Why Selfish is Not Selfish

In this episode, the belief that “being selfish is bad” gets challenged.

Many women were taught that putting themselves first means they are doing something wrong — especially mothers, partners, and people who care deeply about others. But over time, this belief can lead to burnout, resentment, and feeling disconnected from your own life.

This episode explores the difference between selfishness and self-care, why working on yourself is often the hardest work there is, and how taking care of yourself can actually make you more present, more generous, and more available to the people you love.

You’ll also hear real-life examples of how choosing yourself sometimes — even when it feels uncomfortable — can change the way you live, work, and show up in your relationships.

Join the free monthly group coaching call here:
www.tamarcoaching.com/group

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, my brave people. Hello, hello. Welcome back to Brave Little Things. So happy to have you here. A time that you guys are listening to this right now that's hitting your ears. You guys, many of you are gonna be, you know, at the tail end of the holiday of Pesach, of Passover. And I hope it was a really beautiful holiday where you felt a taste of true freedom in all the levels, spiritually, physically, emotionally, all the stuff. And for those who are not celebrating, I just hope you're having a beautiful, you know, hope you're getting sunshine and spring weather and flowers and all the stuff that comes with, you know, this time of year or something. Love to all of you guys. But in time of recording, this is a few weeks ahead of you guys. I am in your past. I'm speaking to you from the past. Because I wanted to get a bunch of recordings done before I entered the holiday. So here I am. And I just want to share, you know, yesterday I ran a joyful networking event. Joyful Networking is my networking group that I have. Beautiful community of women, entrepreneurs, building businesses, local. We do once a month in-person meetups, and we're also networking and chatting in our WhatsApp group. And it's very playful. It's very joyful. It's very me. Many of you guys know that I've before coming becoming a life coach, I was a program coordinator director of a traveling teen summer program. So that's my vibe, guys. I was just a camp director at heart. And that's how I direct my events. You all could ask all the women. We are very playful. We played this great game of Ravila Overt, which is like apparently we did not have this growing up in America. I just learned from playing this game at my event that everybody else in the world plays it. We did not in America. But it's like when you wrap a present, you know, over and over and over, and each layer has a mission or a question to answer, and we put on music and you and you pass it around, or the music stops, you it stops at you, you you know, read what it is, then you have to share, or you have to do something, and until the last person opens the last layer, and then they actually get the present. It's really fun. We had a lot of fun with it. Anyways, so I ran my event yesterday. I wasn't sure if I was going to for this particular month because we have been in a really intense war and lots of sirens, lots of bomb shelters, lots of people wanting to stay close to home. And I was gonna cancel it, honestly. And I, you know, took it to the my women. I said, hey guys, should we skip this month and just come back to it when this war is over? And all of them said, Nope, we want this. We want to do it. So I said, Okay, great. So anyway, so we did we did our event, and and one of my participants had come over to me in the beginning when we were just kind of like all arriving and hanging out and just getting drinks and stuff. And she came over and she's like, you know, I just want to say I really loved and was a little bit like just kind of shook me a little bit. She didn't say trigger, she said it shook me a little bit like the reel that you shared the other day. And I was like, oh, which one? And she shared that it was the one where basically I'm in my car and I'm listening to one of my own podcasts, and I'm like really enjoying it. And the message was like, guys, take time to enjoy your own art. Take time to sit in your car and listen to your own podcast and just be blown away by you. Take time to like, you know, finish a painting and just sit with it and be like, whoa, I cannot believe it. Take time with, you know, if you're a photographer after, you know, a shoot and just looking through the photographs that you took with your eyes and your heart. Just take time to really take in the awesomeness that is you. And she was like, it just like I just she's like, I just don't do that. I just couldn't do that. I feel like I couldn't do that. And you're so good at that, and you're so good at just like, you know, making yourself the focus and yourself, you know, really just like loving on yourself and all those kinds of things. And she said, you know, something that really kind of stuck out, which was like, and I just and she's like, I just think you were like, you know, you probably have always been this way. And I I just can't imagine that I would ever could ever be this way. And I said I said to her, thank you for saying that, because I think it's really