Self-care: In This Economy?

You know what’s fascinating to me? The way self-care as a thing for women to do is still so contested in this world. So keenly pursued, but perhaps in secret. And so scorned. So fundamental … and yet so laughable.

This is a bit personal for me. As a self-care writer/life coach, I’m sensitive about those job titles, and what they encompass in the public eye. I don’t like to be lumped in with any old streetcorner chakra balancer (which seems like a thing that doesn’t exist … until you visit Salem, Massachusetts).

So I low-key track the discourse, hoping things are, you know, respectful and dignified out there. They’re not always, but recent discussions got me thinking about the differences between self-care, fitness, wellness, self-optimization, self-improvement, and healing, and how often these different things are conflated. And some of the trouble caused by these cases of mistaken identity.

Because nobody finds lawn care, pet care, elder care, or fabric care all that upsetting. But some folks get really wound up about self-care.

One obvious reason is the way in which some basic and sound self-care concept becomes inflated. In this economy? We see it all the time. Once the marketing department gets hold of this week’s hyped ingredient, applies a self-care filter, and uses it to sell their powdered mushrooms or their ceremonial-grade cacao or whatever, then the whole concept of liquid treats becomes suspect.

Of course, part of the reaction is the way self-care so easily becomes self-harm when it costs an unreasonable amount of time or money. Or both. Self-care can’t take more than it gives—or it becomes abuse.

(But also worth pointing out: this happens in feminized spaces, which is exactly what self-care is. Nobody is crashing out about overpowered trucks for urban dwellers or fancy gadgets for mustache maintenance.)

So here are some ways I think about these things, and what makes them different:

Self-care is basic, fundamental, and not really optional. It’s also known as adulting. It’s giving some thought to your existence in the near and maybe far future, and making choices that Older You will not be pissed to live with. And it can’t harm you in the present, either. Like the Buddhists say: good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end.

Most important, self-care is what you must do for yourself. It’s being on your own side in all things. Except perhaps in cases of disability, no one else can do this for you.

Note: self-care is not easily exploited by others. It doesn’t get tricked into bad bargains because it’s not looking for shortcuts.

But it doesn’t exclude ceremonial-grade cacao, as needed.

Whereas self-improvement? It can’t be good at the end, because there is no end. Self-improvement is the glass half-empty. There’s no love of process; it’s all about the goal. But it’s a moving goalpost and you’re never good enough. Self-improvement is like the opposite of mastery, in which there’s always room for refinement, but the journey to mastery is not based on lack. It’s based on love.

Fitness: a solid option, if you like that sort of thing. Key word: option. Note: can be taken too far—see above: good in the beginning, etc.—especially when comparing ourselves to others. Fitness is very individual! As elite athletes are fit for their sport but sometimes not much else, we really just have to be fit for our own lives.

Wellness: in the same way that health coverage is not the same as health, wellness in its commercial manifestation is not the source of being well. Obviously, we are witnessing commercial wellness in its baroque era, and that excess—$23 smoothies, I’m lookin at you, but not only you—is what gets people bent. That, and the lying.

Because we all know that a single tea ceremony will bring a brief serenity, but it does not bring self-mastery. A fancy smoothie brings delight; it doesn’t make you immortal or even heal you. And if you get them too often, it starts looking like self-harm.

Yikes, this is getting long! And these are just early thoughts. I will turn things over to you now! In the comments below, please tell us what you think.

Image credit: Valmuer, Anthonie Christensen, 1892, Statens Museum for Kunst. Used with permission. Cropped.