Self Care

Self care – just another tool of oppression or critical element in living a more authentic life?  Min max your self care practices and tailor them directly to your own needs by tapping into your own wisdom and insight.

What exactly is self care?  The Oxford English Dictionary (as provided by Google) defines self care as the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s health.  A secondary definition is the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.  

It is interesting how much is packed into a definition – so far we have the idea that self care involves action on our own part, that we need to protect, preserve or improve something and that that something is health, happiness and well being.  Furthermore, we need to do all this particularly in times of stress.

That is a lot of meaning to unpack, and contains some conflicting ideas, which is why the internet is full of conflicting advice on how to practice self care.  For example, is a bubble bath and a glass of wine self care?  How about reading a book and ignoring the dishes?  Is scrubbing the kitchen floor self care?  What about tidying the lego explosion in the playroom?  What if by tidying the lego explosion, you later have a sense of satisfaction (if not happiness) and avoid spraining your ankle because there isn’t stuff all over the floor – thus preserving your current state of health?  What is the difference between happiness and well being?  Should we be striving for happiness?

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Another important idea in the definition is that self care is a practice.  A practice is something you have to do regularly, that is imperfect, that incrementally moves you closer to your goals, whatever they are.  Another thing I would like to point out is that self care is going to be specific and personal.  Health, happiness and well being are personal attributes.  Happiness is not – “Be able to do 40 pushups.  Earn $1 million next year. Go on fifty dates with my partner in the next year.”

Self care is taking actions that you believe will protect, preserve or promote your health, well being and happiness.  So how do we know what health, wellbeing and happiness even are?  And how do we evaluate whether the actions we are taking are protecting, preserving and  promoting these qualities.  And fundamentally, how do we start to approach assessing actions we are taking and recognizing when actions which may have initially been helpful on this quest start to become damaging.  Most importantly, how do we approach this very important practice of caring for ourselves with love, self compassion and curiosity so that we can creatively evaluate our work?

Health

What exactly is health?  Can we be healthy if we are sick?  What about if we are disabled?  Can we be healthy if we are living in an unhealthy environment or system?  

Interestingly, the Oxford dictionary defines health as “being free from illness or injury”.  Does this mean that people who are experiencing illness and injury cannot be healthy or engage in self care and health promoting activities?  I think most of us would say of course not.  But it is important to recognize that many of us casually use the term healthy in an ableist fashion.  

“Is it a boy or a girl?” “I don’t care as long as it’s healthy.” “I love you no matter what you weigh; the important thing is that you’re healthy.” The HAES (Health At Every Size) movement, the TOFI (Thin Outside Fat Inside) movement – these ideas and common sayings emphasize that health is considered virtuous and if you are not healthy, and there is a component of fault involved, then you are somehow less deserving of love and support.

“Compassion is not only relevant to those who are blameless victims, but also to those whose suffering stems from failures, personal weakness, or bad decisions. You know, the kind you and I make every day.” 

― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

But all of us can engage in the practice of protecting, promoting and improving the health we have.  If we smoke cigarettes, we can smoke fewer of them.  If we use illicit drugs, we can access safe consumption sites for a healthier experience.  If we currently do not eat the recommended number of fruits and vegetables, we can start adding in more of these kinds of food into our diet.  If we currently have a very sedentary lifestyle, we can start by moving around in our homes more, or parking a little farther from work.  If we have limited physical capabilities, we can still nourish our bodies, limit intoxicants and get adequate rest.  If we have limited financial capabilities, we can still stop eating when we feel full and engage in free physical activity.

Happiness

Is there a more loaded word in the English language?  What is happiness?  Is the opposite of sadness?  The OED defines happy as “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment” and Wikipedia defines happiness as “ used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing and well-being.”

There are of course a range of positive emotions which one might label as “happy” and there are lots of tools, such as feelings wheels (side note, I tried to figure out who started feelings wheels and tripped across a number of feelings wheels – I have included a freely downloadable one from the Gottmann Institute) to help you figure out what specific feeling you are having.  

I think Danielle LaPorte’s book Desire Map is a great introduction to how many feelings are available to you and how you can choose the ones which resonate with you.  I am not so sure that choosing how you feel is directly available to you, but whether thoughts create feelings or feelings create thoughts, we certainly have a lot of agency over our beliefs and habitual thoughts and our routine emotional states.  The excellent book Resilient by psychologist Rick Hanson details how we can notice, intensify and absorb our positive feelings in order to counteract the natural human to be more affected by the negative.