important. I think for a lot of us out here who's who are coaches and people who are like, you know, further along, quote unquote, in creating these results in our lives that our people want. We could forget that like, no, we have not always been that way. And I shared that with her. I said, I want to let you know that I very much have not always been that way. And in fact, like really the opposite. I would not take time to admire something that I created and I made happen. I would not take time to relish in the awesomeness that I am. I would not take time to love of myself or do things for myself and all those kinds of things. It's something that I have literally learned. It's something that I have like, you know, after being f feeling like I've completely lost myself, learned how to slowly climb back and take steps back towards myself. And so I'm really glad that she said that because I thought that that was an important thing to like note, thinking that somebody else is like always been this way. Because then it really then tells you, like, well, she's been this way, she's always been this way. So obviously I can't have that. And anyways, it was a really just like a good conversation. And she was saying, I really admire you. Like, I really like I I would love to be able to like sit in my car and listen to my own podcast and just be like so proud and so like wow, I love that. And and I and I just felt like, you know, I'm gonna let's talk a little bit about this on the podcast, because this is a very, very good topic to be talking about and very important topic to talk about. Because, you know, the minute I said this to her, I shared it with her, I said, listen, this is kind of the turning point when I like started to slowly come back to myself, was when I stopped believing selfish was selfish. When I stopped believing what, you know, doing things for myself, taking time to see how awesome I am, taking time to like celebrate myself, when I stopped believing that those were just selfish, like pointless kinds of things, was the moment I started to flip the script and start to come closer to myself and change how my really my reality, right? The more I focused on myself, I realized was the more I had to give, right? You hear it all the time. Most of the time when you hear it, you probably think, like, yeah, but come on, like, could you really? But truly, truly, truly, I was like a drained, like I was drained out of any juice I had. You know, this is like when I was like really raising my four kids and they were small and all those things, and I had nothing to give. And that's when I, you know, came to I kind of got to that point where I was like, okay, I either just have to say, okay, I'm selfish, let's go. Or I have to say, maybe let's define selfishness in a different kind of way. So let's actually talk about the definition for a moment. Okay. If you look up selfish on Google, you'll see that the definition is this lacking consideration of uh for others, focused on own pleasure. And I just want to stop right here because you know, I think that probably why you clicked on this particular episode. If you're like me, you're thinking like, I feel sometimes I feel I want to be selfish, and or people are judging me as selfish, or I judge myself as selfish, or you know, maybe I want to be a little bit more selfish, but but then I'm selfish. Where does that leave me? And I want to tell you that my listeners, I can tell you 99.9% you are not selfish. You are not lacking consideration for others and focused only on your own pleasure. You are here week after week learning from these episodes, learning how to be the most grand version of yourself, learning how to be of most contribution, how to give to yourself and how to give to others. And so it's something that feels almost ridiculous to me to even have a conversation of. Because it's, you know, when it comes to women and even more specifically mothers, this issue is so, so big, right? Because we're constantly asking and constantly thinking, like, am I am I selfish if I decide to go out for like a hot cup of coffee by myself? Am I selfish if I decide I want to go for a long walk when you know my kids haven't had dinner yet or the house is like, you know, crazy and messy and all those kinds of things. But I just want to kind of clear the air and let you know, just straight up from the very beginning, you are not selfish. Okay? Not at not at least the way that they that Google defines it. And I have so much gratitude that is able to unlearn this old belief because it has kept me so insanely stuck. And I imagine for many of you that you feel the same way. And listen, I know that like and when I say stuck, and when I say like that something was that that that it's like this this idea of being selfish, right? If I did not learn the tools of celebrating myself, of focusing on what lights me up, what desires are exciting for me to pursue, how to take care of myself, how to go all in on myself, that joyful networking event that I was just telling you about wouldn't have even happened. I would have not been able to get past my BS and have the energy and focus and joy to create a community of over 200 unbelievable women who are like like working side by side to build these beautiful businesses that are literally changing the world. I wouldn't have had it. I wouldn't have been able to have the confidence to be able to run these events and do all these kinds of things. I wouldn't have had the energy to have left this three-hour event, gone home to my kids who have been home, you know, for the past almost four weeks because of war, no school, all those kinds of things, and had energy for them, come home to make lunch for them and focus on the things that they want to share with me. