Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and BubbleBaths Not Included)

by Pooja Lakshmin

By focusing on faux self-care—what I call the products and solutions marketed to us as remedies—we’ve conceptualized self-care all wrong. Faux self-care is largely full of empty calories and devoid of substance.

“We Don’t Need Self-Care; We Need Boundaries.”

as a solution for health-care worker burnout. Like in many industries, hospitals and medical groups were offering up “resilience training” as a solution to the burnout epidemic in clinicians. But despite these perks, there was no mention of paid time off, childcare subsidies, or real policy changes to support workers.

In a country without mandatory paid family leave and with astronomical childcare costs, parenthood can be an existential tipping point for women.

Revolutions that last don’t happen from the top down. They happen from the bottom up. GLORIA STEINEM

“I’m burned out, I just can’t do it anymore, and I feel like it’s my fault because I should be taking care of myself.”

As I mentioned earlier, this is faux self-care—the wellness behaviors and practices that are commonly sold as a remedy for women’s problems.

the 1970s and self-care moved from the medical community to activist circles, with the Black Panther Party promoting self-care as a means for Black Americans to preserve their humanity in the face of systemic racism. It was Black women who actualized the concept into public discourse.

Audre Lorde defined self-care as a powerful act to reclaim space within a society that demanded minorities and oppressed groups stay small or invisible.

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an a...

Researchers found that for those living with chronic illnesses, self-care in the form of exercise, healthy diet, stress management, and other lifestyle interventions was associated with better health outcomes.[8] Self-care

Faux self-care is a method—in the moment, going for a run might improve your mood, but it does nothing to change the circumstances in your life that led you to feel drained, energy-less, or down. On the other hand, the work of real self-care is about going deeper and identifying the core principles to guide decision-making. When you apply these principles to your life, you don’t just feel relief in the moment, you design a system of living that prevents the problems from coming up in the first place.

By deciding to stop breastfeeding, Shelby was turning to the principles of real self-care. She set boundaries

developed compassion for herself (by recognizing that resentment was building between her and her daughter, and her and her husband); identified her values (in prioritizing her relationships with her daughter and her husband); and asserted power (by using her agency to make a hard choice).

This was a welcome change for Monique, who in her real life did not allow herself to be cared for by others and instead relished the role of caregiver.

Her goal was to win, and to make sure the people in her life knew she was a winner. A selfie followed every yoga class. She obsessively charted her running times on a spreadsheet. Whatever activity she tackled, she had a meticulous internal measuring stick in her mind, and constantly judged herself to see if she measured up.

In Buddhist philosophy, hungry ghosts are described as skeletal creatures with long, thin necks and large potbellies that are constantly ravenous but never satiated.

been using self-care during her pregnancy as a report card for herself. In her mind, if she was perfect at self-care, it meant she was being a good mom to her baby and thus her delivery would go smoothly and her baby would be safe.

Other countries have social safety nets. The US has women. JESSICA CALARCO

This distinction between burnout and betrayal is critical: while burnout places the blame (and thus the responsibility) on the individual and tells women they aren’t resilient enough, betrayal points directly to the broken structures around them.

our patriarchal society has saddled women with the mental load—the cognitive and emotional burden that comes with running a household—and a series of paradoxical expectations, all of which understandably drive us to embrace faux self-care in our desperate search for a fix.

women were overwhelmingly the ones providing full-time childcare while simultaneously trying to work from home.

The journalist and writer Meg Conley uses the term multilevel marketing scheme to describe her experience. “Motherhood in America is a scam,” she wrote. “We’re told if we work hard enough, raise our children well enough, and faithfully support the American dream, then we’ll end up on top. No one ever mentions how the hierarchy of success is shaped like a pyramid.”

It’s a system that is set up not for mothers (or people of color or minorities) but instead as a piece of a larger system that continues to hold up the status quo. It’s remarkably clear that the people who benefit off of women’s labor and self-sacrifice are usually not women.

Reproductive labor is the work that must be done over and over again, is essential to life, and never has an end point: keeping the pantry stocked, making sure the car has gas, tending to the needs of elderly family members and children. The COVID-19 pandemic brought into broad daylight the distinction of what work is paid and unpaid, and who is doing this labor.

The unequal division of reproductive labor extends to the so-called mental load—remembering what’s already been done, what needs to be done, and what will need to be done.

you must be assertive in prioritizing your own needs and desires.

While women have long been taught to wait for permission to exert this type of control over our lives, we are the only ones who can give ourselves permission to practice real self-care.

It’s about saying this is what works for me, and this is what doesn’t. It’s having the audacity to say, “I exist and I matter.”

My boundary was in the pause.

Other people will have their own feelings about your boundaries, but they cannot create them. A boundary is about what you need to interact in the world.

The tension between what you need and what other people in your life expect of you is at the core of why setting boundaries is difficult for many women, and so let me make the link plainly:

Boundaries are hard not because you can’t identify yours, but because you are wor...

Facing guilt requires accepting the fact that we cannot control and are not responsible for the emotions of other people. To effectively say no we must learn to tolerate other people’s disappointment and trust that it is not a moral failing on our part.

As women, we are taught that others know better than us and not to trust our own intuition. We’re also taught to worry more about the backlash of our decisions than to consider the risks associated with betraying ourselves.

“your boundaries are a reflection of how willing you are to advocate for the life that you want.” [1]

She explains how common it is for women, who bear the heavy mental load of household CEO, to mistakenly believe that it’s smarter and easier for them to get all the little tasks done because their partners are less efficient and never get them done quite right. What these women don’t calculate is the resentment and rage that build up over years and years of just doing it all because it’s “easier and faster.” It may seem easier to do it all in the short term, but when it comes to boundaries, we need to be in it for the long haul. The goal is a system that operates through the work of multiple adults—not just you.

When stating a boundary, it’s not the time for wishy-washy language. Instead, you want to be direct and firm.

Don’t Ask for Permission Boundaries aren’t cocreated. Remember that you’re the one making the decision, and the other person is allowed to have their reaction.

Try Not to Overexplain It’s helpful to be concise with your boundary—whether

When you go on too long, trying to explain your decision to someone, it can come across as trying to ask for permission.

how she could possibly juggle her work, her family life, her own mental health, and so on when she must have had five gazillion balls in the air. Nora’s famous response was that the key to staying afloat was recognizing which of these balls were rubber and which were made of glass. You’ll need to drop some, but you want to make sure the ones that drop are rubber.

“I changed my mind is a full sentence.”

For women, beating ourselves up is practically second nature. Regardless of what choice this new mother made, in her mind it had been decided that she was failing. The concept that she was a person worthy of trust, goodwill, and compassion was remarkably foreign.

Replacing self-judgment with self-kindness 2. Recognizing your shared humanity 3. Being curious about negative thoughts instead of believing them as the immediate truth (psychological flexibility again)

How do you know if you’re falling into Martyr Mode? A telltale sign is when you extend yourself toward others and have an unspoken expectation that something—praise, support, attention—will be given in return. When that expectation is not met, you lose your cool and are secretly (or rather not so secretly) seething. Falling

Martyr Mode makes it feel like life is happening to you, as opposed to you being the agent of your own life.

Just like setting boundaries, saying yes to offers of help or support can feel quite uncomfortable. Partly, this is because American culture exalts individualism and stoicism.

We also dismiss and devalue the invisible labor that goes into caretaking work. As a result of this social conditioning,

women who have subtle or not-so-subtle anger lurking under the surface. Historically, our culture has not allowed women to feel their anger, and because of this, instead of turning toward their very real feelings of rage, my patients spend time asking if they are allowed to feel this way—if their feelings of anger are justified.