Self-Care Makes Me Cringe

 I have a social work confession to make:  I cringe at the term "self-care."  There is almost nothing that makes my entire body clench than when I see some social media post with a soft-focus photo of an extremely thin woman (probably a white woman, let's be extra-real) doing a yoga pose by a waterfall accompanied by a flowery caption about loving who you are on the inside and taking the time to uplift your inner queenhood or whatever nonsense.  My face, you should see my face. I'm making such a face.  Even the thought of this makes my entire being cringe.

White women can honestly be so embarrassing.

There are a host of reasons why these kinds of social media posts bug the hell out of me -- they're likely obvious, but I'll outline a couple just so we're all on the same page.  First of all, these posts almost always feature a body-type that isn't anything close to the "average" body-type.  The person depicted almost always exceeds Western beauty standards.  And god bless the notion of yoga by a waterfall, but that is purely for the photo op -- that ain't where this yogi is actually practicing.  So....are we all about the likes?  Is that this poster's definition of "self-care" -- semi-anonymous feedback from probably mostly strangers that they admire the camera angles?

What do posts like these actually offer us regular people whose life in a high-definition word where every one of our scars takes over any photo of us and our back rolls stand out prominently and we're not in front of a waterfall but sitting on the corner of our yoga mats on the floor in our overcrowded apartment where a television is probably blaring, even if it's from the neighbor upstairs?  How can we ever even consider "self-care" when our lives look like polar opposites of the social media superstars who make it look so necessarily ethereal?

To this I have two immediate replies:

1) Comparison is the thief of joy.  So listen up -- and I'm not kidding.  Stop what you're doing.  If you're listening to the audio of this, pause the recording and say out loud "COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY."  Don't just say it -- YELL IT.  Yell it three times in a row.  

COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY.

COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY.

COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY.

Now look at this visual:

Save this meme in your brain.  The next time you feel that pang of #FOMO or jealousy or you find yourself asking, "Why can't I have...xyz," I want you to shrink that to a tiny crumpled piece of paper in your imagination and bring this image forward.

Do this -- it will help.

I've lived long enough and been through enough to say with absolute certainty that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, living the life you're supposed to have, and it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing.  If you don't cultivate your happiness from within, you'll default to comparison-mode and that shit stunts your growth.

So there's that.

And the second thing?  The old #2?

2) How you define "self-care" is extremely personal.  It isn't always yoga by a waterfall.  It isn't always a hot cup of tea.  It isn't always a bubble bath.  It isn't always writing in your journal.  It could be those things.  But it doesn't have to be those things.

So, really, what I don't like is how *Trademarked the term "self-care" seems to have become.  Those words don't mean what the memes seem to make it mean, you see?  Self-care, to me, is as simple as the two words connected by a hyphen: it's putting the focus and intention on what you need to be re-energized.  It's leaning in to that which results in your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, your entire being when you offer it the gift of rest. 

What does that for you?

How quickly can you answer that question?  Do you need a moment to think on it?  If so, you're likely not alone.  And here's some anecdotal evidence that you just may feel stumped by this inquiry.  

In my professional life as a community-based social worker, I experience a great deal of burnout.  It can been challenging to set (and more importantly keep) work/life balance boundaries when the task is to be of service to over 60,000 residents in the two cities the organization I work for represents.  I would have weeks at a time where a day might start with an 8:30am coffee meeting and end at 9:30pm when the event I had to either facilitate or attend concludes.  I would have that happen on repeat two, three, four days in a row.  I would feel like I always had to be available and "on the clock" and it wasn't at all uncommon for me to work well over 50 hours in any given week.  

My guess is some of you can relate.  Maybe some of you are even puffing up your chests a bit to brag that you do all this and work 60 hours a week, like I'm some kind of slacker for "complaining" about only 50.

Well, let me tell you something.  First, scroll back up and do the "COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY" exercise again -- how soon we forget...  And then let me draw the attention of all of us living #ThatSalaryLife to the fact that we are being paid to work for 40 hours per week.  Some states, full-time status is even less -- maybe 32 or 35 hours per week.  

So why we workin' all these hours for free?

I'll wait.

