Self care as a radical act

Collective healing

Photo by Martin Woortman on Unsplash

In an earlier Post, Breathing, back pain, and self care, there’s a list of self care activities I offered. Here they are for review:

1) Sit outside and read

2) Take a stroll and just enjoy the sounds, the sights, and the outdoors without monitoring my steps, my speed, or my heart rate

3) Self-massage, especially during the Winter- my skin gets so dry!

4) Light a candle or incense

5) Take an extra-long shower and remember to apply oil on my damp skin

6) Polish my fingernails and sit still long enough for them to dry

7) Listen to music and dance

8) Write in a journal

9) Rest with nothing particular to do, let my mind wander

10) Tantric meditation (this is a newer practice for me)

This list has not sat well with me and I’d like to re-visit the act of self care. First off, I think it’s important for me to acknowledge my social privilege and relationship to power as it relates to self care. I am a white, cisgendered woman and I grew up middle class in rural North Carolina on the Native lands of the Tuscarora and Lumbee. I am college-educated and had the good fortune to graduate from college debt-free. I am an only child and grew up in a 2 parent home with a mother and a father. We loosely practiced religion in the United Methodist church. My career has been in physical therapy and I have never worried about my ability to be employed at any given time, even during the Pandemic. I make a better than average salary and live above the poverty line. I have always had health insurance and access to healthcare. I have never worried where my next meal would come from.

Since the death of George Floyd (I’m embarrassed it took me this long), I have tried to unlearn my implicit bias about race and be a better ally. I have learned more about marginalized communities including BIPOC, LGBTQIAP+, differently abled and neurodivergent.

I hope that what I have learned and unlearned over the past few years has increased my empathy, support and advocacy to improve access to health information. My goal is to use this newsletter as free access to education about how your body moves and how to help yourself feel better in your body.

I realize that my self-care list as noted above is very individualistic and based on Capitalism and my ability to “treat myself” because I “deserve it.” So, instead of deleting that post, I’d like to offer a new list that may be more beneficial, hopeful, loving, and inclusive, and a list that resonates with me at this time in my life. Our system in the US is set up for people like me. I benefit from this system. With systems of oppression in place for marginalized communities, the act of self care is a radical practice¹

Radical self-care must include community, activism, collective care, and hope.²

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes all of us acting with empathy, active listening while holding space, and having agency to decide what it is that we need and crave for our health and well-being. In shared, collective spaces, magic can happen. Being in community and taking care of our community allows us to dream into being a new reality that is transformative for society. But, it can’t be done without self-care.

Here’s my new attempt at self-care that is more collective in nature as I realize that for me to be truly well, we all need to be truly well:

1. Rest

2. Dance

3. Engage in a spiritual practice that aligns with your values

4. Find a community of people who enjoy and participate in activities you enjoy

5. Spend time in Nature, observe and learn from the Natural World

6. Participate in local groups that support your community like Community Gardens, Food Banks, Meals on Wheels, Rock the Vote, NAACP, or League of Women Voters, or any other group that aligns with your vision of a more loving world

7. Join a Wellness Center that not only offers exercise opportunities, but also health education opportunities in a group setting

8. Practice gratitude, meditation, and/or prayer

9. Acknowledge and process the collective grief and trauma we have experienced that keeps us feeling separate from each other

10. Connect with ancestors through story, genealogy, and meditation. Set up a space to honor and be in commune with them

11. Allow for pleasure and joy even amidst all that is happening in our world

12. Set boundaries to help reduce burnout and preserve mental health

13. Look to Indigenous cultures for effective climate strategies, conflict resolution, and plant medicine with honor and reverence for their wisdom

14. Get your hands in the dirt if you can. Grow flowers, vegetables, and/or herbs and share your harvest.

I think this is a list I can feel better about. I do need to work on releasing guilt about rest. And, I also need to release the idea that I only get to practice self care once I have gotten my “chores” done. There’s so much on this list and some of it makes me uncomfortable but in the way of expanding and stretching me into a more generative way of being.

I’d love to know how this resonates for you. Are there any other ideas to add to the list?

If this idea of self-care is new for you, here are some people that I have learned from, and they may help give you way more information and clarity:

• Tracee Stanley, author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self:Sacred Yogic Practices and Rituals to Remember Who You Are. She also has a Substack

• Michelle Cassandra Johnson, author of We Heal Together:Rituals and Practices for Building Community and Connection

• adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism

• bell hooks, author of all about love, among many others

• Thomas Hübl, author of Healing Collective Trauma:A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds

• Tricia Hersey, author of Rest is Resistance:A Manifesto

• Krista Tippett, Host of On Being podcast and more on https://www.onbeing.org

Take good care,

Sharon

1. Wyatt JP, Ampadu GG. Reclaiming Self-care: Self-care as a Social Justice Tool for Black Wellness. Community Ment Health J. 2022 Feb;58(2):213-221. doi: 10.1007/s10597-021-00884-9. Epub 2021 Sep 3. PMID: 34478022; PMCID: PMC8414023.

2. French, Bryana H., et al. "Toward a psychological framework of radical healing in communities of color." The Counseling Psychologist 48.1 (2020): 14-46.