With the Holiday season in full swing, many of us will feel overextended at some point.
Holidays hold a lot of emotional triggers. This is equally true if you’re a fan of the season, if you are one to fully embrace your inner Grinch (which is ok—you’re allowed), or if you are anywhere in between. No matter where we fall on that spectrum, during the upcoming weeks, all of our senses will be bombarded with messages meant to elicit the strongest possible reaction. And that’s exhausting.
Enter self-care.
So, back to my original interrogation: are you worthy of self-care? That was a trick question; of course you are!
Are you a human living on this planet? If yes, then you are worthy of self-care. (And, if no, I’m extremely curious to know what kind of being you are, and how you found this blog!)
Perhaps I should have phrased it this way: do you deem yourself worthy of self-care?
I feel like we live in a culture where self-care is seen as indulgent, rather than essential. And not that “indulging” is necessarily viewed as a bad thing, but it’s definitely seen as superfluous, or as a prize that should be won through a certain measure of selflessness.
But believing that we should put others systematically ahead of us, effectively making ourselves last, isn’t serving anyone. It creates a culture of martyrdom. We feel that we can’t righteously create a space for self-care, and yet we go around hoping that others will understand the type of care that we need (because we all need some measure of it, let’s not be delusional here).
Expecting others to take care of us is cheating ourselves. Not stating our needs and hoping for others to “get it” and being disappointed when they don’t is a cheap cop-out. We need to eliminate the guesswork.
Know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.
Socrates
Oftentimes, we’re not affirming our needs because we choose to remain oblivious to them. True self-awareness can be a daunting undertaking: uncomfortable at best, and sometimes forcing us through downright painful roads to get to where we want to go.
When we have to be very clear—both to ourselves and others—about what we need, it requires a level of honesty which uncovers a lot of vulnerability for many of us. If we are used to deriving a lot of our worth from that celebrated state of martyrdom, getting dirty with that vulnerability certainly seems off-putting.
But let’s stop kidding ourselves. All that martyrdom creates, in the end, is resentment. No matter on which side of this equation we find ourselves, we are either holding others to very skewed standards—and feeling cheated because we are *still* the ones doing all the work—or we feel that we are being *judged* by someone else’s skewed standards, and how dare they?
If we aren’t telling ourselves that we deserve our own space and care, then not only are we not getting it, but we are constantly relaying the concept that taking care of oneself isn’t important, that it’s selfish.
And others are watching, absorbing these damaging messages, and probably replicating them.
We often hear that it’s important to take care of ourselves, so that we can in turn take better care of others.
I have a MAJOR issue with that.
Let me be clear: taking care of others isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. In fact, it can be downright wonderful, and help create a much better world. I’m a fan of caretaking, truly!
My issue is in the insidious message where the only justification that we can have for wanting to “indulge” in self-care is so that we can give back. I feel that by doing so, we are simply perpetuating narratives stating that our only worth is in what we can give others.
Not only does that still reek of martyrdom, in my humble opinion, but it corners us in a space where we are defining ourselves only in relation to others, and not as the individuals that we are. And while there is certainly much joy to be found in all of our relationships, if we define ourselves solely based on them, we are remaining blind to a large part of our essence.
Looking in is just as important as looking out. We are more than our link to others. Each one of us, in our messy uniqueness, deserves impeccable care—not in a “special snowflake” kind of way, but purely because we are here.
Unabashedly human.
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