Reclaiming SelfCare
hello
audrey lord once said to care for myself
is not self-indulgence it is
self-preservation
and that is an act of political warfare
what lord understood was that even
though we all have to figure out how to
exist and survive within the society
it never has the right to take away our
full humanity
or our voice and that to care for
oneself
is not something that should be done
solely in service of a system
but may occasionally need to be done in
defiance of it
while self-care is still all the rage i
can’t help but feel sometimes that it’s
been flattened
from the deeper meaning that lord speaks
about
too often self-care reminders seem so
simple drink some water get plenty of
sleep
see a friend and almost always with the
so you can do x so you can keep going so
you can achieve
it flattened self-care to something like
a power up
in a video game this is why i feel like
we deserve to reclaim self-care and to
do that we should recognize
that it has radical roots roots that can
be found
in the lgbtq and civil rights movements
movements which were all about
honoring the worth of a person as
important no matter what society deemed
that to be at the time
roots that connect to the indigenous
cultures of our country who understand
the importance of rejuvenation
and replenishment outside of production
but how do we do that sometimes people
focus on the acts
and while some acts can be more radical
than others
the reality is that there’s no
definition that makes one self-care
behavior better than the other
in fact many times the things that we do
to care for ourselves
whether they be spiritual or creative
indulgent or social
even meditative they’re politically
neutral
to truly reclaim self-care i think we
need to focus more on why we should be
doing it
and not what we’re doing i propose three
steps to take us through that path
first i’m a therapist so we got to ask
ourselves some questions
second hopefully we can find places to
make adjustments in our behavior
and our thinking and finally what i
think the most important piece is
we could recognize that advocacy is one
of the most important
most important components in a self-care
toolkit so sometimes starting is the
hardest part
so here are a couple prompts for you ask
yourself
what do i enjoy doing what are things
that fulfill me
big and small on a deeper level and how
often do i consider those an important
part of my self-care routine
versus a guilty pleasure or something i
have to earn
by accomplishing some other external
thing
think about how often you find yourself
saying your self-care routine
is something that i and maslow would
argue are your basic necessities
some water full eight hours of sleep
seeing a friend and why we may be
frustrated when those things
aren’t enough to fulfill us aren’t
enough to keep us going
maybe we need to ask ourselves how do i
approach self-care
am i approaching it from a place where i
truly believe that i am worthy of it
that i have a right to this whether or
not i get an a on my test
or put in the hours at work that i think
i need to
or have i bought into a mentality that
says that self-care’s entire purpose is
to serve the system
and that if i don’t achieve it’s not
working
hopefully as we ask ourselves these
questions we can see where adjustments
may need to be made
maybe we change our behavior so that
we’re including acts that actually
fulfill us
and stop accepting the bare minimum as
the best we can do
maybe we can adjust our thinking to
truly honor ourselves
to be skeptical when someone tells us
this is the way it has to be
or this is the most important thing that
you need to do
to challenge that part of us that may
think that in order to be happy
we have to be better and in order to be
better we have to do more
and that at some point soon we could
take care of our mental health
but not right now and then finally
advocacy the most important point to me
and i think
lord would agree she often spoke about
self-care
in terms of her journey with her cancer
diagnosis and how
important it was for her to speak up in
the doctor’s offices to make sure she
was getting the best treatment possible
because she knew at that time she was
within a system
that did not respect respect black
women’s voices and cared even less about
black women’s pain
so how do we advocate it could be scary
i suggest we start with just one little
word
why the next time you find yourself in a
situation
ask why why do we do it this way
why are 70 hour work weeks normal why
are we adding more expectations
why is this the rubric that we have
decided equals success
when we ask why we create friction
within our brains
and within society and within that
friction we can create something new we
can create the space
where we can reclaim self-care and make
it something more than
than acts that help us tread water but
make it be something that we fully
believe we deserve
because we know everyone has the right
to comfort and safety
and pleasure and we can work to create a
better world for ourselves and others
even if it’s just by being the voice in
the room that pipes up to ask
why
you