We've gotten self-care all wrong

and other ways we've lost the plot

The news cycle is a dumpster fire of horror, there is violence and destruction everywhere, my estrogen is dropping, and the consistent advice I’m given is self-care.

Lower your cortisol. Reduce stress. Get better sleep.

WTF?! I’m pretty sure my nervous system is on high alert because this shit is fucked up.

I think we got this whole self-care thing wrong.

Pretty sure it started with feminism taking a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

We fought for liberation, but ended up striving for a seat at the same table that was never built for us. A system that doesn’t value our fullness or serve the greater good.

We fought for equality, but to do so, we had to embody masculinity. Had to be decisive and cunning. Analytical and show no emotion. We had to prove we could be just as tough, cutthroat, and rigid as men to earn our power.

But we missed the plot.

Or maybe we needed to do that in the first place to even have a chance.

Boy, did we show up — in our power suits, with our fight on — to prove we could do the same jobs just as well, or better. We could build and lead and party with the good ol’ boys and attempt to be taken seriously. Could someone just take us seriously?

We’ve endured harassment, body commentary, unequal pay, bullying, and impossible expectations. We had to be flexible and easygoing, caring and calm, or risk being called difficult or a bitch.

We’ve had to fight for every right given. Right to vote. Right to own property. Right to have a credit card. Right to education. The list goes on and on.

And then. And then. We go home and are expected to soften. To mother. To nurture. To keep everything running and afloat. We are expected to put the same level of precision into the PTSA, summer camp schedules, healthy meals, magical holidays, staying skinny, staying content, staying young . . . and looking like it took zero effort at all.

Meanwhile, the very institutions we were fighting to belong to were quietly protecting men exploiting their power at the expense of the most vulnerable.

Of course we’re exhausted.

Add to that the experience of being queer or trans, BIPOC, an immigrant, dealing with mental illness, neurodiversity, or hell, peri-menopause, and I don’t know how any of us ever get out of bed.

So someone, somewhere, said, I need a goddamn nap. A bath. A hammock to lie in and just watch the sky.

But leave it to capitalism and patriarchy to turn a genuine response to collective exhaustion into a multi-million-dollar wellness industry.

And one more thing we’re supposed to strive for.

Don’t get me wrong, I have fallen to my knees praying to the gods of self-care, the deities of foot soaks and massage. But something felt off.

We shouldn’t need a “break” from the one life we get.

When did life become so unsustainable that we need to escape it?

And the self-care fed to us is hyper-independent. Lonely. Isolating. Of course it is. When our energy is bled dry, over-boundarying becomes our only option. Just five minutes in a quiet shower becomes necessary to simply remember who we are.

We are fighting a system with the same rules of the system.

What if we changed all the rules. Flipped the entire script on its head and rebuilt something from the ground up.

What if we lived into a post-capitalist matriarchy?

When we not only know our neighbors’ names, but walk each other’s dogs, take out each other’s trash, and empty each other’s dishwasher after a back injury leaves us unable to bend over — we recognize our interdependence.

When we sit with our elders over a cup of tea and learn from their stories, offer a new mama a break by showing up to take the baby on a walk, or cover childcare as a benefit for our employees — we center the most vulnerable.

When we sit in circle, think about what’s best for the whole, and honor every member of a team’s role and skill as equal — we replace hierarchies with supportive networks that actually hold.

We become well-resourced, nourished, and held by each other and ourselves.

Self-care is not the work. Our work is building a world where care is a birthright.

We can’t build this new world with the same rules and expectations of the old one. We will burn out. We will fail. Or we’ll win and recreate the same system in different clothes.

So we practice.

We integrate care for ourselves and our community as a form of resistance. A way to rehearse the world we want. Until it becomes a habitual practice built into our daily lives, embedded in the very fabric of our culture.

With this level of support, we have enough energy for untangling, dismantling, dreaming, and rebuilding.

Our care for self becomes an extension of our care for the collective. We feed ourselves as we build networks that feed those who are hungry. We rest, and then we hold space for the exhausted. We calm our nervous systems as we dismantle systems of fear and violence.

We become free as we work for collective liberation.

I’m so glad you’re here,
xo.a