Anxiety specialist Caroline Cavanagh argues that selfishness was misunderstood: it originally meant putting yourself first so you could give better to others. After two hospitalizations from burnout while caring for a disabled family member, a critically ill mother, and her own young family abroad, she learned to flip her priorities upright. Like the airplane oxygen mask, you must secure your own first.
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When I've spoken about this before, I am going to anticipate that some of you may find this a little bit challenging because I want you to be selfish. I believe that we have misconstrued the meaning of the word selfish from its original, um, development. So selfish, putting yourself first, we've skewed to now be a negative term because it means when you're selfish, someone else goes without. Whereas the original intent is by putting yourself first, everyone else gets the best of you. And that's what I'd like us to refocus on. When you look after you, or when I look after me, for example, I'm a better mum, I'm a better wife, I'm a better therapist, I'm a better sister, I'm a better everything by being a better me. No one loses. And this is very personal to me because I have ended up in hospital not just once but twice because I burnt myself out through not looking after myself. I have a disabled I would give all my time for him. My mother was very critically ill for a long period of time, so I was running backwards and forwards looking after her and my dad, um, doing my utmost as a job. Caroline was absolutely the bottom of the list. Okay. And I developed this sort of mental image. It was, if you think about a, um, an Egyptian pyramid, my pyramid was upside down and I was at the bottom trying to hold this pyramid up. And of course it was completely unstable. to the point that it did fall over. And not just I did this once, I did it twice. And the second time, I was living abroad with a 6-month-old baby, a 2-year-old toddler, and a husband that wasn't around very much because he was serving in the army. And that wasn't very good for anyone. Oh. And when I was lying in hospital at that time, I made the commitment to myself, like, no more. Now I put myself first. And by putting myself first, my pyramid is now the right way up. By looking after me, I can actually look at all of the people below me and serve them in the best way that I can, but by making sure I have got the energy and the resources to do that. So this is a little bit about, you know, put your own oxygen mask first. Mm-hmm. It's, it's a cliché, but it is really, really relevant.