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but that sounds like to me the opposite of selfish. Because what I thought was selfish, right, what I thought was I was trying to avoid focusing on me because that was really selfish, I realized that by not focusing on me, that was selfish. Because I had nothing to give, nothing to contribute to anybody. Certainly not myself, certainly not my family, definitely not building a business, any of those kinds of things. Right? I think that most of us are taught that selfish is really bad. Right? I can like almost hear my own father's voice being like, Hey, don't be selfish, right? You're part of a whole family, don't be selfish. And listen, there like my dad and all the other adults you know before us, they're not wrong. There are certain things that are quote unquote kind of selfish. But this idea that I think the idea was kind of taken to the extreme level. Anytime you take anything to the extreme, you lose the point of it. Right? When things go to the extreme, you just lose that nuance and the strength of what it actually is. Right? There's no space, it's like very black and white. But the difference between selfishness and self-care and self-responsibility, there's a big difference. And we're not really taught like that. And so it's kind of like I almost want to like redefine selfishness in terms of like either like taking focusing on myself, taking care of myself, putting me as priority is actually selfless. Because let me tell you, by the way, and just kind of remind you, for those folks out there, you know, who do the self-work, who do the growth work, that really want to work on themselves and be better and all these kinds of things, you can all agree with me. It is the hardest work in the world. It is not work that we like hard that we want to do because it can be really challenging. It can be really hard to get past our own bullshit. But we do it, right? We do it because we know that it's going to make us feel better. It's gonna make us better, which is allow it's gonna allow them to be for the people around us to connect, to feel like we can contribute to their lives more. And so truly it is the most selfless kind of act. But on the other hand, if you want to stick with selfish, if you want to stick with like you're so selfish, then I'd say, okay, then yeah, then say, okay, then I'm selfish. If you want to call what I'm taking care of myself, prioritizing myself, giving to myself as selfish, okay, I'll take it on. I'll take it on as not how maybe my parents thought of it, as this bad, evil thing, but as a thing of like taking care of myself. Right? And again, I think this is like so, such an important conversation for women in particular, mothers even more, because we really feel like if someone's inconvenienced that we're selfish. If someone's unhappy, we're selfish. If, you know, we couldn't if they needed help and we didn't help them, we're selfish. And that's kind of like where our brains go, right? We're like, we always want to rise to the occasion to take care of the situation, to help out, to give, right? This is like the very, a very feminine quality. So it's almost like when we want when we are there then to take care of ourselves, we almost have to fight back against it, right? I want to tell you actually about I'm a big, this is something you're gonna learn about me right now, guys. I'm a huge Bernstein Bears fan. Have been since the beginning of time. My parents raised me on Bernstein Bear books. I like have memories, major memories of, you know, hearing them, reading, being read to. And so, of course, when my kids were born, I got all the Bernstein Bear books. I had to like rebuy books because they got like ripped up and everything. And listen, I know that the Barenstein Bear books, there's a lot of sexism, you know, like there's lots of roles, like mama bears this and papa bears this, but I just really like a lot of the things that they teach, besides when I kind of look past that. Anyway, I remember the first time that I read to my kids, I think it was probably to my oldest, who was like little at the time, the Barenstein Bears, Mama Gets a New Job. And I was just telling my client about this in session, and I was telling when I read this book, I actually cried. I cried with my kid, and I just read my nine-year-old is actually, or my ten-year-old now, since he's been home from the war, I'm like, you want to read some Barenstein Bear books together? And he, to my surprise and joy, he's like, Yes. So I've we've been reading a lot about Barenstein Bear books again. I just read it to him yesterday and I cried again. Anyways, the story goes like this if you don't know. He's he makes this beautiful wooden furniture and he was having a big sale. And on the day of his sale, when he's putting it all outside, Mama Bear was putting out these beautiful quilts that she made for the whole family to air out. Like she was kind