An Invitation to Self-Care: Why Learning to Nurture Yourself is the Key to the Life You've Always Wanted

Introduction

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT SELF-CARE, we might think first of taking care of our physical being: fitness, beauty, keeping up appearances. Or we might think of dealing with stress, physical illness, or mental burnout—emergency care, as it were. Or maybe we imagine jumping on the latest self-help bandwagon, hoping that this one will make a difference.

The book in your hands aims to change all that. It’s an invitation to see self-care as an attitude that permeates your life, a consistent self-replenishment. Self-care is a state of mind that offers a sense of abundance, a well that never runs dry. In this book we’ll dig down to the depths of self-care—which is to say that this is a book about how to really and truly be an adult. I believe that the ability to do real self-care is one hallmark of adulthood, even though most adults are crappy at it.

When I was in graduate school twenty years ago, studying to become a therapist, many of my professors would occasionally mention the importance of self-care in our profession. Being a therapist is hard, so be sure to do lots of self-care, the prof might say, and I’d create a heading in my notes and underline it—Self-Care—and then expectantly wait for the details. What was this vital and necessary thing that would allow me to do the work I wanted to do without getting drained and depleted?

But the secrets were never shared. Having duly noted the need for self-care, the professor would move on to the next topic, such as legal and ethical issues, and that self-care page of my notebook remained empty.

As I built my career over the next decade, I kept hearing the idea of self-care mentioned in professional settings: in conversations among therapists, in consultations, at conventions. And then the mainstream media picked it up, and the topic expanded outward: self-care was seen as critical not just for health care professionals, but for all of us. Life is hard, so be sure to do lots of self-care, the women’s magazines cooed (or screamed)—but just like my professors, they never outlined the steps, the details, that would assure me I was doing this ongoing self-care thing right. We were all supposed to take time for ourselves in order to deal with stress, achieve balance, be better parents, better workers, and better mates. A good, solid concept. But where was the how-to? The self-care advice and examples always seemed simplistic and superficial: Keep a journal. Take a yoga class. Light a candle.

Lovely ideas. But really, how impactful is that candle in the face of a life filled with the daily ordinary and extraordinary challenges and stresses that we all endure? (Years later, a friend griped to me, Self-care is more than a stupid candle!)

Herbal teas, massages, pedicures . . . and, more recently, memory improvement apps and meditation podcasts—all of these promise to ease our stress, tame our tensions, or widen our bandwidth, but in the long run, they don’t—not really. Used on their own, they’re the equivalent of self-care Band-Aids: they hold us together and treat the pain for now, but they don’t get to the heart of the matter.

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s a place in our lives for these things. But when we treat ourselves with these small indulgences as an attempt at primary self-care, we might as well be saying, "I deserve this day at the spa (or this night out with the girls/Dove dark chocolate bar/new phone/pretty dress/scented candle . . .) because I am burned out and poorly taken care of. So, to postpone caring for myself in the really critical areas, I am giving myself this little treat."

Looking around at the array of treats, I knew there had to be more to it. Was there some secret society of self-care practitioners who could enlighten me if only I could figure out the secret handshake? Where did they meet? I wanted to find them and ask so many questions. What does self-care really mean? Where do I start? How do I change the habits of a lifetime? How do I maintain my progress? And how, exactly, does self-care ease the difficulty of being a therapist charged with helping people through trauma, heartbreak, and hopelessness?

When I started my own therapy practice, my understanding of self-care got a lot more practical, because I could feel the impact of my work on my mind, body, and spirit. If I didn’t eat well, sleep well, or take regular breaks, I burned out, melted down, and had a hissy fit or three. I began to see that to do a good job for my clients, I needed to really care for myself.

Soon I was mentoring interns in self-care and reminding my clients about it, too. But even as I did, I wasn’t fully practicing what I was preaching. You see, I am not naturally good at self-care. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been lousy at it at times, coming as I do from a family that neither modeled self-care nor taught me its value.

I’ve always tended to neglect my needs, even well into adulthood. Once, during a period of exceptionally bad self-care, a friend suggested that if I were treating a child the way I was treating myself, I would likely lose custody. I knew she was right, and I was mortified. I was depriving myself of sleep, rest, healthy food, even water. I took no time to care for my home or my body because, as I saw it, I simply didn’t have time. No time to grab a sweater if I was cold or a snack if I was hungry. A doctor when I was sick? No time. So, as you can see, my own education in true self-care was difficult and took a long time. But eventually I got there—and, as for everyone, it is an ongoing work in progress. As our needs change, we must adapt our self-care practices to fit our current reality.

So I am writing this book in the time-honored tradition of You teach what you had to learn yourself—the hard way. But that’s why I may be just the person to write this book. I am not going to stand on the self-care mountaintop and tell you to do what I do. I’ll be honest with you. I’ll tell you where I still suck, where I used to suck but got better, and, most important, what we can both do to get better at this thing called self-care.

