When Self-Care Feels Like Yet Another “Should”
Self-care is something we’ve heard an awful lot about in recent years. As more of us awaken to how damaging hustle culture and the glorification of busyness can be, we’re encouraged instead to prioritize creating space for self-care.
There are endless books, articles and podcasts reminding us of the importance of reducing stress and managing overwhelm by engaging in self-care practices that sustain and support our overall health and well-being.
And yet.
While most of us are drawn to the idea of replenishing our reserves and taking care of our needs so that we aren’t always running on empty, self-care can often feel like another “should” for women who are already juggling multiple roles and responsibilities.
This is especially true of women in midlife who are routinely caring for children, parents, spouses, pets, navigating hormones, and often also holding down full-time employment. Suffice to say that overwhelm is not unfamiliar.
If we’re not able to weave in the requisite amount of time for self-care, we can feel as though this is another area in our lives in which we’re failing. Self-care simply becomes something else to add to our already burgeoning To-Do-List.
Ask any busy woman in her forties or fifties, and she’ll tell you that the last thing she wants or needs is another task to deal with. Even if it’s one that is supposed to help nourish her.
What we often overlook is that self-care is sold as a solution to surviving a system that doesn’t truly center our optimum health.
Productivity is so deeply ingrained in many of our cultures that we’ve become accustomed to attaching a moral value to over-exerting ourselves. Case in point, Instagram has 4.2 million posts using #riseandgrind. No wonder so many of us are on the edge of burnout.
Instead of recognizing that the system itself is flawed, the onus is on us to create more space to adequately bolster ourselves so we can continue to show up in it.
But the knowledge that we’re sticking a self-care band aid on a deeper rooted issue isn’t an instant fix. Awareness alone doesn’t automatically change anything. It takes time and energy to dismantle systems that don’t serve us. Our societies cling to the ideals we have collectively accepted, and a shift in culture requires persistence and patience.
So how can we help ourselves in the meantime?
We can start by reviewing how many of our self-care practices are happening in isolation. While there are many benefits to spending time in solitude, especially for those of us who identify as introvert, sometimes what we’re really craving is being held in community.
In the words of Nakita Valerio: ”Shouting "self-care" at people who actually need "community care" is how we fail people.”
If we only focus on restorative rituals that are solo endeavors, we’re denying ourselves an opportunity to access the care that being in community can bring. There’s nothing quite like being witnessed and uplifted by others, especially in an environment where there’s commonality and structured support.
Studies show that being in a group of people with like-minded values and interests can help to boost our self-esteem and increase our sense of purpose and identity. This is a great example of how community care can directly impact self-care. Rather than being either/or, the two are often intertwined.
Note: boundaries are helpful in ensuring the lines between community participation and self-preservation don’t get too blurred.
Accepting every invitation to every group gathering isn’t likely to feel nourishing for any of us. However, choosing community spaces that are specifically set up to support our needs and desires can be hugely beneficial in helping us feel connected, inspired and recharged.
But how do we stop community care from being yet another buzzword that sounds great but isn’t something we know how to easily incorporate into our lives?
In real terms, community care has the potential to take on different forms. It can be a support group set up to offer respite to those impacted by a terminal illness, or it can be a motivational group that provides tools to help members increase their confidence.
Our families and friends can also be an integral part of our community care circle when they provide us with solid and dependable relationships, offer us a sense of belonging and help to strengthen our resilience.
The idea is that the community has a shared goal or mission, and that each person within the community feels supported as part of that overall goal. Effective community care achieves its goals by making them less labor intensive for any one individual, and also by elevating the group as a whole.
There’s no limit on community size, either. It can be a handful of people or hundreds of thousands.
Self-care practices usually have compassion at their core, but they miss the mark when they’re relied upon as a means of addressing burnout caused by systemic issues.
For example, bubble baths alone aren’t likely to create much in the way of change when it comes to addressing social inequity. In those cases, we need care in the form of education, awareness and, ultimately, changes in value systems.
Similarly, reading a book for an hour before bedtime might offer a woman in midlife some respite from the day, but it won’t necessarily provide her with the empathy or understanding she needs to feel seen and supported in her life.
Community care gives us a deeper sense of our relationship to one another, and how we can each contribute towards shaping a healthy and healed society. It takes us out of our heads, steering us away from individualism, without asking us to compromise our identities. It offers us a chance to share the load in unity, while recognizing that each experience is unique.
Access to the right kind of community care enhances and enriches our lives so that we’re not so heavily reliant on self-care as a remedy, but able to enjoy it as a ritual instead.
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