Photo by Monstera Production

I’m writing this fresh off a walk in Maine, wearing the same outfit I’ve now worn five days in a row. It’s a vacation habit of mine — pack a bunch of clothes, wear the same three things anyway. But that’s not actually what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is a line that gets me fired up every single time I hear it: self-care is selfish.

It is not. Truly, it is the biggest lie there is, and I want to take a hammer to it.

Where This Belief Comes From

I think when we say self-care is selfish, what we’re really saying — as moms, as women — is that we’re worried we’re not being there for the people who need us. Our kids. Our partners. Our people. We go out for a walk and immediately a voice pipes up: you’re being selfish, you should be tending to someone else right now.

But here’s the truth: what our loved ones actually need — what every human needs, especially our kids — isn’t a body physically in the room with them. It’s attuned presence. A nervous system that is calm, safe, listening, and compassionate. You’ve probably heard the line that the biggest present you can give someone is presence. It’s true. It feels so good when someone is really, fully with us.

And that’s exactly why self-care is the furthest thing from selfish. Taking care of yourself is what builds the capacity to be that regulated, attuned, present person for the people who need you. It’s not in competition with showing up for your family — it’s the prerequisite for it.

The Real Selfish Thing

I want to flip this belief entirely. It’s not self-care that’s selfish. It’s not taking care of yourself that’s selfish. That’s the version I want lodged in your bones, your fascia, your programming, your behavior.

I don’t even care what motivates you to start believing this — whether it’s genuinely wanting to feel better, or just not wanting to be “the selfish one.” Start there if you need to. Apologetically prioritize yourself first, if that’s what it takes. Eventually you’ll feel the shift in your body and you won’t need the guilt to get you there anymore.

Why I Changed the Word

Here’s where it gets fun for me, because I love an acronym and I love playing with language. In Mothering Ourselves Mindfully, almost anytime I see the word “self,” I change it to “selves.” That’s because one of the foundational understandings in this work is that we are not just one self. We are mothering our anxiety. We are mothering our shame. In my own life, and in the lives of the women I walk with, we actually name these parts — my anxiety has a name, my shame has a name.

So I started asking myself: what is selves care, really? Selves care means recognizing which part of you needs tending in this exact moment. If I’m angry, selves care might look like releasing that anger physically — some of you were with me for the primal scream I led a while back, and that was selves care specifically for anger. If I’m sad, overwhelmed, or exhausted, selves care probably doesn’t look like screaming — it looks like a blanket, a hug, a nap.

Selves-ish: Selves in Steady Harmony

Once I started renaming self-care to selves care, I couldn’t leave “selfish” alone either. So here’s the reframe I’ve landed on, and the one I want you to take with you: self-care is selves-ish, and selves-ish means selves in steady harmony.

All of our parts — our anger, our sadness, our joy, our calm — are welcome, helpful, and evolutionary. They’re the reason we’re here today. But when they’re not in steady harmony, we can’t show up the way we want to. We get anxious. Overwhelmed. Depressed. Burnt out.

Self-care, then, isn’t indulgence and it isn’t escape. It’s the ongoing work of supporting all of your parts — all your selves — to live in harmony with each other. That’s integration. Integration is wholeness. And wholeness means every part of you gets to be here.

Your New Belief

So here’s what I want you to walk away with, whether you take just one thing from this episode or all of it: self-care is not selfish. Not taking care of yourself is the selfish thing. And if you want to go a layer deeper, self-care is selves-ish — it’s the practice of supporting your body and every part of yourself to live in steady, integrated harmony.

Next time that old programming kicks in — that unconscious “this is so selfish of me” voice — I want you to gently correct it. No. This is selves-ish. This is my selves learning how to be in steady harmony.