Someone once asked...
Someone answered with kindness...
A father once told me he felt selfish taking thirty minutes each morning to sit quietly before his children woke. I asked what kind of father showed up in the other twenty-three and a half hours, on the days he skipped that thirty minutes. He knew immediately. A worse one. Putting yourself first, in small doses, isn't the opposite of caring for others. It's usually the maintenance that makes the caring possible at all. Guilt shows up here not because you did something wrong, but because you were taught that your needs come last on every list, including your own.