat, GPT therapist is

telling them you are absolutely right.

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Your friend asking you to come to

their birthday party on the three

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year anniversary of your situationship

ending is totally selfish.

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You deserve to feel heard to.

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This is an excerpt from a very eye-opening

essay written by Gloria Aam Ru on Culture

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Craft called Healing is Making Us Mean.

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So in this month of friendships,

of relationships, of gratitude,

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as we enter this holiday season,

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I figured we could talk about this

sort of dichotomy of helping ourselves

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at the expense of others, how much

self-care and turning inward is

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too much, and actually harming our

relationships with the people around us.

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So let's have a little

Wellness girl chat about it.

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Welcome back to Wellness Fixes the Pod.

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I'm your host, Dr.

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Kelsey Vic, a board certified orthopedic

doctor of physical therapy and a pelvic

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floor physical therapist and for those

of you who have been longtime podcast

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listeners, about two years ago, I

started an 18 month journey of therapy

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and seeking professional help for some

of the mental challenges and mental

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hurdles that I was experiencing during

a very difficult time in my life.

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I was so blessed to be able to afford

therapy both with time and financial

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resources in order to help myself,

especially mentally, but then also

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hoping to help myself mentally help those

around me and how I was interacting with

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others, because that started to suffer

too, and it actually led to my word

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of the year for 2025, being healing,.

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Healing my brain, healing my

thought patterns, healing my

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relationship with myself, healing

my relationship with others.

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So it's been a very wonderful,

hard, challenging journey.

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But I always struggled with how much

of thinking about myself, of turning

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inward, of working on myself was too much.

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How much focus inward is.

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Sacrificing how much I'm

thinking about others.

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If we are going through therapy,

going through self-care treatments,

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we're always focusing inward.

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We're focusing on how we can improve

ourselves, but at what point does

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focusing inward and focusing on

ourselves come at the expense

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of our relationship with others?

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And this dichotomy has always.

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Challenged me because as I'm going

through therapy, we talk about how I

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can approach certain situations and

communicate better and not necessarily

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worry about how other people are going

to respond to that or not let it affect

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me and not let it hinder my ability

to communicate with that other person.

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So I was always challenged with if

I'm working on healing myself, where

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does that leave those that I love?

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At what point does healing become

so selfish that I neglect others?

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I know you guys have probably seen

the meme where it is a girl talking

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to her friend and her friend says,

you know, your ex-boyfriend is going

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through therapy right now and his

therapist is telling him he's in the

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right, or something along those lines.

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An ex situationship an ex-friend,

it's a meme saying their therapist

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is telling them they're right.

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Just as your therapist is

telling you, you're right.

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And that simplification, that meme

definitely discredits the entire field

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of mental health care, mental health

professionals, all of the wonderful

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people involved in helping all of us

work on our relationships with others,

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our relationships with ourselves.

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So this is in no way saying that is all

that therapy comes down to, or that.

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That is all that mental

healthcare professionals do

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is validate that you're right.

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But it does put a little bit of a

sarcastic twist on this challenge

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that I've always been faced with where

self-care and being consumed with what's

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going on with our bodies physically

and with our bodies mentally, is.

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Great and can be so wonderful

for us to become more self-aware,

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but where is that line where we

do it at the expense of others?

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Furthermore, what sort of

privilege must we have in order to.

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Take the time, take the financial

resources in order to take

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care of ourselves, whether

that's physically or mentally.

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It comes from a very privileged place

to say, I have enough time to think

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about myself, think about what I'm going

through, know that I'm struggling, reach

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out to a certain healthcare professional

or mental health provider in order to

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help me or physical healthcare provider to

help me with whatever I'm going through.

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And.

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In order to partake in some of

these self-care activities, you

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have to come from a certain place

of privilege where you have both

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the time resources and the financial

resources, or you have the ability to

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sacrifice that for a temporary period

of time while you go through whatever

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healing you're needing to go through.

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So Gloria's article speaks to the

first part of that talking about how

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maybe the therapy language that we're

all used to about boundaries about.

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Trauma is really burdening some of

those relationships that we have

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with others where focusing on the

ego, focusing on ourselves might be

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actually harming our friendships and

our community outside of ourselves.

