The familiar instruction on an aeroplane to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others is a sensible reminder that we are finite, and that our wellbeing underpins everything we are able to give beyond ourselves. But what the popular self-love and self-care movements miss is something essential: yes, we cannot pour from an empty cup, but sometimes it is in serving others that our cup is actually refilled.
Of course, there is a healthy form of self-love, one rooted in gratitude for God’s gift of life, in stewardship of our bodies and minds, and in recognising our own dignity. But the Church teaches that we should care for ourselves so that we can care for others. Loving oneself is not inherently selfish, but becomes so when it isolates us from communion with, and duty to, our neighbours. The modern narrative of self-love has been uprooted from its Christian soil and replanted in radical autonomy and self-centredness.
