Self-care is everywhere now. It’s in fashion. It’s a trend. It’s yours, but only if you can afford to buy into it. Capitalism has managed to convert a feminist concept into a host of products and offers. From expensive yoga passes to boujis sound baths nobody can afford and luxury bath bombs, self-care is being marketed to women in what’s actually a pretty insidious way.
If we’re honest about it, this mainstream model of ‘self-care’ is reactive and piecemeal. It focuses on what can only be described as individual acts of indulgence - often within a capitalist frame of buying something for yourself. Healers, massages, yoga, sound baths, expensive candles, nice meals. What does self-care even mean when you’re flat broke, renting or living under austerity? If your mental health is struggling because of systemic oppression, you can’t exactly treat yo’ self to liberation.
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Audre Lorde’s quote about ‘self-care as political warfare’ is thrown around like confetti these days. The statement was intended to be about survival as a black woman in white supremacist patriarchy, and thriving being an act of resistance against a system that seeks to crush you from all sides. However, it’s now a Facebook meme – devoid of any recognition of structural oppression – and almost always used out of context by people who don’t understand what she meant, let alone have ever read her work.
But even if you could afford it, what’s the use in going to £15-a-pop Bikram yoga classes if you’re still carrying ridiculous workloads, enduring toxic relationships and trying to be everything and please everyone, all the time?
Truly caring for ourselves means channeling our energy into nourishing ourselves and creating the communities we want, whilst building our resilience as a proactive strategy to stop burnout. Sometimes it’s as boring as cleaning our rooms or catching up on life admin to avoid further anxiety, and sometimes it’s as thrilling as finding real purpose and sense of self through safe spaces and activist communities.
We’re charmed by the school of self-care because we all desperately need a break. We’re so burned out and hanging by a thread in a world that’s eroding us that we’ll grasp at anything that gives us some relief. There’s nothing wrong with a hot bubble bath or some nice chocolate – but with a model of self-love that’s contingent on spending money, we’re not truly loving ourselves.
A more sustainable model for self-care is free and comes in the name of resilience. Resilience enables us to manage the challenges of our lives in a healthy way and prevents burnout and stress-related sickness.
Clinical Psychologist Dr Maxine Campion explains: ‘resilience does not mean carrying on regardless, it does not mean pushing through and getting over it, and it does not mean internalising. Resilience is about being adaptive. It is about being aware and getting support when you need it, and being able to notice your emotions and respond to them appropriately and effectively – at the right time’. This is constant work and not something to try and cultivate when you’re already burned out.
Resilience is a muscle that you need to work on. You’re not going to get hench overnight but if you keep working on it day by day, you’ll gradually build a strength you never imagined you’d have. But it takes work. Dr Campion states that true resilience is ‘becoming more in touch with yourself. Feeling safe to assert one’s needs, feelings and desires. Feeling worthy of your own time’ she continues: ‘it is critical to hold your own boundaries around your needs and your values in order to feel safe’. The best way to start cultivating resilience is by establishing personal boundaries and sticking to them, and ultimately having boundaries means that you value yourself.
In a world that seeks to suck everything from us – from physical to mental to emotional labour – boundaries are a truly radical act. In a society that teaches women to please, and where we know that our survival depends on working twice as hard as men (and even harder if you’re a woman of colour, disabled, or face any additional oppression on top of your gender), putting boundaries in place can feel selfish. But boundaries extend beyond just saying “no” to things you don’t want to do – having boundaries means establishing limits for yourself, and even harder - respecting them. It means actively asking for things for yourself, and carving out time for things that make you feel connected to your true self, your values, and your priorities - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is useful for this.
Dr Campion warned me: ‘if a person doesn’t experience boundaries, it can be terrifying. There must be a limit, everybody has one, and if this limit is unclear, a person has to keep pushing until they find it’. Without boundaries, we push ourselves to exhaustion, we become resentful, we get sick with stress and lack of sleep, and we lose our sense of perspective. But sticking to our boundaries means learning how to communicate them: this is not something we’re ever taught, and is a crucial skill that Dr Campion recommended the Centre For Non-Violent Communication’s resources on. Having boundaries means setting limits on our relationships with others (for example, making sure that emotional labour is a two-way street), but also ourselves: going out to a party, but not staying out until 6 am and feeling anxious and useless the next day.
We must also set limits on our own ridiculous expectations of ourselves; making sure you have time to rest at the weekend, scheduling in time for people who make you feel good about yourself, and not constantly driving yourself into despair through comparing yourself to others. Being ruthless with your boundaries and self-preservation means knowing when to say no to yourself if you’re way out of balance.
Ultimately, what we need instead of self-care is self-compassion. Compassion for yourself is the foundation for healthy boundaries, and it’s a far more radical, sustainable and cheaper method of ‘self-care’ than anyone can ever sell you.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.