The minute one other person enters my space, my attention shifts to them.

I’m not even conscious of it but my mind goes to thinking about them—anticipating their needs and often adjusting my behavior based on my perception of their needs. This conditioning is so engrained in me it’s basically invisible.

I think I only became aware of it when I lived by myself for the first time in my early 40s. And when I say “live by myself,” I mean I shared not only living space but my bedroom my entire life until that point.

Don’t get me wrong: I love all the things I learned about sharing quarters first with my sisters, then with college roommates, and eventually a romantic partner. You experience a unique closeness and learn a set of skills when you live with others well. We humans are social beings and I thrive being in community. In fact, it’s how most people in the world live.

Yet, as a girl, I received the clear message that my role was to defer to, serve, and accommodate others.

The message came sometimes subtly, sometimes directly. And if I dared step outside those boundaries? I would be called “selfish.”

This is why the minute one other person enters my space, my attention shifts to them.

Selfish isn’t a compliment. When that label was used, shame was its stinging companion. In Spanish, sinvergüenza connotes both “selfish” and “shameless.” So efficient.

“Selfish” is wielded like a sword, cutting down many a girl’s ability to express a thought or need or desire for herself, on her own behalf. And women are punished for violating this gendered conditioning and these societal expectations.

This is why that old Calgon “take me away” commercial resonates so deeply even today. Yes, please take me away from the demands and needs, perceived or real, of others so I can think about myself.

We seek out situations, dream up ways to be alone so there is no one else in the room to think about. This is when we can finally notice or pay attention to what we need or want without someone calling us “selfish.”

And while spending time alone is a real need, this is not a relaxed seeking out time with oneself. It’s mostly a desperate wish, an escape fantasy which can lead to isolation: a devastating health risk and counter to our simultaneous needs as social beings.

I recently asked a room full of women leaders how many of them also struggle to pay attention to themselves when someone else—and their needs and wants and expectations—is in the room with them? All of them raised their hands.

This is one of our collective challenges—and opportunities—as females conditioned in a society with sexism: to maintain connection to ourselves while still engaging meaningfully with a group, especially when we’re in a leadership position.

I call this “selffullness.”

Being selffull is a significant shift. Selffullness means knowing who we are, claiming our space, embracing our power, and allowing ourselves to be fully present in our own vessels while honoring that in others. We don’t subordinate ourselves or allow others to.

It’s a departure from the societal conditioning that often leads us to prioritize everyone else’s needs before our own.

It’s also one of the many beautiful invitations of the Transforming Women’s Leadership Program’s in-person retreat at Mar de Jade.

TWLP’s retreat component is not a solo trek or a silent retreat. It’s a program designed to foster a vibrant, supportive community of female leaders where we practice selffullness together.

We’ve carefully crafted this experience with each participant in mind, considering the collective strengths and challenges present when we come together. During daily class time we will talk about and heal from the various ways sexism has impacted us. We will be in structured community for this time, about 3-and-a-half hours each day, and then you will have unscheduled or open time. Time with no one else’s demands for your attention or labor.

For some of us, the very idea of “open time” can be unsettling, disturbing, or even scary. For some of us, it is the most appealing part of this program. Yet for most of us, it will be a first time experiencing selffullness.

We want to create a space where we can lean into each other for support while simultaneously centering ourselves.

It’s a delicate dance, one that goes against many of our ingrained habits of caretaking and self-neglect.

I believe this work – learning to stay connected to ourselves while in community – is some of the most radical and important work we can do as female leaders. It’s about redefining how we show up in the world, how we lead, and what support based in liberation (and not patterns of sexism) looks like.