Why I want to write about self-care today: It has become something we talk about a lot, my friends and I. I’m part of a community of activists and people who have made it their life’s work to fix broken systems. I have a friend who works to protect young humans from being trafficked. Another friend teaches women to free themselves from patriarchy and poverty. Another one who has spent the past seven years building an ecosystem where the poor can build lives of dignity through entrepreneurship. There are many more: the universe seems to randomly assign responsibility — “Here, you look like you could deal with this particular bit of injustice. Please spend the next 70 years of your life on this. There may be some rewards for you on the way in exchange for the blood, sweat and tears. Thank you.” It is difficult work, this chipping on the rough edges of injustice, and it leaves people bruised and scarred. This community of workers may also be the most likely to neglect their well-being. If you head the only organization in UP which teaches children in low-income communities to not only dream ambitious dreams but also that girls and boys are equal, every day that you take off work means a certain number of children get left behind. When you’ve spent years running a shelter home for the Delhi’s urban poor, taking time to simply rest and breathe may feel like an act of uncaring self-indulgence.
It’s not surprising that people working in the impact sector are so prone to getting burnt out. But I have other friends too — doctors, mothers, entrepreneurs — about whom I worry, that they need care (and self-care) and are not getting it. The other reason why I wanted to write this piece was that I’ve become a sort of self-styled, semi-expert in this area. Between 2014 and 2019, I’ve taken three sabbaticals from professional work. These breaks lasted three months, four months and five months respectively, and each was an absolute gift. My sabbaticals get me a lot of attention. Most of it is positive or neutral — there is admiration, curiosity (“I want to know what you did with all that time?”), sometimes, envy. Rarely, there has also been judgement towards the obvious implication of a secure socio-economic status. I accept both the admiration and the judgement — it is indeed a mixture of courage and privilege that have permitted me to take time off work and invest in full-time self-care projects. Leaving these caveats behind (for now), and for the sake of argument, let’s at least assume that I’m a serious practitioner of self-care. This practice has taught me a few things which I would like to articulate, with the hope that they serve as tools for people looking to design their own self-care journeys.
Insights from my intensive self-care practice: Like a true ex-consultant, my list of insights started out as a three-point list, but a recent conversation with a very dear friend helped me uncover a huge blind spot, so I now have four points:
1- Self-care ≠ self-indulgence. And it’s not skin-care either, as Instagram hashtags will have you believe. So before self-care gets permanently trivialised into trite phrases like “me-time”, let’s say it together: self-care is not self-indulgence. It’s not a numbing-out or work avoidance. What is it then? A potential placeholder definition could be strategic investment in the self. I see it as well-thought out, specific actions that I take to protect and preserve this bag of skin, bones, neurons and power that is me. We all need to figure out what these actions are for ourselves, but these are carefully planned activities which stem from the understanding that we deserve to feel happy and valuable, to experience joy, to fill up our own buckets as we continue to give.
To give the devil its due, self-indulgence is not a bad thing at all. It may form an important part of one’s overall self-care tool box, which like all the best toolboxes, has to be personalized.
2 — It is incredibly difficult to start, and to continue, the investment in your self. Resistance to self-care comes from multiple sources, outside and inside. I already mentioned the judgment that I’ve experienced — that to invest in your well-being is an act of privilege, an unkind showing off of your economic advantages. Another weapon is ridicule — oh this is the new bit of hokeyness you’re going to indulge in now? Self-care is a power tool which is in very real danger of getting lost in same eye-roll-worthy-ideas-world which is home to “self-help”. This ridicule is my scariest personal demon, and the biggest reason why I share my journey of self-care with less pride than I should. A lot of resistance to investment in the self also comes from the inner critic. My inner critic uses the dreaded “selfishness” label. Hello, if you’re going to look after yourself over the next one hour, who’s going to carry the seventeen mountains that you’ve been carrying all this while?
3–It cannot be done alone. Once we acknowledge that it is a difficult task to undertake, the next logical step is to build the resources for the self-care project. Whose responsibility is it? Am I suggesting we add one more to-do-item on that list (and mind and heart) that’s rapidly running out of space? Not at all. Family, friends, communities, organizations need to show up as sources of strength and need to be partnered with. But first they need be asked. Delegating, sharing responsibilities, asking for support are not only strategic, these are also acts of love and trust. Asking for help may end up being the toughest thing to do. It was for me.
4- It can transform everything. This is my answer to why even bother doing something that sounds so hard, especially that asking for help bit. Because it can change everything — health, work, spirituality, productivity. And the thing we care most about — impact. Why not invest in something that makes us more effective workers, something that allows us to engage with our work with curiosity, energy and strength, rather than as mountains weighing us down? Only when we fill our own buckets do we have something to give. Only when we’re the healthiest versions of ourselves can we chase the purpose that the universe in all her randomness gifted to us. When I stopped feeling overwhelmed by everything I needed to do, I found myself able to do more.
I connect deeply with these lines from one Shelly Tygielski, who is a ‘self-care activist’ (I love that so much, I’m going to call myself that too) — “Yes, there is still work to be done. A lot of work to be done. But we don’t need to do it today. Today we can rest. Tomorrow we can rest. And then the next day and the next. We can pre-game for the holidays and think about all that we have to be grateful for, personally, and collectively. And then, those who are ready can rise up, dust off, unravel and lift up the rest of us.”
I also want to talk more specifically about my own journey of self-care. It will need to be a separate piece. I approached the process with my usual pattern: with a list of goals, sub-goals, tasks and deliverables. There has been rigorous self-experimentation, intensive journaling, brutal self reflection and long conversations with incredibly generous friends. It’s an ongoing process, but I will share interim results soon. If I had to sum up my biggest gifts from the process, it would be that I have learned to unapologetically protect some bits of time and energy, and to give my self the same amount of compassion that I give to my friends.
My hope here is to start a conversation on self-care, to normalize it, to have my friends start designing some self-experiments, even small ones. And when it fits in my unprotected time, I will make myself available to help with these experiments. Please ask.