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So here's another excerpt from our

article that really spoke to me.

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Human beings aren't meant to be optimized.

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We are meant to be in relationship,

in conflict, in care, in community.

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And community here doesn't mean

constant harmony because ew, that's

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not real life, nor should it be.

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Community comes with burden, it

comes with inconvenience, it comes

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with conflict, but somehow we've

diluted ourselves into thinking that

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our lives should be totally devoid.

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Of those things, we lie to ourselves

and each other by saying that true

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friends would never inconvenience you.

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My siblings in Christ, the people you

love, will absolutely inconvenience

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you And what a miracle that is.

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I promise.

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I don't mean to be that person, but I am

a Pisces, so I literally am that person.

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But how effing lucky are we to have

people we love and are burdened by?

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I don't ever wanna be so cut off from this

world and the people in it that nobody

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turns to me for respite help or care.

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How sad would it be if nobody called

me to scream with joy with them

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that they got the job they wanted?

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What an utter failing it would

be if no one thought of my

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name when they thought of care.

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So I wanted to look into the

research of this dichotomy.

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Where is that line?

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How much self-care, self-awareness is

too much that we're doing it at the

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expense of others and those that we love.

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So a quick note about the privilege

of it all, but when I think about.

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The time and financial resources that it

takes to actually take care of ourselves

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and to focus on self-care and to focus

on wellness, like wellness is a luxury.

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I think about my granddad actually, and.

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The things he's told me about his

childhood growing up, he was one of six

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kids and one of the youngest of six kids.

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So his days were spent on the farm

working sun up to sundown, and

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then once he was done with that,

he would go in and do his chores.

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He grew up without electricity,

like he was not someone Who had the

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time or the financial resources to

necessarily think about his physical

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health and wellness, but especially

his mental health and wellness.

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So when it comes to therapy and

utilizing mental health resources

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and mental health professionals, I

do struggle with understanding that

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it's a privilege to feel this way.

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It's a privilege to have

time to think about that and

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To go seek out help from someone.

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So it is another sort of seesaw

that I struggle with how blessed

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and lucky I am to be able to

go after some of these things.

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. So what does the research

say on this dichotomy?

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as a little bit of a note?

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This is a complex topic in a

lot of the studies I looked at.

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Make sure to clarify that it

is not a causal relationship.

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It's really hard to.

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Get a finalized result that

something caused something else.

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But these are more correlations

where something might

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correlate with something else.

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It doesn't mean that it's a cause because

causals multifactorial correlations

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can be a little more fluid and relaxed.

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But, cause we can't just say this

is a direct cause and effect.

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But I'll link these specific studies

below if you guys wanna take a look.

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So there was a study done in 2024 by

Malon et al that looked at the seesaw

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between loneliness, self-centeredness,

and people's willingness to

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engage in pro-social behaviors.

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And pro-social behaviors are those

intentional acts done to benefit others.

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The researchers state that

loneliness can be a cause for

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people to seek out friendship.

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Of course, if you're lonely,

you're going to wanna seek out

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friendship, but on the flip side.

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It can also swing the opposite

way and perpetuate self-centered

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and egotistical behaviors.

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So loneliness can actually be

correlated with reduced pro-social

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behaviors or reduced intentionality

with helping others or doing something

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to benefit others by causing people

to focus too much on themselves.

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so it can do both things.

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Loneliness can lead to someone.

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Seeking out more friendship

or helping others more.

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But it can also lead to increased

egotistical thoughts, increased

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focus on the self, and reduce

those pro-social behaviors.

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In another study in 2024, done by

Iranian et al, they looked at how

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therapy language affects friendships.

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So think words and phrases like trauma

and boundaries, and emotionally laboring.

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Another person, they concluded that

sometimes when this language is seen

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in friendship communication, it can

correlate with a reduced tolerance

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for discomfort in friendship, Social

distancing and a reliance on a more

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professional way of communicating with

friends when we need friends sometimes

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to just shoot the shit with us.

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They argue that therapy talk can turn

what was meant to be a messy problem

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solving conversation between friends

into a more diplomatic and professional

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exchange that doesn't necessarily

breed friendship in the best way.

