Our ideal of putting others first is often used to justify neglecting ourselves. We are human beings, with needs and limitations, and to get our needs met is both child-like and mature. Children express their needs, often quite loudly, and each of us has a needy child at our core. Mature adults can listen to their inner child and parent themselves, in a sense, living a self-relationship of kindness, grace, and love. When we neglect ourselves, we are empty-shell physicians who have no inner experience of healing that can naturally overflow to our patients. We become frustrated and primed for burnout. Self-neglect is costly.
Physician, Get Healed 