This is a wide-reaching topic, one which impacts a great many people. It impacts all of us, come to think of it. Though some of us are able to address it organically, without much thought, for most of us it’s not that simple. Taking proper care of yourself takes some planning and introspection. Whether you’re one of those people from the majority who’ve been in my office and had this conversation or not, know that you’re not the only person who struggles with implementing the supposed panacea of mental health care known as self-care.
As with many mental-health-centric terms (think narcissist, abuse, and depressed, to name a few), self-care is one which has been at least partially co-opted by popular culture. People sometimes ignore responsibilities and make objectively silly decisions in the name of catering to this concept. This is not to say, of course, that real, authentic self-care is a bad thing. Quite the opposite; it’s probably one of the most basic and important things you can practice. If long-term functioning as an effective member of society is on your agenda, doing this right has to be an integral part of your plan.
Let’s define what it is, why it’s important, and how it works.
We can use marriage as an analog. If someone wants to build and maintain a healthy relationship, it’s taken for granted that your spouse needs to feel like you have their back. He or she will need to both know and feel that in spite of whatever disagreements you have, differences of opinion, or relational drifts you may be experiencing, you are there. You and your caring are facts of life. The fact that you want the other to feel cared for is also a fact. Experiencing that knowledge on a visceral level helps you both get through the tough times, the times when you feel more distant.
Knowing that you’re cared for, and more importantly, feeling it, is what keeps you going. It makes the relationship feel safe, makes you feel safe enough to invest in it further, and makes the relationship an environment in which you can grow. Though there are some aspects of what you would like to see in marriage that you’re able to compromise on, there are other hard-line boundaries that you just can’t. In good relationships, those are respected. In less than healthy relationships, they’re not, and there are repercussions for it. It shows up in how the person whose boundary isn’t being respected engages in the relationship.
I find it interesting that while there’s generally tremendous focus on the relationships we have with others, we often ignore the one we have with ourselves. In marriage it’s understood; there needs to be effort put into making each other feel cared for, or helping each other internalize the idea that “You are a top priority to me”. We get that; it’s important if we want to make it work. For our relationship we have with ourselves, not so much. There’s often an emphasis on “hustle” in Western culture, on running ourselves ragged and prioritizing everything else above ourselves. The popular perception of self-care, which often suggests that one should drop everything in order to provide for one’s self, is a pendular response to that idea.
Marriages need to be balanced, compassionate, and respectful in order to work. Our relationship with ourselves needs to be the same way. Here’s why.
Imagine yourself as a large, complicated, and very delicate machine. It’s a system that makes you who you are and allows you to maintain your daily lifestyle. That includes your body, emotions, sense of spirituality, and anything else you can think of that you might have to push yourself to do. It expends energy in order to do the things it needs to do, and needs to be maintained in order to work.
This is pretty simple when you’re, say, a car. There’s only one type of fuel available, and there’s usually a clear indicator and a way to fill it up when it runs low. It’s low, you fill up, and it’s good.
What happens when your car is a bit more complicated? Maybe there’s some sort of mechanism that whenever you take the time to fill up the gas tank, the coolant level goes down. If that gets filled up, washer fluid decreases, and filling that up might deflate a tire slightly. The whole system is intertwined and interdependent. It’s real work to maintain enough of the important functionality the car needs in order to do what it’s supposed to do. It becomes an exercise in balance.
Bob doesn’t like going to work. He needs to, though, for obvious reasons. He’s got his mortgage, he’s making a wedding in a couple of months, and also he likes to be able to put food on the table. Among other things. Although going to work lowers his level of self-esteem, calm, and general happiness, he’s willing to do it for the opportunity to top off the sense of stability and security that having a decently stocked bank account gives him. It’s a trade-off.
This can only go for so long, though. After doing this for years and getting increasingly grumpier and hopelessly unpleasant to be around as time goes on, he’s discovered that in order to maintain the balance that he needs to keep the car running, he needs to take a week off every couple of months. He doesn’t get paid (he works on commission. He doesn’t want to talk about that, and we’ll respect his wishes), but he’s topping off several other systems when he does it. It’s a conscious decision based on an awareness of a specific need.
Self-care doesn’t have to be sweeping gestures like Bob’s week off. It can be smaller gestures, which acknowledge needing to feel a certain way on some level. One person I know decided to make a conscious effort to sit down and eat, using a non-disposable plate. “I feel more grounded, and it makes me feel better about the experience. I feel more like a person. It doesn’t take much extra time, and for some reason giving myself that experience changes the trajectory of the next couple of hours. So I do it.”
The ability to do this comes from noticing emotional needs and taking the time and effort to plan how to address them, even in a small way. It’s the ultimate in self-validation and compassion. You’re telling yourself, “I see you, and I’ve got you. You’re important to me and I want to give you what you need, to whatever degree I can without sacrificing too much of other important things.”
It’s not just about allowing yourself to take a week off or using real cutlery, either. Noticing that you need to initiate a difficult but crucial conversation about something that’s bothering you is self-care. So is enforcing a boundary that you don’t want trampled on. It’s difficult, and may lower some of the tanks in your emotional car, but it needs to be done in order to keep the car running.
This is very different from the pop-culture understanding of self-care. General society might have you believe that self-care is about adding activities, buying things, or going places. That might be true for some. Going to the spa, or meditating at the beach, staring at the waves, or treating yourself to ice cream could be pleasant. If it’s not serving a specific need, though, it’s not going to do the job you want it to do. What it will do, though, is ultimately deplete other areas in your life. You’ll end up having lower levels across the board, and not really gaining anything. It’s likely that it serves to distract from discomfort more than anything else. If that’s what you really need, that’s great. Go for it. It may not be the honest self-care you’re hoping for, though.
In a marriage, if your spouse says she’s bothered by the lack of affection, one would hope your reaction wouldn’t be to buy her mashed potatoes. That’s theoretically a good reaction to her saying that she’s hungry, but it won’t work if your response isn’t to the specific need. With a little patience, introspection, and self-awareness, we can learn to be aware of what we need as people, take care of ourselves properly, and help ourselves to be the most effective and balanced versions of ourselves possible.
Yeshaya Kraus, LCSW 