of cleaning them out, cleaning them and airing them out. And so when people came to buy Papa Bear's furniture, they saw her beautiful quilts and started offering her money and wanting to pay for it. And she was like, No, no, I'm not selling them, and Papa Bear's like, right, only one business bear in the family is enough, ha ha ha. And but then she started thinking, she was like, wait a second, people like what I do, and they want what I want what I can make, and they're offering me money. Maybe I should be doing this. Anyways, I'm gonna obviously not tell you the whole story, but bottom line is that Mama Bear decided Mama Bear decides, okay, you know what? I'm gonna give this a go. And she buys this little shack of a store, and her and her quilt buddies all go there to like fix it up, and she has a whole grand opening. And meanwhile, what's happening is brother bear, sister bear probably are freaking out because they're like, well, who's gonna collect the worms from the garden from you know from my fishing, Papa Bear wants to know, and you know, who wants to uh who's gonna count my jump rope, Sister Bear wants to know, and who's gonna help me, you know, fly my tether plane, you know, brother bear wants to know. And Mama Bear is kind of like, you know, you can help each other, guys. You can do it for each other. And also I can do it, it's just I can't do it now. Like you'll just have to wait. And it was just like this powerful, and I think the first time I read it, I cried because I I saw how much I was giving up. Like it wasn't my kids, it wasn't my husband asking me to ask him to give this up. I did. And I cried because I felt the realness of like how much I was just like giving to them and not giving to myself. And when I read it again, you know, just a couple nights ago to my kid, and I cried again, it was just this realization of how far I've come, how comfortable I have have become to to allow my children and my husband and other people in my family to be a little inconvenient. Convenience, convenient, convenience, I don't know, in order to go all in on myself and take care of myself. And it was like a really moving moment. You guys should definitely check out Bears New Bears, Mama gets a new job, such or not a new job, Mama Bear gets a job. That's what it is. By the way, she doesn't even get a job. She actually builds a freaking business. Hello, that should really be the title. I don't know why they called it that. Anyway, so anyway, so that's the story. And so, like, over time, as I said, like I really started to rise to the occasion in terms of allowing, you know, putting myself first. And, you know, I'll give an example, I'll give a couple examples. For example, I wake up really early to have a juicy amount of time to myself before my kids need me, my business need me, needs me, all these things. I go for a long, really beautiful walkout in the fields. I do a really good, solid workout in my living room, and I just have a lot of me time. But because I get up really early, I also go to sleep. I try to go to sleep a little, no, I wouldn't say early, I wish, but definitely earlier than my whole family. And it's usually that time of night where my girls both want to have this whole conversation with me about things they want to buy online. They want to buy this online, they want to buy that online. And I oftentimes just have to actually cut the conversation. I'm like, we can talk about this tomorrow, but I am done. I have zero in me to talk about things I can buy you right now. And, you know, I wouldn't have done that years ago. I would have felt like, oh my God, what about mom? I'm not sitting with them talking about not that I have to buy those things with them, but I'm not even giving them a chance to express what they want. Right? The same thing is also like, you know, when I go for for car when I like go to the supermarket, sometimes I like have a planned podcast I want to listen to. If I'm like prepping for something and I feel like a particular podcast is gonna help me for either a coaching call that I'm having or whatever it is. And sometimes my, you know, especially my little guy will sometimes ask, like, can I go to the supermarket with you? And if I have like a particular time, like if I'm kind of like put that time aside to listen to this podcast, I'll tell him no. Like, I love you, but I'll be back. I just need to like have time that's quiet in the car because I'll know you want, you know, he's gonna want to listen to his like loud, very loud music. So I'll tell him no, I just can't. And you know, another example is you know what I actually shared with you guys in my last podcast on the on the pack the podcast before, in terms of taking solo trips, leaving my kids, you know, and to kind of you know, not fend for themselves. My husband is very good. I had I I'm giving him such a bad rap. He's like he take he's like he's just you know, again, we just are so co-parents, so but they miss me, right? But I still like realize how important that is for me to just, you know, take off. And even actually just now, actually just a couple hours ago, again, my kids are all home and my kids have been sleeping late, thank God. Literally when they woke up, my husband and I were like, okay, we're gonna we, you know, we have not spent alone time in forever, so we're gonna go out for you know a