Self-care is a topic that often surfaces quickly in a therapy session.  And quite often, any suggestion toward tending to one’s own needs is quickly met with the assumption that self-care is selfish.  Many a client says, “But isn’t that selfish?”  or something like, “I don’t want to be a self-centered person.  My sister (or brother, or parent, or friend…) is very self-centered and I don’t want to be like that. ”

So I’ve started using the image of a bicycle wheel as a metaphor for one’s life.  A person who is centered occupies the core of their own life — the center of the wheel, where all the spokes meet.  A person who is self-centered lives out on the spokes and leaves the center empty.  They constantly need other people to fill their center.

The person at the center of their own wheel has something to give — an energy that flows out along the spokes and into the lives of other people.  The person living out on the spokes of their own life has trouble giving to others because the energy has to come from the center — and they are not present there.

The centered person assumes responsibility for their own basic needs, that life at the very center of their being.  They practice basic self-care.   They may not (in fact probably won’t) get all their needs met every day, but their life has an overall pattern of taking responsibility for themselves — paying their bills, getting physical nourishment, tending to their own spiritual life, seeking out and investing in healthy relationships, to name a few.   So when another person does meet a need for them (buys them lunch, offers a listening ear, prays with or for them, etc.) they can see it as the gift that it is.  There is a gratefulness for the other person and an awareness (and acceptance) of the gift.

On the contrary, someone who does not assume responsibility for their own needs must constantly ask other people to do so.  They are often demanding, asking everyone else to focus on them because they have not properly focused on their own center.  When someone else meets a need for them, they are only breaking even.  There is a lack of gratefulness because of the assumption that others will meet their basic needs.  Moreover, they have a hard time giving to others because all of their energy is toward getting others to do the work they have neglected in their own life.

Sure, there are people who in the name of self-care expect everyone else to bend to their plans.  But that is in fact the opposite of centered.  The centered person can make their own decisions and let others make  theirs.  The centered person doesn’t need everyone else to work around their needs and wants, because they have already established a life pattern that nurtures their center.  They don’t need someone else to do the work they are already doing.

A few questions to ask yourself today, this week, this month, this year:   Am I taking responsibility for my own basic needs, or am I expecting others to meet them?  Am I able to give from my center, or is it constantly empty?  Are there daily or weekly (or monthly or yearly) things I can do to live at, and nurture, the very core of my being?  Daily time to eat meals and exercise and get adequate sleep?  Built-in rejuvenation time?  Time for relationships that are life giving for me?

You may need to say no to a few things you usually say yes to.  But a little self-care can go a long ways.  All the way out from the center and into the lives of the people around you.