The local school district, which happens to be my employer, posted something about self care on their Facebook page last night.
I’m currently laying in bed, engaging in what I call “Dread Care.” 20% of the school’s teaching staff called in sick today. The principal is out as well. This means that today will be yet another day where I’m pulled in every direction yet the direction of doing my actual job. I’m significantly behind on my actual job. I worked a full 8 hours during Monday’s holiday, plus several more hours over the past weekend. I’m not close to being caught up.
I brought these feelings up to my mentor. She suggested self care.
The problem is that between the shitty Facebook post from my employer and the shitty advice from my mentor, the suggestion of self care makes it sound as if I’m the one that’s failing. The issue is that the K-12 education system has so many systemic challenges that land on the individuals within the system to solve.
But screaming self-care means that we can avoid any potential solutions that require any stakeholders other than those doing the work to make any changes.
Beyond self-care, women also get bombarded with the message that wine - and alcohol in general - is their refuge. The whole “mommy juice” ethic worries me constantly. (I gave up drinking at Thanksgiving, 2019, so I may notice it more now that I live sober.) Wine doesn’t solve anything; the health effects are canceled out after one occasional glass, and it might even make all that stress worse.
My first thought in reading even the beginning of this interview was to remember how it felt when one of my daughters came home with a dramatic, frightening, and life changing illness that would require lots of experimentation, crises, and set-backs for the rest of her life ... and a friend of mine told me what I needed was a good massage. The level of misunderstanding of the situation, of what pain is, the trivialization, were shocking and painful to me. Please no one ever offer this kind of advice in such a situation!
It's so helpful and validating to see self-care reframed within the context of systemic oppression. I loved Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book BURNOUT for the same reason: it's feminist self-help. They go so far as to say that people don't need self-care, they need community care. If you want a taste, their excellent, conversational podcast The Feminist Survival Podcast breaks down a lot of the evidence-based strategies they offer.
This is perfect. Literally just the other day, I said, "I always read self-help books and then I get mad because they focus exclusively on individual solutions to systemic problems, like that isn't right there in the name of the genre." Then along comes this interview and this book! I put in a purchase request at my local library immediately.
I really appreciate the framing of self-care as the internal work behind the external activity. That yoga can be truly self-care, or maybe not so much. And that all the self care in the world isn’t going to change/heal one’s systemic barriers. This interview (and I’m going to have to read the book!) helped me put a finger on why I find bath bombs/scented candles/face masks so unsatisfying as offerings to achieve “wellness.” (I actually, weirdly, find bath bombs enraging as a thing that exists, probably because of all this).
Such an important topic and insightful interview! I appreciated Dr. Lakshmin's wide-angle view on self-care. There is one side to the traditional self-care model that’s about empowerment and self-efficacy. And there's some good to that, but I'm glad to read about it being challenged. Because it seems the other side is rooted in responsibility and blame culture. If you’re able to help yourself, then it must be your own fault if “you alone” can’t fix it. And it’s always been used to convince people, especially women, to buy crap they don’t need and most likely won’t help. Now in microtargeted ways. And I know I've been one of them.
As a pharmacist, I also think about self-care from a healthcare perspective. There’s so much evidence that shows what people need are healthy communities, rather than lists to-do and things to buy. Living a generally healthy lifestyle, should be the default. But that’s so not the reality. It takes an enormous effort— and privilege — to do so, and we’re seeing that lead to declining generational health. And even more concerning, good health and wealth are becoming more closely linked than in recent generations.
The good news is that we know we need to shift the focus in healthcare, but I have no idea how long it might take to actually implement systemic changes.
I am highly resistant to therapy as self-care, and that is not to denigrate the inherent worthiness of therapy itself. Yet I strongly feel the current obsession with therapy as The Solution to most modern problems is that an individual therapy practice ignores the social, political and context of so many modern ills. Therapy, and self-care in general, often reinforce a very self-centered, self-conscious and frankly selfish worldview that I personally see as the heart of current American miseries.
We need community. We need friends. We need people to hold us up and hug is hard when we are down. We need to deeply give a shit about other people, and to feel that care around us.
We need a government that sees us as a society and not consumers or productivity producing units.
I have never had a bath bomb bath, and I don't think I am missing much. I fired my therapist, because I accidentally started a group of a dozen women who meet a few times a week to help each other in practical, physically tangible and emotional ways.
There are other solutions out there. Please tell me some of yours.
I cried several times reading this. I feel so seen and validated in the last 3 years of blowing up my life and slowly piecing it back together, in a way that is very, very rare.