little lunch together, we'll be back. And they were like, wait, what? What who's what who's gonna make lunch for me? And da da da, you know, I'm like, you guys will you get it for each other? And I've just been able to like find those spots where I am not being helpful, not being useful, and making people like in what do we know this word yet? Inconvenienced? I don't know, you know what I'm talking about, guys. And it's been really liberating and really freeing, and mostly has allowed me then to when I am, you know, being helpful and being useful and all those kinds of things, there's not a tinge of resentment in it. I'm so there. I'm so like full of giving and all those kinds of things. And I want to say, guys, also that I'm not saying that I always choose me. Many, many times I quote unquote I won't say this is a terrible word, but I sacrifice, you know, what I'm wanting for my kids, for example, right? Or for my business. But you know, I say sa I don't I sacrifice is not the greatest word. I wish I had had a different word at the moment, but I don't. But you know, I just have to know when it's my churn. I used to not know when it was my churn. I used to think that that I had no churn. If I had a churn, it meant that I was really selfish. And now I understand that I very much have a churn. Like I like to think of it, guys, like this. And I think maybe this could be helpful to you too. So I have four kids. I I have four kids that I gave birth to, but I think about it like I have five kids, me being one of them. Right? So I have five kids, and that means I am responsible for all five. I'm responsible to make sure that all five are taken care of. And so there are churn there are times when I'm when it's Their turn. And there's times when it's my churn. But I will say that I have now also, you know, in a place where I give myself many church. It's it's kind of like I think I even have an episode on this, where, you know, I had this I had this idea in business where, you know, I give out ten units of value, you know, value being like either, let's say, an episode, a podcast episode, or a post, or a or my free monthly group coaching call, or whatever it is, but like kind of ten units of that. And in return, I will receive one unit back to me, an abundant love of like a client or interest or money in my bank or whatever it is. That's kind of like the rule of business I use. I use the same thing now when it comes to taking care of me. That I need like 10 church to take care of me before I can fully, completely resentful, free, be there for my for everybody else. Right? And that's what I do, right? I really, really went from like, and I I know this to be the case because I really went from zero units giving, caring for myself and feeling completely depleted and just being in survival mode and not really living and not being able to give to my kids in the way, uh, not even close to the way I would want to, to now feeling really filled up and being able to give to my kids in the way I absolutely want to. And I'll say, listen, you know, guys, I think that, you know, I've shared this before too, that I really feel like that's kind of this new work, this new energy that this that our generation is able to bring to the world. Because our parents, our mothers, and I'll I'll just speak about my mother because that's all I can do. She is so amazing, freaking queen. She, like, you know, she also had four children. I was her youngest. She worked a full-time job. She ran seven miles every single morning. I actually was ran with her in the mornings. It was so sweet. She would make full-on dinner, like with salad and the whole thing, and then she would start cooking for Shabbat and freezing it, like on Monday or Tuesday or something. She ran like she was just a she was a big person in the community. She just had a very full life. However, the one thing I did not remember from my childhood from seeing her was her taking care of her. Besides like baths, she would like her bath. But besides that, I really did not see her, you know, doing what she would love to do, separate from all of those kinds of things. And I really feel like it's our responsibility in this generation to bring that back, even if it's slowly, but to really bring back the notion of you get to take care of you. And it's something that we then pass on to our children. It becomes like part of their generational, like just knowledge is what they just what they know to do. Of course, you take care of yourself first. You take care of yourself over and over and over again, and that is a beautiful way to then be able to take care of your own children and your business and your everything else that's important to you, right? So, what does it mean, like doing a what does this actually like fully bring it all together? Like, what does this mean taking care of you? And I just want to say, I think it's really different for every person, as it should be, right? But I'll share what I do to help, you know, so it can kind of help, like, you know, spur some ideas for you. I also just can't want to say that these change all the time how I take care of myself, because at one point in one era of my life, I might need one thing, and the other time another thing. So, you know, really allow it to be very dynamic and revisit it. Revisit, like, how do I want to be taken care of?

