What I Owe Myself
What I Owe Myself: A Note from One SisterFriend to Another
We don’t always notice when we’ve made a habit of coming last, until we’re depleted, impatience or quietly resentfful. We’ve been so busy pouring into everyone else that we forgot ourselves. And somehow, that started to feel normal.
But it was never supposed to be this way. So I want to offer one question for today: What do I owe myself, right now?
Not the version of you that performs and pushes through. The real you, the one with needs, real limits, and a life worth living on purpose. You have held things together, and loved people through hard seasons.
And that’s why today’s reflection matters because your needs belong on the list too. Not as an afterthought. Not someday. Right now, alongside everyone else you love so well.
Keep your name on your own list.
With love,
Belinda
SisterFriend Reflection: What I Owe Myself
”I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”
—Madam C. J. Walker
I think about making your own way when I think about starting The SisterFriend Network. I began it a little over six months ago. I didn’t have a perfect plan. I just had a strong feeling in my spirit that there were things I was carrying and doing that other women might be carrying and doing too. So I started writing.
My first few reflections weren’t my best work. Some of them were badly written, if I’m being honest. But I stayed with it because I’ve always believed you get better by trying. You learn your voice by using it. You don’t wait until you feel “ready” to begin.
That’s why Madam C.J. Walker’s words stay with me, “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity…”
I grew up watching women pour.
They poured into kitchens and classrooms, into church pews and community meetings, into children who needed them and elders who depended on them. They were the first ones up and the last ones to bed. They gave generously, creatively, faithfully, if ever, named what they needed in return. I absorbed that. I imagined you did too.
And somewhere in the process of absorbing, a quiet belief took root: that the measure of a good woman is how much she gives. That her value is located in her usefulness. That asking for something for yourself, from yourself, is somehow a departure from the kind of woman worth being.
What if tending to yourself is not a departure from your purpose? What if it is part of it?
For Black, Brown, and Indigenous women, the question of what we owe ourselves is not simple. It carries the weight of generations who did not have the freedom to ask it. It sits alongside the very real demands of the lives we are living right now. The people who truly need us, and the commitments we have made and intend to keep. I am not asking you to walk away from any of that. I am asking you to add your name to the list.
And I know what can rise up the minute you do that: selfish. The word has kept a lot of good women trapped. Not because they don’t love others, because they do. But because they’ve been taught that choosing themselves is a character flaw instead of a form of freedom.
Choosing what is best for you is not selfishness. It is freedom. Freedom to decided what you can carry and what you cannot.
Freedom to choose what nourishes you instead of what drains you. Freedom to live a life on purpose, not just in response to everyone else’s needs.
And the truth is when you stop confusing self-care with selfishness, you don’t become less loving. You become more honest. More grounded. More able to give without disappearing.
You owe yourself that.
Purpose Meets Strategy (Take 10 Minutes)
List three ways you “pour” into others.
Circle one you’re willing to give yourself this week.
Calendar time for it.
Write and say: “My name belongs on my own list.”
May you choose what nourishes you. May you release what drains you. May you stay free.
If you feel like sharing, finish this sentence: “This week, I owe myself_______.” One line is enough, or more if you want.