146. The Case For Being Selfish with Dr. Marcuetta Sims
Fill Your Cup
Can being selfish be a good thing?
Selfishness actually needs to be incorporated into our lifestyles in order to support the work that we are designed and purposed to do.
We cannot do the things that we want to do, the things that we need to do, and create the types of changes that we want to create if we’re pouring from an empty, cracked, chipped, broken cup.
Dr. Marcuetta Sims joins Erica to make the case for being selfish.
Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:
Why Dr. Sims is reclaiming the word selfish
Why Black women are so prone to overwork and self-neglect
Why we need models of self-care
Why selfishness is integral to thriving
How to set boundaries that demonstrate how you want to be treated
Person-Centered Healing
Dr. Marcuetta Sims is a licensed psychologist, yoga and meditation teacher, and the CEO/Founder of the Worth, Wisdom, and Wellness Center in Atlanta, GA. She is EMDR trained and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. Foundationally, she approaches therapy from a person-centered perspective, filtered through multicultural, social justice, and empowerment lenses and believes in a holistic model of treatment. She specializes in helping Black women heal from trauma, develop a healthier sense of self, and enhance their overall wellness.
A New Cup
On the Pause on the Play® Podcast, Dr. Marcuetta Sims says that she is passionate about reclaiming the word selfish from its negative connotations.
“When I think about being selfish, I think of it as pouring into yourself so fully and so completely on a regular basis that you feel filled up and you have reserves so that you’re able to pour back into other people and give back to other people from a place of nourishment and wholeness.”
That sense of overflow or abundance, Erica notes, can be hard to come by when “we can’t overflow because our cup is broken.” She asks Dr. Sims what advice she has for someone who “knows that they’re not able to hold what they want to receive?”
Dr. Sims says that the first thing she invites people in that situation to do is to inventory what they already have and what they’re already holding, and asking if any of it can be let go, particularly when it comes to overwork.
She says for her, personally, the last two years forced her to reevaluate the pace of her lifestyle and realize that what she truly wanted didn’t match up with the way she was living.
“Part of that ‘new cup’ is really doing a shift in our identities around who are we when we’re actually resting? Who are we when we’re actually taken care of? Who are we when we’re actually pouring in ourselves? Because I imagine that those identities are going to be very different from the busy, overworking, keep pushing nature that we’ve had in the past.”
Survival Mode to Self Care
Erica says tying how much they can do and how much they can hold to their identity has been instilled particularly deeply in Black women.
Dr. Sims agrees and adds that historical and generational trauma in Black women has passed down a set of survival and coping skills that are “all about how am I going to make it to the next day?”
She continues, “for Black women in particular, getting stuck in survival, getting stuck in I have to make this work, even when that’s no longer our experience…is just a pattern that has been embedded in us from generations of trauma.”
Erica says that experience is all too familiar and that even from where she is now, when she hears the phrase self-care, her automatic thought is that self-care is frivolous or unnecessary. “Even as someone that I know better, but that has nothing to do with the instinctual physiological response that has…been passed down generation after generation.”
Dr. Sims agrees that Erica’s reaction to “self-care” is a common, conditioned response, but she adds that self-care and selfishness aren’t just about external activities like massages and manicures.
“When I think about being selfish, I think of it as a lifestyle change.”
She lists making changes to ensure you’re getting enough sleep, that you’re eating, taking breaks, taking a moment to breathe, “these very small intentional things…are so accessible to us in terms of building up our reservoir and filling that cup up.”
She likens selfishness to directing the same kind of emotional, mental, and physical energy and support you would give to a child, and applying it to yourself. “That is the core of self-care.”
Modeling Self Care
Erica adds that it’s difficult to envision selfishness or self-care when you’ve had very few models for it, and when even words like indulgence or luxury don’t feel good or right.
“It has been a conscious undoing for me.”
As a personal example, she talks about buying herself a silky robe, and using it as a reminder that she can feel good in her skin, that she can move a little slower, move with a little more ease. “I need those little reminders that hustle does not have to accompany every step I take.”
She also says she’s having ongoing conversations with her kids about her own needs, whether it’s to take control of the TV remote or to have a few minutes of quiet to herself, and she’s making sure her kids know they can ask her for space or quiet too.
Dr. Sims says that in her life, one of the best things she has done is turn off notifications on her phone. She says that not knowing that she has emails waiting until she actually opens the app was life-changing because the notifications raised her anxiety because she felt the need to clear them all and review and respond in the moment.
She also puts her phone on silent between 9:00 PM and 8:00 AM. “It just really gives me a peace of mind to know that I don’t have to be attached to the world.”
Selfishness Is Integral
Erica asks Dr. Sims how selfishness and self-care, particularly for Black women, has become such an integral part of her work and message.
Dr. Sims says that much of it comes from working with her patients over the last decade and constantly hearing variations of Black women not feeling like they could say no or set boundaries, that “I can’t take care of myself because that’s selfish.”
That refrain inspired Dr. Sims to develop her platform around The Art of Being Self-ish. “I really wanted to just talk about how we can start making these lifestyle changes so that we can unload this burden that we carry to have to take care of everyone else.”
At the same time, she also had to confront the ways she was lacking selfishness and self care in her own life, to the point where she ended up hospitalized as a result of stress and exhaustion.
“I don’t want that to have to be people’s stories that you have to end up in the hospital…I don’t want that to be the wake up call for people…This is actually an integral part of your life that is necessary to live and not just survive, but to thrive.”
Erica agrees, “We have to find a necessary motivation to pause before our bodies force us to…There’s no badge of honor for working yourself into the ground, for worrying yourself into the ground.”
Dr. Sims adds that, especially at work, when external validation for hard work goes away and you’re left with “insomnia, anxiety, stress, overwhelm, doctors telling you they don’t know what is going on…I really have to ask, was it worth it? And the answer is generally absolutely not.”
Take Action, Set Boundaries
Dr. Sims says that if she could teach everyone one thing, it would be what setting boundaries actually means in action.
She says it starts with checking in with yourself when someone asks you for something and letting the answer be no if it’s no, without explanation or guilt.
It also means allowing yourself to take breaks and give yourself space, and setting “the boundaries around your life that do not keep people out, but show people, demonstrate to people how you want to be treated because of how you treat yourself.”
Both Dr. Sims and Erica acknowledge that setting boundaries is not easy and takes a lot of conscious practice, especially when you were socially and generationally conditioned not to say no to anyone.
Dr. Sims continues, “I just encourage us all to practice it because boundaries are actually a really good thing.”
Ready to lead like Dr. Marcuetta Sims? Join us:
At Pause on the Play® the Community we are taking action alongside other imperfect allies and digging into why self-care is essential to making lasting impact.