The Healthy, Selfless Act Of Putting Yourself First

Putting yourself first is a healthy, useful and necessary practice. It is not selfishness, because to have an unshakable love for the person we see in the mirror, without apologies or judgments, is to take care of oneself.

It is investing in our own personal well-being and quality of life. And besides, only if you take care of yourself as you deserve, can you take care of everyone else.

Interestingly,  Socrates himself focused part of his teaching on the concept of self-care, or what was then called “epimeleia heautou”.

Later, Michel Foucault would analyze the idea a little more and come to the following conclusion: Only when a person is able to really know himself, take care of himself and appreciate himself, can he reach true freedom.

The truth is that we do not know when or why most of us were taught that this was a selfish attitude to have. Terminologies were confused, which  led us to believe that altruism and respect for other people are not at all compatible with self-love or putting ourselves first as we should. This belief is just wrong.

And then, almost without realizing it, we have built relationships based on sacrifice. Based on the idea that the more we give to others, the more they will love us and appreciate us.

But what we actually end up doing is leaving our selfishness by the wayside. We do not look back and we believe that we are doing things right, that we are doing what is expected of us.

We must try to stop this unhealthy practice. Why? It mainly triggers many of our problems : frustration, anxiety, sleepless nights and even physical pain…

If you stop putting yourself first, you wear yourself out

When you stop putting yourself first and instead fill your head with thoughts like “I have to do,” “I have to help,” or “They expect me to go there,” all that happens is that you struggle yourself. .

It drains your energy, your identity, your desires and most of all, your  self-confidence. The hardest part is that sometimes we do these things without even thinking about it. We never stop to think about whether we really want to do someone the service they asked for.

Psychologists explain that we fall into the trap where we only do things automatically, and then we rationalize these actions as natural and necessary. We believe that if we are useful to others, then we are valuable. If we are needed by our loved ones, they will love us.

However, this rule does not always give the expected results; in fact, it rarely does.

What happens in these cases is as devastating as it is sad. When we perceive that our efforts and our constant sacrifices are not valued, we develop a very critical view of ourselves. We owe it to ourselves that we have been so naive, so affectionate, so gullible.

Our inner voice can sometimes be very cruel. So when this happens, it does not take long for  somatization (Briquet’s syndrome) to appear. Muscle pain, a gripping exhaustion, digestive problems, infections, headaches, even hair loss…

Learn to put yourself first and to “serve yourself”

There are many people like this, who are stuck in other people’s schedules, like trains that run on tracks from other places, other worlds. They carry weights that are not theirs, as if they were, and they do not get a single day off. A day where they can be themselves, take care of themselves and do what they want.

Being in this situation for a long time impairs our psychological balance and our health. Therefore, we recommend that you get rid of this inertia and give yourself a new focus.

Putting yourself first: how to do it using 4 steps

• Time. People who have stopped putting themselves first, just say “yes” all the time. For every request they receive, they find it impossible not to say this magic word. We must slow down this impulse.

So, when someone asks, suggests or demands something, the very best thing we can do is be quiet. We should avoid giving an immediate answer so that we can reflect for a few minutes and honestly consider whether we want to do what they have asked us to do. Learn to say “No”.

• Perspective. To learn to take care of ourselves, we must control our distance from our surroundings, either by lengthening or shortening it. There comes a time when a person is so used to doing everything, that they lose their perspective.

Therefore, saying “I do not want, I can not, today I put myself first” will not be the end of the world.

• Useful sentences. It never hurts to have a small collection of sentences that can help us protect our own needs, our identity or our leisure time.

“I’m sorry, but exactly what you’re asking me to do is not right for me”, “I appreciate you thinking of me for it, but I need some time”, “right now I do not want to do what you ask me to do, I need to spend some time alone. ”

• Stop certain calls. We all know how these conversations start, the ones that always end with a request. The conversation goes well, until the joy suddenly disappears when the other person asks for a favor. Usually they assume that we will do what they ask.

Now that we have some strategies in our toolbox, we know how to stop them as soon as possible. We want to avoid making ourselves exhausted, and we learn to be confident.

Putting yourself first is important

To summarize: you will not learn these 4 steps overnight. If we use our willpower and make a firm decision that we want to take better care of ourselves, and we understand that putting ourselves first is really a selfless and necessary action, we become better at it every day: take care of other people, but also on yourself.