Years ago I ran a workshop on self-care for a group of social workers.
What an incredible group of overworked, toughened angels!
They were excited to attend a self-care workshop because it promised a day’s respite—but they were pretty skeptical about whether it could be of any lasting value.
Because who has time for self-care, right?
I asked them to give examples of self-care and they started calling out:
“Taking time off!”
“Going away!”
“Having a massage!”
“Going on a date night!”
“Taking yourself to a movie!”
All completely valid, but there was a glaring omission.
Out of fifty wonderful, educated, emotionally intelligent folk, not one suggested loving themselves, or looking after themselves during challenging moments.
Of course, I could have asked that question differently, and I did afterwards, but what struck me was the myth that self-care is about taking a break from life.
That’s a really problematic perception because life is full of difficulties and challenges—and that isn’t going to stop any time soon!
When your kids are screaming that they don’t like what you’ve cooked and your partner is upset that you haven’t called the insurance people and your difficult mother is coming to stay for a week, you can’t exactly just go off and have a massage.
When you have a pressing deadline and your back is hurting and you haven’t slept because you cried all night about breaking up with your boyfriend, you can’t just go away for a restful weekend.
Life happens, and it keeps happening.
Self-care can’t be dependent on you being able to take the time and having the resources to practice it.
That’s not sustainable.
Mainstream media talks about self-care as a form of self-romance.
Taking long bubble baths, going for walks on the beach, journaling, taking time off for yourself ...
These things are marvelous, and I hope you do them but on their own, they don’t really make the difference.
I mean, we all know you can do this stuff and still not love yourself, right?
Real self-care is an act of self-love.
So, what is self-love?
Self-love is meeting your needs.
That’s it.
Love is a feeling but it’s also an action.
Love is a noun but it’s also a verb.
If you think about how you love someone or something, you’ll see that love is the act
of being attuned to the needs of the beloved and taking small, consistent actions to appropriately meet those needs.
So when you love yourself, you take your needs as seriously as you do your child’s or dog’s or loved one’s.
And you make a dedicated consistent effort to ensure your needs are appropriately met.
When your needs are met, you feel satisfied and happy.
Basically, you thrive.
When your needs are not met, you feel restless, resentful, dissatisfied and unhealthy.
In other words, you wither.
If you loved yourself, how would you meet your needs now?
