The term self-care by nature connotates individualism, that you’ll tend to yourself. But does that have to mean isolation? If you listen to or participate in the modern wellness industry, you’d likely get the idea that it does.
In this video, I argue that most of the common self-care recommendations and tools available — e.g., reading, meditating, taking a nice bath, journaling, or exercising — favor being alone. Although time by yourself absolutely can be restorative, the wellness industry fails people in that it does not more proactively encourage us to treat time with others as a necessary component of self-care.
Taking time with friends, volunteering, or engaging with others who can help, such as a life coach or therapist, is an incredibly important way to meet the social needs that good mental health requires. Put another way, sometimes, to take care of yourself, the best thing for you to do is to intentionally connect.
[Transcript summary]
So, I’m gonna get real with you for just a second. This has been one of the hardest years that I have ever experienced. And one of the things that people keep on telling me, and they’re really well intentioned, but they keep telling me, “Well, you gotta do more self care.” And they’ll always recommend, “Well, go exercise.” “Make sure you’re eating.” “Are you sure you’re getting sleep?” Like, all of these normal things that we hear about.
But the thing that keeps running through my mind when I hear those things is how isolated they are. Like, when you hear the word self-care, of course there’s that connotation that you’re doing it yourself. But I think we forget, as we hear all these things from the self-care industry that self-care also includes people. It also includes taking time with others so that you can be restored by their company and know that you’re not alone. Like, that is healing, that is for yourself, to be part of a group and know that you belong and have others to lift you up. That’s taking care of yourself, too, but I don’t hear about that a whole lot.
And so, I just want to have this message for you today that part of self-care does include going out, meeting people, being in groups, all of that stuff. It doesn’t have to be just, oh, take a bubble bath, read a book, right? Part of it is very interactive. That’s one of the best things you can do. Studies prove it, that if you get out and interact with people, that is wonderful for your mental health.
So, as you participate in the self-care industry, please don’t forget that it is absolutely 100 percent okay as part of self-care to be involved with others. Take care, everybody. Bye.