On Self Care

Let’s talk about self care, the good, the bad, and the complexities.

We throw around words like “wellness” and “self care” a lot without fully qualifying them. As an academic and scientist and human-who-cares-too-much-about-too-many-things, I spend a lot of time navigating, learning, and re-learning how to care for my body and brain. Turns out, it’s not so simple.

It’s not simple because self-care doesn’t always look the same every day for me, and it certainly does not look the same for every human. Some days self care is a bath robe, a nap, a bubble bath with that killer bath bomb, a massage, and hell yes to a glass of wine. That’s the kind of self care we often promote (and share photos of) - and that kind of self care, that ability to spend time and money on our well-being - is really important.

But in reality, true self care also means that some days you sit down and get those nagging emails done, you re-organize that desk drawer, you don’t buy that new skin care line and save your money and your financial anxiety.

I have to remind myself often that I can’t buy self care. That taking care of myself is adaptive - and takes so much longer than a face mask (though there’s lots of room for those too).

Self care is showing up for yourself. Self care is recognizing your burnout, knowing that your worth is not dependent on or correlated to your productively. Self care allows us to bring the best of ourselves to this world. Make space for it. No matter what your hustle is.