•  •  •

Why is it so hard? If self-care is so clearly in our own interest, why aren’t we already doing it? Many people have a lot of resistance to self-care, and for reasons rarely discussed in the literature on the subject. Many are reasons we aren’t always aware of ourselves: guilt, shame, a sense of inadequacy and low self-worth, self-sabotage, self-harm, family-of-origin issues (modeling our parents’ treatment of themselves or us), depression, masochism, victim mentality, a too-stringent work ethic, a refusal to grow up (including an infantile desire to be taken care of by other people)—the list goes on.

And what about the claim—or the unquestioned belief—that self-care is selfish? If nothing else, this book will challenge that claim. It is baloney, BS, hooey, hogwash, and balderdash that self-care is selfish. You may know this, deep down. We can’t give when we have nothing to give. We all know the drill: the airline attendant reminds us that, should we need to use an oxygen mask, Secure your own mask first before assisting others. What we learn here is that we can’t take care of others before we take care of ourselves.

The subtext of that narrative, however, is that we wouldn’t need self-preservation for any other reason than to be able to take care of other people. It’s as if we’re all supposed to be totally selfless, and other people’s needs are the only way to justify self-care. Is someone else is in dire straits? Then I’d better make sure I can show up for them. In this book, we will challenge that notion.

Sheer survival isn’t selfish; doing a better job of caring for yourself isn’t either—it’s just common sense. Let me underscore this: if you’re worried about selfishness, it is absolutely more selfish to not do self-care than to do it. If you don’t do it, there will be consequences for your health, happiness, relationships, and longevity. If you don’t take care of yourself, someone else is going to have to take care of you, making it indeed selfish to not practice self-care to begin with.

And with self-care, we might just reach a level of clarity and creativity that we’ve dreamed of but never thought we’d attain. In taking care of ourselves, we move into becoming real adults. We may be breaking a whole lot of rules we learned from family, society, and even our religion, but we become real and self-actualized adults. Through taking extraordinary care of ourselves, we may be choosing to treat ourselves differently than we’ve been treated by others. We’re saying that we are important and worthy of being treated well—and that may take extra effort if we’re still overcoming some past trauma or difficulty. We all need to learn how to love ourselves, and self-care is often the first step.

Because sometimes the action has to come first. Doing self-care is a way of saying that we matter. And when we start to treat ourselves like we matter, we start to actually believe that we really do matter. And others see it, too. The more we take care of ourselves, the less likely we are to tolerate bad behavior, abuse, and disrespect from others. Self-care is not an add-on, not something you have to schedule, but rather a central part of how to live a life.

In this book, we’ll explore self-care in many areas of life—including body, mind and emotions, spirit, relationships, finances, material possessions, work, and play. We’ll look at the challenges people tend to have in each area and how to address those needs from the inside out. As we do so, we’ll be applying seven key principles of self-care: rules of thumb you can use every day to up your quality of life. We’ll also take a playful look at three kinds of magic—the self-care strategies we might already be using. As you’ll see, these strategies range from the wholesome to the dangerous, with a broad and fascinating territory in between.

You’ll hear some other viewpoints in this book, too. You’ll meet some of today’s experts and researchers in the self-care field, and you’ll meet (or re-meet) psychologist Abraham Maslow, whose hierarchy of needs gives us a useful self-care template. You’ll also hear from some everyday people from various walks of life—people who generously shared their self-care stories with me. Some responded to an online survey; others I exchanged views with more informally. Where real names are given, it is with the person’s permission.

As a therapist, I’ve guided many clients who were surprised to trace some of their problems to poor self-care. And I’ve been thrilled and honored to see how their lives were transformed when they took steps to care for themselves and their relationships with more integrity. You’ll meet some of them in this book. I’ve changed (or omitted) names and also changed personal details so they are unrecognizable. But the power of their stories is true to life.

•  •  •

So this book is your invitation to self-care. I request the pleasure of your company. And let’s think about that phrase RSVP for a moment—Répondez, s’il vous plaît, or Please respond. In this book, we’re learning to practice self-care by responding to our true selves. Not reacting to our stresses, our cravings, our burnout. Responding. When we pay attention to ourselves every day, we can respond to our deepest needs over the long term. We invest in ourselves, and that investment yields wonderful rewards.

None of us is perfect at self-care, and we can all improve. If nothing else, I hope this book shows you that self-care is about loving yourself, warts and all, and that you are more than worthy of that love.

Welcome.

Self-love is a prerequisite for the abundant life you’ve always dreamed of.

PART ONE

What Self-Care Is, What It Isn’t, and Why You Aren’t Doing It

The Golden Rule is Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Platinum Rule is How I treat myself is training others how to treat me.

—Michael Bernard Beckwith, minister and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center

I get to work before the sun comes up and I leave long after it’s gone down. I haven’t had sex in six months with someone other than myself. And the only thing in my refrigerator is an old lime. Could be a kiwi, no way to tell. But here’s the thing, this is just temporary.