So in the context of self care, happiness can mean the whole range of positive emotions.  In order to get good at providing appropriate self care to ourselves, we have to get good at tuning into what kind of “sadness” or negative emotion we are experiencing.  We don’t necessarily have to name the emotion but we do have to get good at deciding what perceived lack we are experiencing so that we can address this explicitly. 

It makes sense that if you are feeling lonely, buying yourself more stuff will not fix this feeling except for temporarily.  But that is the kind of things we humans are always trying with food, alcohol, work, shopping, exercise and so on.  If the loneliness is for a romantic partner, however, we may be able to address some of the perceived lack with friendship, nice dinner out, thoughtful flowers or chocolates, spoiling ourselves with a night in a luxury hotel even if we can’t order up a date on Amazon.

Well-being

Well-being is an even more elusive term.  The Oxford dictionary defines well-being as “the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.”  We have already talked about health and happiness, so let’s discuss comfort.  Does this definition mean that self-care is always going to be comfortable?  I can assure you that many activities you may choose to undertake in order to improve your health, happiness and well-being will not be comfortable.  Any ex-smoker will tell you that quitting smoking is the opposite of comfortable and yet this is an incredible act of self care, yielding substantial rewards in health.  Similarly, sticking to a budget, eating more vegetables and fewer chips, getting to bed at a decent hour, completing your work/school assignments and climbing to the top of a mountain are rather uncomfortable but deliver a rush of positive emotion, improved health and a sense of accomplishment, which is quite close to wellbeing.

I think many of the images and practices we associate with self-care are interconnected with this idea of comfort – a bubble bath, some chocolates, a fluffy blanket, a spa day, a massage.  And while taking natural pleasure from cleanliness, food, warmth and physical touch is of course a wonderful way to nurture our physical bodies and our emotional souls, discomfort is an integral part of growth, and growth is an integral part of the practice of self-care. 

Self-care is an active practice to preserve, protect and improve one’s health, happiness and well-being.  Katrina Ubell has an excellent podcast on this topic – Voluntary Discomfort vs. Mandatory Suffering in which she explores the idea that doing uncomfortable stuff now prevents suffering later.  She approaches this with a weight lens but the principles apply to all areas of our lives.  Uncomfortable conversations with colleagues, romantic partners, parents, siblings and children, for example, are necessary to have really functional relationships which contribute positively to well-being.

Stress

We make our way to the end of the definition: “in particular during times of stress.”  The Oxford dictionary defines emotional stress as “a state of emotional strain or tension resulting from very adverse or demanding circumstances.”  Stress is not necessarily negative – most people experience their first year as parents as a demanding circumstance, or their first few months on a new job, or after having moved.  You can take an inventory of your current stress level with Holmes-Rahe assessment. Stress can of course, be more negative in valence, and I want to emphasize that the most fundamental human needs include safety and connection.  Threats to safety are not uncomfortable; they are dangerous.

Under stressful circumstances, then, the regular practice of self care is even more important than ever.  I will attempt to persuade you in the following blog posts that it is critically important to identify what emotional strain you are under (what negative emotion you are experiencing) so that you can consciously identify the corresponding positive emotion which will address the lack perceived and then generate that positive emotion through specific thoughts and actions (which may result in temporary discomfort).  

Many of these actions will have general applicability and minimal downsides, such as meditation, mindfulness, regular sleep patterns and so on.  Some will have positive effects when done in moderation such as eating food, engaging in hedonistic practices such as massages and bubble baths, sexual intimacy, cleaning your house, exercising and work (but with a potential to over do).  Some will have very limited benefit beyond the immediate future and should be thoughtfully assessed as to whether you wish to continue to include them regularly in your lives – this includes alcohol, extreme sports, retail therapy and “junk” food.  Finally are the more maladaptive actions aimed at increasing a sense of pleasure – the use of substances, sex, gambling in a hijacking of natural pleasure pathways for an ever diminishing return of pleasure.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this post.  Feel free to reach out by email at info@daniellemichaelsmd.com or leave a comment.