This was originally posted on the Women Move It Forward blog in May 2016.
Self-care is at the core of pretty much every coaching session I’ve ever had (as a coach and a client). Whether it’s about healing past trauma, learning to hold space (and boundaries), envisioning a better future – it always comes back to self-care. But what, exactly, is this thing called self-care?
Here are five things nobody tells you about self-care, that might help you to reframe it and give it the priority it deserves in your life.
1. Self Care is Not Self Indulgence
So often when we see the term “self-care”, it accompanies images of people meditating, enjoying a massage, or soaking in a bathtub – the implication being that self-care is mainly about taking time out or pampering oneself. That’s part of the picture, but it’s a little misleading, and often feeds into a belief system that says self-care is a guilty pleasure… creating resistance and getting in the way of people investing in a very strategic activity.
Consider this: is it indulgent to ensure your car is regularly serviced so that it can run efficiently? Is it indulgent to keep its fuel, oil, and water at optimum levels? Of course not, it’s necessary to ensure you have reliable transport! Taking good care of your body, mind and spirit is not indulgent, it is an investment. Making healthy, compassionate and sustainable food choices instead of getting a quick junk food fix – that’s self-care. Investing in a good mattress so you can sleep well – that’s self-care. Prioritizing a spiritual practice over an extra half hour in bed – that’s self-care. Deciding to go for a walk or to hit the gym to build a strong, fit and resilient body – that’s as much self-care as curling up on the couch with a bowl of creamy cashew milk ice cream and a good book; maybe more so, if this is the fifth night in a row on that couch!
Self-care is about ensuring key needs are being met, and by applying discipline to ensure that happens. Because when we are unnourished in any way, we are not whole enough to do our best work in the world. Sometimes self-care IS indulging – and, just as often, it’s choosing not to indulge but to invest in our highest good.
2. Self Care is Not Selfish (or narcissistic)
Our society often (erroneously) equates martyrdom with sainthood, and we have bought into that myth. Placing the needs of others before those of ourselves is seen as virtuous and good while setting boundaries in order to meet our own (sometimes basic) needs is seen as selfish and self-centered. There is a very good reason airlines tell passengers to put their own oxygen masks on before helping others in an emergency: If you’ve fainted from lack of oxygen, not only are you unable to help another, but you’ve become a liability: someone who themselves needs rescuing.
As a coach, I see burnout everywhere I look. People have exhausted themselves in service to others; putting their own needs on the backburner to the detriment of the very beings they are trying to help. In extreme cases, this has led to either physical or emotional collapse. Compassion fatigue and burnout are rampant in all avenues of life these days. Side effects of this are health issues, relationship issues, resentment, anger, violence, apathy, withdrawal… In every case, the person affected is no longer helping the people or cause they have given so much to – indeed, they often end up undermining and harming that or those which they love, not to mention becoming burdens themselves.
So I’d like to challenge you all to consider strategic self-care as selfless: ensuring you can serve with joy, in health, and from a position of strength that enables you to sustain your efforts over the long run is the best thing you can do for those you love. And, for those of you who are parents, it’s a great way to model strength, resilience, and sustainable service.
3. Self Care is Another Term for Self Love
Stop. What was your reaction to that? Did you immediately do the internal equivalent of turning your head away? Self-love? Isn’t that about affirmations and self-talk around how I am worthy and beautiful? Well… again, that’s part of it! There is so much online about bullying these days – how people can be so cruel to one another is a sad thing but how often do we consider where some of this starts? How we bully ourselves – with our denigrating self-talk, with our refusal to make healthy choices or to set good boundaries, with our pathological self-neglect – sets the tone. How we respect (or don’t respect) ourselves teaches others how to treat us. It creates tolerance of unreasonable expectations and a lack of respect that inevitably spills over – whether in words, actions, or simply energetic influence.
Now consider love. When you love something or someone you nurture it/them. You protect, you encourage, you promote, you CARE. Would you speak to someone you love the way you sometimes speak to yourself? Would you willfully neglect someone or something you love the way you sometimes neglect yourself? Would you be OK with someone you love making bad choices that get them hurt; that put them in pain or danger? Of course not! So why are you OK with that for yourself? How is that setting a standard for how others should act? Self-care is a way of modeling, starting with yourself, a loving, respectful, nurturing approach to life. And just as love isn’t always fluff and bubbles, neither is self-care. Sometimes it’s making tough decisions or walking away from something or someone, sometimes it’s enforcing bedtime or taking the candy away. ALWAYS, it’s about what’s best. Apply your standards of love to yourself – because you deserve it, yes, and because the world needs it.
4. (The Best) Self Care Is Strategic
Many of us wait to prioritize self-care until we hit the wall. We have a meltdown or some other crisis that forces us to take time out or to get the care or help we’ve needed for a while. That can be expensive – trying to juggle medical costs, the loss of income, being debilitated, or trying to dig out of a deep depression… the costs and effort required to get back to wellness or equilibrium can be overwhelming in themselves, contributing to a downward spiral. Sometimes we come to the realization we need to take care of ourselves too late: we’ve lost the job, the relationship is in tatters, the bridges have been burned. Only then do we realize that this crisis could have been averted had we stood up for ourselves, invested in ourselves, protected, nurtured, encouraged, LOVED ourselves a little sooner.
Like saving money, self-care is not something to put off, to be prioritized when we have time, or after we finish this project or next time we’re spoken to that way. Waiting until we need those reserves is too late to start building them, and “heroic efforts” like overdue vacations or spa days are often too little, too late. Like saving for retirement, self-care is something we need to plan, prioritize, and make regular contributions to. By doing so, you may find a little goes a long way when you need it.
5. Self Care is Just a Band-Aid Without Self Awareness
And Band-Aid self-care is not enough – even “strategic” Band-Aids are still Band-Aids. We need self-awareness too. What if we could do a better job of understanding and aligning with our highest values while simultaneously knowing and meeting our deepest needs? What if we changed the rules around what made us feel overwhelmed, resentful, angry, helpless, or taken advantage of? What if we truly cared enough to give this world the absolute best we could be?
What will you commit to now, to take better care of yourself?
