I am here to tell you that this self-care movement is a crock of shit.

Annnddd let me tell you why.

Think about the times in your life when you've felt really whole. When you've felt complete. When you've thought to yourself, "This is it. I am fulfilling my purpose. I feel good about who I am."
Now maybe I'm a lone ranger here, but I'm gonna guess that I'm not. I'm also gonna guess that you didn't have this life fulfilling self-realization when you were lying in the tub with a face mask on and cucumbers over your eyes.

I'm not saying that you should stop taking care of yourself and your body. I'm not saying you shouldn't make time to relax. But ALL. OF. THIS. current worldly focus on "self-care" is honestly bizarre to me. Everyone's been talking about it and it's been a constant buzzword--like it's the most important thing we could ever do.

A big part of the reason it bothers me so much is just in the way it is depicted. Self-care is portrayed as pedicures and splurging on yourself, taking baths and spending money, going out to dinner and getting your hair done. True self-care? It ain't pretty. It is ugly and arduous.

If you truly want to take care of yourself, feel better about who you are and evolve as a human being, it requires grueling work. Having some honest, gut-wrenching conversations with yourself to pinpoint your faults and be honest about the ways you affect the people in your life. It requires discipline and self-restraint to STOP making bad, rash decisions about your money, goals, health and world view. True self-care is developing self-awareness. Being aware of how you make others feel. Making the harder decision to not splurge when it is irresponsible to do so. Choosing to do the hard work now that you've been avoiding for months or years. To better yourself. To write the resume, tackle your unhealthy thoughts with thought-replacement, have difficult conversations with the people you've hurt, apologize, cut back on unhealthy habits, procrastinating less, taking action more, giving more of your time to others, wasting less time on timeline scrolling and napping, waking up early, refusing to let your fears and discomforts control your decisions and focusing less on a ego-centric mindset.

In my opinion, the modern depiction of self-care is actually, on the contrary, quite unhealthy. I think it encourages procrastination and irresponsibility. It fuels laziness and stunts real growth. Basking in frivolous moments of luxury and self-indulgence probably isn't going to make us any feel better about ourselves. And even if it does, is it really for more than a fleeting moment?

If we're to truly nurture ourselves--mind, body and soul, we must acknowledge that we are not the only people in our lives that matter. Focusing less on ourselves in a selfish way and more on our impact in a greater sense.

For me? This has meant taking a painful look at myself. Acknowledging that my daughter deserves and requires more of my full, undivided, undistracted attention in a day. Realizing that my anxiety interferes with the way I treat others. Seeing that I have projected pain and hurt onto my boyfriend by making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. Realizing that I have acted out of jealousy and selfishness. And I have been trying fiercely to replace my stream of negative thoughts. To stop making excuses and pushing important things off. Working on all of this is hard work, agonizing at times. But that's exactly what makes it important. It's the only type of care that we will come out of feeling truly transformed, truly productive and most importantly, truly self-loving.

xoxo