Work/life balance has been a struggle for me most of my life.  My desire to people-please and seek approval that I used to transpose into love (except, it never really was love) and over-compensate for core emotional wounds that I felt I always had to prove I was a worthy person -- all of these things (and more) pushed me to DO MORE, BE MORE, WORK MORE.  When I was first going through a breakup at the end of 2014 and through pretty much all of 2015, I coped through work.  I was running a yoga and wellness center in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the time and when I tell you I went to work seven days a week, I mean seven days a week.  Then I took on a part-time job on top of that two days a week, so I would sometimes go to that job and then go to my full-time job and, yeah, no days off.  I 100% did that so I could buffer myself from dealing with shell-shock.  And it was only when I was starting to come out of that emotional coma in 2016 that I started taking Tuesdays off from my full-time job -- and got permission from my part-time job to work from home on Tuesdays.

So it wasn't even a day off.  But it was inching closer!

The more I healed, though, the more I leaned into taking time away from work -- throwing my phone into airplane mode when I headed out of town for the day to hit up the beach with friends or taking just a little longer to answer non-urgent messages.  

It was hard for me, though.  I had always been the definition of a workaholic, but it took my breakup and healing from that relationship to connect the dots to why it was I threw myself so completely into my job.  It was never, ever worth it to give up so much of myself to work.

But, what are ya gonna do when there's more work to do than hours in the Western-standard work week?  What are ya gonna do when the message around you is to achieve more, do more, be more, sell more, earn more, bring in more, more more more more more?

When, dear lord, do I get permission to do less?

This past August was sort of a breaking point to me.  It still makes me want to cry to think about how unrealistically busy I was.  I was on the go from morning through night, 97% of it work-related, too.  It wasn't even like I was spending that much time with friends or family.  It was just the demands of my job that were running me ragged.  I didn't know how to manage it so I just went on autopilot and merely tried to survive it.

Spoiler alert:  I survived it.

But I also vowed never to do that to myself again.  I started closing all of my meetings (one-on-one's or larger groups) wishing everyone a restful day.  I would ask folks to spend at least 10 minutes doing something that was just for them, not for anyone else.  It could be anything, too -- whatever felt authentic or meaningful or restorative to them.  If they have time for more than 10 minutes, take more time.  "Do this every day," I'd offer.  "Something just for you, 10 minutes every day."

I can't even put into words the array of facial expressions and tones I'd get in response.  Perplexed, uncomfortable, confused.  So often it was obvious to me that no one had ever put such an offer in front of them at the end of a meeting -- or maybe in any context.  So often it was obvious to me that the idea of doing something self-restorative had never occurred to them.

They didn't know how.

And that's understandable.  We live in grind culture.  We're all supposed to be hustlers and go-getters and boot-strap-puller-uppers.  You want me to rest?  What even is that?  Who has the time???

We all have the time.  And we can start by working only 32 or 35 or 40 hours a week instead of 50 or 60 or more.  That's a lot of 10-minutes extra, wouldn't you say??

Rest, to me, is the definition of "self-care."  It's the one thing most of us (especially the workaholics on the call) don't get enough of.  And if you're one of those people who isn't even sure how to begin, all you have to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine what rest is to you.  Then do that thing.  

For me, my daily writing project qualifies as rest.  My daily walks qualify as rest.  My decision to set better boundaries around when I am "on the clock" for work qualifies as rest.  Being mindful of what I'm eating or drinking qualifies as rest.  Anything that has to do with regulating my body's energy level qualifies as rest.  And when I start giving myself permission to fold these restful activities into my life, I start to see a shift in everything.  I better understand what I want to be doing, how I want to be spending my time, and how to strike an appropriate balance between work and social obligations and my new best friend rest.  

I have to look to my other best friend Boundary Setting to get there -- but we've all found a way to coexist quite peacefully and beneficially at this particular moment in my life.

It's awesome, truthfully.

In case you are a little fuzzier on how to identify your own sense of rest or what that might mean to you, I highly recommend the book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by the Nap Ministry founder, Tricia Hersey.  You'll likely get a ton of ideas from this resource.  But trust and believe that there is no better resource for you on the planet than listening to your own body, heart, and mind.  Be quiet with yourself and just listen.  You'll learn a lot, I promise.

You can put on a waterfall sound in the background if you think it will help -- but you don't need it.  All you need to focus in on your own brand of self-care is you.  No yoga mats required.

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar