I Am My Own Priority

My priority is me. This can sometimes sound unpopular, selfish, or whatever other name people want to give it. I have heard many.

But the truth is this: my priority is me. It is me in my daily life, in the small choices I make. It is me because I prioritize sleep, which for me is perhaps the most important thing of all. I sleep as well as I possibly can. I prioritize training, nutrition, taking care of my body. Time to rest.

I listen to myself: where do I want to be, what do I want to do, where do I want to go. I do not go somewhere just because. I do not go just because I think it is important, or because someone would like me to, or to do someone a favor.

And with this, I absolutely do not mean that other people are not important to me or that they are not taken into consideration in my life. Of course they are. If there is an emergency, I will go. If that means sleeping worse or not training that day, that is completely fine, those are emergencies, and of course I will be there. If someone has to go to the hospital, if an accident happens, obviously I will show up.

Or if I feel that someone needs me and I am able to give that in that moment, even if it was not initially the plan, I will go. I will be there. Because for me, the most precious thing I have and can give is my time and my presence.

And that is exactly why I prioritize myself. Because if I do not take care of myself and make sure I am as well as I can possibly be, then the person who shows up for others is not the whole me: it is a shadow of me, a zombie version, a ghost.

The better I am, the more availability I have. The more whole I feel. The more present I can be with others, in both the small and big things in life. And that only happens because I am my own priority.

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I cannot conceive of living any other way. I am not saying it has to be like this for everyone, far from it. I think everything depends on the place from which our choices are made.

I believe there are many people who overgive because of low self-esteem, because they cannot truly feel their own value (not because they do not have value, but because they cannot feel it), and they end up trying to find it outside themselves.

Those people do have a lot to gain from choosing to prioritize themselves in this way.

Then there are other people who give genuinely, from a place of wholeness. A place where they know exactly their value, who they are, where they stand. And where going or not going, being there or not being there, does not change the image they have of themselves.

And from that place, there is real space to be with another person fully, without loss, without emptiness, without trying to fill anything. Simply to go.

Because when giving comes from emptiness, it creates imbalance. The person loses themselves. That feeling appears: “I give so much and receive nothing back.” Wounds appear, frustrations appear, and an inner disconnection emerges.

And so, for me, today, and for quite some time now, there is no other way to live except this one: for me to be my own priority.