Thank you for this wonderful, insightful interview! These words from Dr. Lakshmin really stuck out to me: “In other words, it’s not really about the Thing — it’s about the process you take to get there.” I think that wisdom sums it up so perfectly, or at least has been the “aha” work for my own journey with self care over the last 10 years. I look forward to reading more of Dr. Lakshmin’s work!
I once fell into the trap of teaching mindfulness workshops for my federal government Department - being a big believer in meditation given that it has greatly enriched my life and reduced my anxiety significantly. After about ten months however, I noticed that the people who most wanted me to come teach to their work groups the most were the authoritarian managers with morale problems in their teams. From what I could tell, they wanted to use mindfulness as a way to put the team problems back on employees to solve as individuals by "doing their own work". I removed myself from that project as a result as I have no interest making structural problems or issues of harassment and bullying the responsibility of the individual in my workplace. As this interview points out (I look forward to reading the book) self-care, mindfulness, etc only go as far as the materiality of our situation allows.
You might be interested in the book Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood and Supremacy. Emily Paulson weaves all of these themes (self care, cults, white privilege) into her time at an MLM. I will ask her to email you about an ARC!
This gave me complex feelings. I'm glad she acknowledged the significant amount of privileged she has that allowed her step back and rebuild her life. I don't think the the message "we don’t need self-care; we need boundaries” is in itself bad. I just have complex feelings around advice about setting boundaries when my work experience has been characterized by violence, and health care *demands* compliance. Boundaries are important, yet they a more likely to succeed in more power-balanced relationships.
Here's a thought I had while feeding my barn animals this morning.
You need to "do more self care" is the modern version of:
- you need to go to church more
- you need to pray more
- you need to confess more
I am an atheist, but I grew up in a mix of jewish and christian communities. I'll spare y'all any rants about the downsides of religion, I am sure they are well known to most or all of you.
I will also fully and freely admit that at least religious institutions provide a local tangible community and a free therapist in the form of a priest/rabbi.
I had a policy analysis professor in grad school who got very animated in lectures and would say “WHAT IS THE PROBLEM” loudly and often. His point was that often policy fails because we haven’t really identified the problem so of course the solution doesn’t work.
I really appreciate Dr. Lakshmim for naming the actual problem and addressing the problem.
The local school district, which happens to be my employer, posted something about self care on their Facebook page last night.
I’m currently laying in bed, engaging in what I call “Dread Care.” 20% of the school’s teaching staff called in sick today. The principal is out as well. This means that today will be yet another day where I’m pulled in every direction yet the direction of doing my actual job. I’m significantly behind on my actual job. I worked a full 8 hours during Monday’s holiday, plus several more hours over the past weekend. I’m not close to being caught up.
I brought these feelings up to my mentor. She suggested self care.
The problem is that between the shitty Facebook post from my employer and the shitty advice from my mentor, the suggestion of self care makes it sound as if I’m the one that’s failing. The issue is that the K-12 education system has so many systemic challenges that land on the individuals within the system to solve.
But screaming self-care means that we can avoid any potential solutions that require any stakeholders other than those doing the work to make any changes.
Beyond self-care, women also get bombarded with the message that wine - and alcohol in general - is their refuge. The whole “mommy juice” ethic worries me constantly. (I gave up drinking at Thanksgiving, 2019, so I may notice it more now that I live sober.) Wine doesn’t solve anything; the health effects are canceled out after one occasional glass, and it might even make all that stress worse.
My first thought in reading even the beginning of this interview was to remember how it felt when one of my daughters came home with a dramatic, frightening, and life changing illness that would require lots of experimentation, crises, and set-backs for the rest of her life ... and a friend of mine told me what I needed was a good massage. The level of misunderstanding of the situation, of what pain is, the trivialization, were shocking and painful to me. Please no one ever offer this kind of advice in such a situation!
It's so helpful and validating to see self-care reframed within the context of systemic oppression. I loved Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book BURNOUT for the same reason: it's feminist self-help. They go so far as to say that people don't need self-care, they need community care. If you want a taste, their excellent, conversational podcast The Feminist Survival Podcast breaks down a lot of the evidence-based strategies they offer.
This is perfect. Literally just the other day, I said, "I always read self-help books and then I get mad because they focus exclusively on individual solutions to systemic problems, like that isn't right there in the name of the genre." Then along comes this interview and this book! I put in a purchase request at my local library immediately.
