Is Self-Care Selfish?
Our culture has long reinforced the idea that self-care is selfish. We are taught to wear busyness and selflessness as badges of honor. Yet unfettered commitments to our jobs, families, and communities can often leave us overwhelmed and exhausted. Our burnout shows up in physician’s offices where 75 – 90% of all visits are related to stress. We want to find magic bullets to help us manage stress when we feel our lives spinning out of control. But magic bullets don’t exist.
We can Change our Perspective
As we know, it can be really hard to turn around difficult circumstances in our lives. And making big changes takes time. But it is important to acknowledge that our difficult circumstances are not always the cause of our stress. Often, our reactions to our circumstances create much of our suffering. We tend to pour fuel onto our perceived difficulties when we view them with anxiety, fear, negativity, or judgement. We often blame others or ourselves for things gone wrong, and numb ourselves to our pain through electronic devices, overwork, and substances.
Lean into Difficult Times
Instead of turning away from our difficulties, lean into them and learn what they have to teach us.
Explore this Mindful Self-care video series to learn new ways to manage stress:
- Explore how to press the pause button, return to the present, work skillfully with difficulties;
- Learn how to deactivate the “habits of mind” that escalate our distress while strengthening our capacity for acceptance, self-compassion, ease, and joy.
- Identify strategies to make friends with your negative thoughts
- Prioritize well-being in the midst of stressful events
Mindful self-care means opening up space to attend to your own needs and developing health-promoting habits that serve your body, mind, and heart. Self-care takes practice and commitment. These videos can get you started by offering practical concepts and tools. Along the way, you will learn that mindfulness is not a magic bullet but rather a powerful guide for a lifelong journey back to the present.
I can see how these videos can apply to so many, for so many reasons. We talk about mindful eating- mindful self-care. WOW- what a great idea— Hitting the “STOP” button to respond instead of react is so enlightening! I think many feel then need to respond immediately because we are all programmed to hurry up and fix it and move on….nice to give ourselves a moment. I am sure it would help for over-reacting as well, a reaction I have so many times and end up making things worse. Thanks so much!
Great article and videos! This is an important topic for everyone to learn more about. From frazzled students to the elderly, stress is a part of life, but learning how to approach stressors and challenges makes all the difference. We train our bodies by exercising, lifting weights etc., but we don’t often think about training our minds to be healthier. The strategies you share to train our minds to be healthier and better able to react to daily stress are very helpful. Thanks for giving us permission to take care of ourselves!