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And this is what Gloria was

chatting about in her article.

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If you are in a friendship where the

other person is always using terms like

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boundaries, or it does not serve me

right now, I don't have the emotional

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capacity to handle your challenges, it

doesn't necessarily make you wanna open

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up to them or be vulnerable with them.

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It makes it more diplomatic and more

like a workplace relationship, which

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this article specifically looked at

friendship, communication, not workplace

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communication, not marriage communication.

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So utilizing some of these more

therapy terms with your friends

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doesn't necessarily breed that deeper,

vulnerable, more friend like connection.

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It's not that boundaries are bad or

setting those boundaries are bad.

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But constantly saying, I have this

boundary, or I don't have the emotional

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capacity, or I can't handle your traumas

right now because I'm dealing with my own.

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Those phrases don't necessarily make

you feel good as a friend receiving

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that communication from someone else.

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So this study looked specifically

at friendship communication, not

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necessarily workplace communication

or marriage communication.

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In another study, they actually

looked at self-affirmation

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practices and their effects on

empathy and pro-social behaviors.

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So they had people write certain

journal entries about themselves,

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what they're good at, what they're

passionate about, and they found

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that these self-affirming behaviors

actually reinforce pro-social behaviors.

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Again, that intentionality

and helping someone else.

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So self-focused practices when

paired with compassion for others can

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00:11:10,836 --> 00:11:12,636

actually elevate pro-social behaviors.

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If I look inward, if I journal about

myself, if I go to mental health

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providers, if I seek help for myself,

it's not that automatically leads to

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this decrease in intentionally building

community or helping others, but The

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research shows that it just has to

be done with the right intentions.

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If you are doing these self-affirming

practices out of self-awareness,

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then that can lead to more efforts

into intentionally helping others

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or those pro-social behaviors

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So another study looked at people

who performed acts of self-kindness

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versus acts of kindness towards

others, and they actually found

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two positives that came out of it.

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To show that self-kindness towards

yourself, obviously, and acts of

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kindness towards others combined is

super beneficial, which I know that's

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probably not a surprise to anyone, but

sometimes it really does help to have

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these studies that are actually done to

show what parts of ourselves are improved

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with self kindness versus what parts

of ourselves and our relationships are

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improved with kindness towards others.

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So they found that the acts of

self-kindness created more emotional

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resilience within ourselves, and the

acts of other kindness strengthened

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friendships and social connection,

which, duh, if you're gonna help

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others, of course that's going to

strengthen your relationship with others.

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But focusing on yourself and doing those

acts of self-kindness did not harm, that

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it actually made you more emotionally

resilient to be kind towards yourself.

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Other studies show that mutually

agreed upon boundaries are actually

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beneficial for friendships.

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So I think one that comes to

mind between me and a lot of my

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friends involves when we text back.

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And I know a lot of people in our

twenties, thirties, forties, honestly

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probably throughout our older, like not

when we first got a phone, not in high

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school, but I feel like in our twenties,

thirties, forties and beyond, a lot of

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us aren't the most immediate texters.

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And I feel like it's a very.

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Good boundary that my friends and

I have with each other, and it's

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pretty reciprocal where we don't feel

like we have to text each other back

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immediately, and I think that's an

amazing thing, an amazing boundary

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that we all have with each other.

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I don't feel hurt if one of my best

friends doesn't text me back right away,

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and she doesn't feel hurt if the same

thing applies when I don't text her back.

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So no one's getting angry.

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It's identified as a boundary that,

Hey, just text me back when you can.

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It's not emergent.

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If it was emergent, we

might say something.

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We might call them, we

might send a voice note.

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There's other ways to contact them,

but none of us are feeling hurt because

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of a delay in communication over text.

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So what do all the studies boil down to?

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Some say that you know too much

focus on yourself, too much time

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to think about yourself, whether

or not you're lonely or not.

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Might create less desire to perform

certain pro-social behaviors

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or intentionally help others.

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And then other studies show that.

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By becoming more self-aware

and performing acts of kindness

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towards yourself, you can actually

become more emotionally resilient.