—Nick Hendricks, character in the movie Horrible Bosses

CHAPTER ONE

What Self-Care Isn’t

SELF-CARE: WHAT IS IT? It’s a tricky term to define because our culture perpetuates a dizzying array of misconceptions about it. So let’s start with those. Let’s first disabuse ourselves of the notions that may be mucking up our ability to take care of ourselves. Let’s start with what self-care isn’t.

Self-Care Myths We May Believe without Knowing It

So we’re going to start by exploring those misbeliefs and debunking each one. I’ve identified seven. Let’s start with the simple misconceptions and work up to the more diabolical ones—the often-unconscious beliefs that can subtly but surely undermine our self-care skills.

Myth: Self-care is just for mothers, health care providers, and other caregivers.

Our culture tends to focus self-care discussions on individuals who spend the bulk of their time in the business of caregiving. It’s not a big topical leap to look at how those people are caring for themselves—because if they’re doing a lousy job of it, then they will fail at their primary task of caring for others, whether they’re providing health care, raising children, or caring for aging adults. But to limit the discussion to caregivers is very shortsighted. All of us, in all walks of life, are in the self-care business, even if we aren’t doing a very good job at it.

Myth: Self-care is a section of Whole Foods where you buy essential oils and scented candles.

For many of us, the term self-care might mean purchasing and consuming frivolous feel-good items, going on shopping sprees, or spending an afternoon at a spa, gym, or yoga class. We might also think of escaping by binge-watching a TV series, eating a pint of ice cream in one sitting, or reading a trashy novel. And yes, occasionally, these could all have a place in our self-care repertoire. The question is, are we doing them routinely? Do we turn to them in reaction to built-up stress, as a reward for getting through a difficult day, or as an impulsive response to media triggers? Or are they periodic indulgences and treats that we incorporate into a well-thought-out, meaningful self-care plan—a plan built around daily attention to our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health?

Myth: Self-care is just self-soothing.

Self-care is often equated with seeking sensual pleasure, such as bathing with special oils, getting a massage, or having sex, whether with another person or alone (and let’s throw in the scented candle, while we’re at it!). As with the other things we do to reward ourselves or ease stress, soothing yourself can be temporary self-indulgent escapism, or it can be a natural, healthy, enjoyable part of an ongoing self-care plan.

Myth: Self-care is for people who have nothing else to do.

I hear this excuse pretty much every day: I know I should exercise, sleep more, and not get my dinner from the drive-thru, but there just isn’t time. Yes, I get it; there are only twenty-four hours in a day. I know you work fifty, or eighty, hours a week and you have to sleep. But you are sleeping, bathing, and eating. You have a domicile of some sort, and you have some ongoing relationships with people—and each of those is an area where you can be doing better self-care. Quantity of time may be limited, but you can always up the quality. It’s not about perfection; it’s about taking care of yourself as well as possible so you can do all that you want to do. We will see that setting up your life so that you never have time to take care of yourself is going to come with deep consequences.

Myth: Self-care is just for the rich and privileged.

Do you think of self-care as the self-indulgence of the elite and wealthy—the luxurious spa resorts that come with fresh, customized healthy cuisine, one-on-one meditation and yoga practices, and aromatherapy massages? Forget it. Effective self-care isn’t a function of how much money you have—it’s a mind-set. It takes no money to go on a walk, relax and read a library book, visit a friend, or literally stop and smell the roses.

Are you with me so far? Good. Now let’s turn to the two biggest misconceptions about self-care. These two rear their ugly heads everywhere, all the time.

Myth: Self-care is selfish.

I often hear people claim that doing self-care would make them feel selfish. One dictionary defines selfish as concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself without regard for others. Self-care is not about excessive concern for self; it is about taking good enough care of yourself so that you can function, be productive, be in healthy relationships, and have the ability and energy to be there for others you care about. A narcissist, the poster child for selfishness, would believe that they are the only one in the entire world who should be cared for and demands that others abandon their own needs to care for them. Unlike narcissists, we’re not expecting those we love to take crappy care of themselves in order to serve us better. I’ve never heard a client say, You know, I wish my kid (or spouse, or parent) would stop with all the self-care and put that energy into caring for me. But when it comes time to take care of ourselves, we often imagine that everyone has a different expectation for us than we do for them.

The truth is that if we are sick, exhausted, overworked, overwhelmed, resentful, and angry, we can’t be present for those we love. If we have nothing inside ourselves, how much do we have to give? I will answer that for you: bupkes, nada, and diddly-squat. By taking care of ourselves, we have more energy, health, love, chi, and mojo to give to others. We can live a life that is productive, generative, and of service to those we love and care for.

Myth: Self-care is a sin.

Our country was founded by Protestant Christians. My guess is that whatever our actual religion, most of us have absorbed some version of the Protestant work ethic, which