I really appreciate the framing of self-care as the internal work behind the external activity. That yoga can be truly self-care, or maybe not so much. And that all the self care in the world isn’t going to change/heal one’s systemic barriers. This interview (and I’m going to have to read the book!) helped me put a finger on why I find bath bombs/scented candles/face masks so unsatisfying as offerings to achieve “wellness.” (I actually, weirdly, find bath bombs enraging as a thing that exists, probably because of all this).
Such an important topic and insightful interview! I appreciated Dr. Lakshmin's wide-angle view on self-care. There is one side to the traditional self-care model that’s about empowerment and self-efficacy. And there's some good to that, but I'm glad to read about it being challenged. Because it seems the other side is rooted in responsibility and blame culture. If you’re able to help yourself, then it must be your own fault if “you alone” can’t fix it. And it’s always been used to convince people, especially women, to buy crap they don’t need and most likely won’t help. Now in microtargeted ways. And I know I've been one of them.
As a pharmacist, I also think about self-care from a healthcare perspective. There’s so much evidence that shows what people need are healthy communities, rather than lists to-do and things to buy. Living a generally healthy lifestyle, should be the default. But that’s so not the reality. It takes an enormous effort— and privilege — to do so, and we’re seeing that lead to declining generational health. And even more concerning, good health and wealth are becoming more closely linked than in recent generations.
The good news is that we know we need to shift the focus in healthcare, but I have no idea how long it might take to actually implement systemic changes.
I am highly resistant to therapy as self-care, and that is not to denigrate the inherent worthiness of therapy itself. Yet I strongly feel the current obsession with therapy as The Solution to most modern problems is that an individual therapy practice ignores the social, political and context of so many modern ills. Therapy, and self-care in general, often reinforce a very self-centered, self-conscious and frankly selfish worldview that I personally see as the heart of current American miseries.
We need community. We need friends. We need people to hold us up and hug is hard when we are down. We need to deeply give a shit about other people, and to feel that care around us.
We need a government that sees us as a society and not consumers or productivity producing units.
I have never had a bath bomb bath, and I don't think I am missing much. I fired my therapist, because I accidentally started a group of a dozen women who meet a few times a week to help each other in practical, physically tangible and emotional ways.
There are other solutions out there. Please tell me some of yours.
I cried several times reading this. I feel so seen and validated in the last 3 years of blowing up my life and slowly piecing it back together, in a way that is very, very rare.
Thank you for this.
Thank you for this wonderful, insightful interview! These words from Dr. Lakshmin really stuck out to me: “In other words, it’s not really about the Thing — it’s about the process you take to get there.” I think that wisdom sums it up so perfectly, or at least has been the “aha” work for my own journey with self care over the last 10 years. I look forward to reading more of Dr. Lakshmin’s work!
I once fell into the trap of teaching mindfulness workshops for my federal government Department - being a big believer in meditation given that it has greatly enriched my life and reduced my anxiety significantly. After about ten months however, I noticed that the people who most wanted me to come teach to their work groups the most were the authoritarian managers with morale problems in their teams. From what I could tell, they wanted to use mindfulness as a way to put the team problems back on employees to solve as individuals by "doing their own work". I removed myself from that project as a result as I have no interest making structural problems or issues of harassment and bullying the responsibility of the individual in my workplace. As this interview points out (I look forward to reading the book) self-care, mindfulness, etc only go as far as the materiality of our situation allows.
You might be interested in the book Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood and Supremacy. Emily Paulson weaves all of these themes (self care, cults, white privilege) into her time at an MLM. I will ask her to email you about an ARC!
Hoooo boy there's a lot here that resonates with things I've been wrestling with/working through over the last few years.
This gave me complex feelings. I'm glad she acknowledged the significant amount of privileged she has that allowed her step back and rebuild her life. I don't think the the message "we don’t need self-care; we need boundaries” is in itself bad. I just have complex feelings around advice about setting boundaries when my work experience has been characterized by violence, and health care *demands* compliance. Boundaries are important, yet they a more likely to succeed in more power-balanced relationships.
Here's a thought I had while feeding my barn animals this morning.
You need to "do more self care" is the modern version of:
- you need to go to church more
- you need to pray more
- you need to confess more
I am an atheist, but I grew up in a mix of jewish and christian communities. I'll spare y'all any rants about the downsides of religion, I am sure they are well known to most or all of you.
I will also fully and freely admit that at least religious institutions provide a local tangible community and a free therapist in the form of a priest/rabbi.
I had a policy analysis professor in grad school who got very animated in lectures and would say “WHAT IS THE PROBLEM” loudly and often. His point was that often policy fails because we haven’t really identified the problem so of course the solution doesn’t work.
I really appreciate Dr. Lakshmim for naming the actual problem and addressing the problem.