unknown 26:01

Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Because it could be it really will change from month to month, year to year, all those kinds of things. But for me, I know that every single day I need to move my body. Right? Like I said, like I take long walks in the morning and then I work out. You know, I just love moving my body, roller skating, I take dance classes, I'm an Afro Groove and Global Beats, and I just I just have to move my body. Major. Something else I like to do is I like to do a little kind of adventure at least once a week. So that might be going to the beach and going for a dunk, even if it's the winter, or go for a hike, or jump in my car and head to my sister's house, and she's got this hot tub and outdoor shower and just time with her, but some kind of little adventure that shakes things up. Right? I also need some good sleep. Although, as I'm getting older, it is not getting easier, that's for sure. But, you know, and sometimes, like, for example, sometimes like my older kids, they will go out like super late, and then they'll be they'll come home, and just as I'm like walking up the steps to go to bed, you know, they'll like ask me for something, like, oh, can you find this thing that I've lost, or you know, oh, can you just like make that thing for me that you make so yummy? You know, of course they know how to talk to me and you know, and in that moment I have to decide, like, no, like I'm so tired, I'm done. You guys were out all night, and if I don't go to bed now, I'm not gonna be available for my long walk, my workout, and being with you know, being available to you guys, right? So I need that. I also, you know, I need daily showers in the morning. It's actually like my coffee. I don't drink coffee, but I need like five minutes at least in a shower to kind of like be in my own little world, to gather my thoughts, to let the water like run down and oftentimes just warm me up or cool me down, depending on what the weather's like outside. And it's really important to me. And I will prioritize it. Like, even if we're going on a family adventure somewhere, you know, I will make sure to get up and take time to like have some shower time just before we go up because it like is so such it literally is like my coffee. Like that's what I think of it. It's like, you know, if people drink coffee to wake up, this is what I do, get myself together. Yeah. And I really also, and the last thing I'd say is like really gratitude. I really, you know, to gratitude and have my family, you know, the I like to take time to, like when we talk about like when we're in dinner time, for example, like have my family go around and like give gratitude. When I talk about what they feel really grateful for, what's really great. And as they're getting older, especially, lots of eye rolling. We just want to hang out, we just want to talk, we have to do this like hippy stupid thing all the time, you know, da-da-da-da. And I just think it's really important to me. I just want to hear about, you know, I want to start our family time off like this, you know, and really prioritize that and really fight for that in that kind of way. So, listen, let me tell you that this is very important. You will never finish your to-do list. Sorry to be the person to give the news, because just as you check off a last item with one hand, you know you're writing down more things that need to get done with the other hand. It's just how we work. So you're just going to have to intentionally choose to set that list aside and go do something for you that has a hundred percent have to do with you and you alone. And I suggest once a day at least. Right? It's like you just like just once a day, just put it all down, even a month, even not even, but like even especially when that quote unquote to-do list is not done. And listen, I'm I'm here as your coach telling you, please be selfish. Be freaking selfish. Know that being selfish is the hardest work you'll ever do and the most selfless thing you can do, because it allows you to really expand your ability to contribute a million times over. Just drop the guilt and start to care for yourself the way you actually need by doing, you know, by really dropping into what do you need and how to take care of yourself first in all the different kinds of ways. Find the places where maybe you can inconvenience someone for just a little while, not be useful, helpful just for the moment because you were doing those things for yourself first. Can you imagine if we like lived in a world where everyone took care of their own needs? Like, imagine if, like, if all the politicians in the world did this. Okay, I'm not I'm not gonna go there. That's a whole nother thing. But imagine really if the whole world was like, okay, I'm going to either be selfish, you know, I'm gonna selfishly be like focused on myself, or again, the new definition of like it's not selfish because when you are focusing on yourself and taking care of your needs in that kind of way, you are able to contribute, we would live in a different planet. I can guarantee you that. All right, guys, well, that's what we got today. I hope you found that helpful. I know that this topic comes up for so many women, especially. And, you know, if you're ready to take all of this awesome learning we are doing here on the podcast, week after week, up a level, and learn how you can actually apply it to your business and lives, you should join us for the next free monthly group coaching call where all the best entrepreneur minds come together and get the coaching that they need to feel calmer, less overwhelmed, and just get themselves where they want to be so they can really help bring in their people. And we talk about all this kind of stuff. We talk about not just the business part, but all the places that feel like how can we, you know, go all in and taking care of ourselves and making sure that we're all of our needs, our emotional needs, our spiritual needs, all those kind of kind of things are met. You can sign up for the next one at tomarcoaching.comslash group. And remember, guys, also that May 11th is our dance party for all the Israeli women in business. May 11th, you can sign up for that, tomarcoaching.com slash dance. Go out, guys, and be so freaking selfish. That's what I gotta say. I love you guys. I'll see you next time.