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It can actually help lead to more

performance of those pro-social behaviors.

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Self-care and self-work done as a

community or the goal of showing up

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better for others correlates with

increasing pro-social behaviors.

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So it comes down to the intention

behind those self-care practices.

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Most of the research shows that if you

are performing self-care practices in

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order to be better than someone else,

or in order to say you are holier than

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thou because you go to therapy or.

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You perform some sort of self-care

practice because you are financially able

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to, or you have the time freedom to do so.

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that can actually lead to

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friendship challenges and not leaning

into some of those pro-social behaviors

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or intentionally helping others, or

even intentionally building communities.

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So if you're intention is more

self-centered behind those self-care

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practices, where you're doing it to.

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I say self-centered, but I

guess it's more self-centered

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with the perception of others.

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so if you feel like you wanna perform

these practices to be better than someone

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else, that can lead towards the negative

side of friendship and community building.

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But if the intention is to learn more

about yourself or dive deeper into what

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makes you you, in order to have a better

response emotionally for yourself,

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emotionally with others, and your

communication style, if you're doing it to

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better yourself in order to show up better

for yourself and for others, then that

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can actually lead to more performance of

those prosocial behaviors, more community

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building, better, deeper friendships.

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So basically don't do therapy because

other people are doing it, or to have

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a higher status or look better because

you actually go to therapy, do it

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for you so you can learn more about

yourself and show up better for not only

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yourself, but also for those around you.

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So if you're struggling

with this balance, same.

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I think understanding the research

and reading Gloria's article was

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absolutely amazing to show the flip

side of the positives of therapy.

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There's so many positives that I've

gotten from it, but I do struggle with.

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How much, you know, 18 months of therapy.

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That's a lot of time focusing on yourself

and how your brain handles things

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and not as much of a focus on others.

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But the reason I was doing it was

for the benefit of others and the

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benefit of my relationship with others.

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So it's the intention behind it and.

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Utilizing certain concepts in the

right context, but understanding that

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friendship is messy, friendship is

communal and sacrificial and it's amazing.

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I do wanna be that friend that people

feel like they can come to with anything

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messy or especially their celebrations,

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I never want my friends to feel like

they can't come to me because of how

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I might respond or the boundaries that

I have in place for our friendship.

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So I think I needed to hear that

perspective because therapy is amazing.

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Getting mental health

professional help is amazing.

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It has shown me how to be better

and kinder to myself better and

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kinder towards those around me.

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How to communicate better.

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There are so many benefits

that come from it,

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But we wanna make sure not to

over rely on some of the, therapy

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talk that Gloria was talking about

that might harm other friendships

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and relationships in our lives.

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And I think I really needed

to hear that perspective.

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So to sum it all up, it is okay

for your friendships to be messy.

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It is okay to ask friends for help.

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It's okay to not communicate

perfectly every single time.

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That is a gift.

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Communication isn't supposed to be

so diplomatic or so thought out.

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It's supposed to be intentional

and come from a good place.

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We don't want diplomatic friendships.

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We want friendships that fill our cup

and that we can show up for them just

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as much as they can show up for us.

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and I'm okay with sacrificing some

of the things I'm going through

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or some of my past in order to

help Those that I love right now.

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I don't know if any of you guys struggle

with this too, but I wanted to have

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a conversation about it, and not that

there's any right or wrong answer, but

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I thought it was interesting to look

at some of the research surrounding it.

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Gloria's article was absolutely amazing.

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I'll link that below too if

you wanna take a look at it.

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She just writes so beautifully and laid

it out so well that it inspired me for

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this episode, especially since our last

episode, was on the importance of female

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friendships and quality relationships

and even building relationships really

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quickly through small talk or riffing.

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We talked about that last episode,

so if you missed it, it's the

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one right before this, but.

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Once I read Gloria's article, I knew I

had to move some of my planned episodes

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around so that I could fit this one

in with all of the other friendship

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relationship ones that we will be

doing throughout the month of November.

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So I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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Let me know your thoughts.

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Let me know if you've also struggled with

this, and I will see you again on the

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next episode of Wellness Fixes the pod.