Self care in the time of corona

We all know that self care is super important. 

But how many of us are taking time to engage in self care right now? How many of us even know what self care looks like in this current moment?

Self care has become a huge industry, and while I love that we're all talking about it, that also means that we're being bombarded with the idea that self care means buying stuff or giving ourselves permission to do pleasurable things. 

For instance, the internet may lead us to believe that self care is a glass of nice rosé or a cupcake or a painting our fingernails.

These things are nice and can be true pleasures, and I do think pleasure can be an element of self care, but it's not the whole picture. 

Self care can be fun and feel good, but it isn't always the thing we want to be doing in the way that drinking wine, eating cupcakes, and having glittery gold nails are things we like to do.

We like wine and cupcakes and having pretty nails because they feel good in the moment. 

And they feel good in the moment because we get a little dopamine hit in our brain from drinking alcohol, eating sugar, and decorating our physical body in a way we find pleasing.

Now, I'd like to be very clear. I love rosé, I eat dark chocolate everyday, and I swoon for glittery gold nails. I am a huge fan of pleasure and I do think it is deeply important. 

But so is the other stuff that we often don't want to do and think is a drag. 

Yes, I'm talking about things like getting 8 hours of sleep, exercising (which I personally like to refer to as movement, because my brain has such an attitude about the idea of exercise), eating food that feels good in our bodies, and most importantly, speaking kindly to ourselves inside our own heads. 

We all know this shit is important, we all believe we should be doing it, and yet, most of us resist it fiercely.

In the time of corona, you may find yourself resisting self care even more than usual. You may find yourself staying up later, sleeping in, letting your routines go by the wayside, judging yourself for how you're acting, and then pouring yourself a big glass of wine promptly at 5pm as a way to escape from your own mean brain.

Well, I have some good news for you. Today, I am going to teach you why it's so hard to get yourself to do the things you know you should do and how you can do them without it feeling like a constant battle of the wills with yourself. 

Are you ready for this? Hell yes.

Here's what you need to know: the reason you resist doing things that are good for you that you will be happy you've done comes down to two things: your primitive brain and the concept of "should".

Let's discuss the primitive brain first. The primitive brain has three priorities: seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. These directives kept our species alive back in the day. Seeking pleasure got us to eat and procreate. Avoiding pain kept us safe from harm. And conserving energy meant that if we got attacked by a lion, we'd have enough energy to run away from it. 

This is why your primitive brain loves to have a glass of wine and avoid difficult conversations and it's also why your brain will tell you "I don't want to" about lots of stuff you actually do want to do.

For instance, this is why your brain will say it doesn't want to do 20 minutes of yoga even though you KNOW that you'll feel amazing afterwards. It doesn't to expend effort now just in case you need to run away from a predator later. 

Now let's look at the word "should." 

It sounds good, right? One would think that "I should get 8 hours of sleep" would result in us getting 8 hours of sleep. But that's not what happens.

Here's why: should takes our agency away. The word "should" presupposes that there is one right answer and that we have to do it.

And guess what? As human beings with free will, we don't like that idea. We resist it. When we say "should" to ourselves, here's what happens. We become both the bossy parent telling us what to do AND ALSO the rebel kid saying f*ck off.

Basically the word "should" is a one-way ticket to an inner battle of the wills with no winner. 

And that brings me to another point. Self care is about action, for sure, but it's also about intentionality. Why we do our self care matters. Doing it as a way to love and care for ourselves feels really differently than doing it resentfully because we feel like we have to. 

What's the solution? Stop saying should. Seriously. The word should fails to deliver. You either don't do the thing or you force yourself to do the thing, burning yourself out and depleting your willpower in the process. 

We think that shoulding ourselves is how we get shit done. But it's actually deeply ineffective and it wastes a lot of time and energy. 

You know what really gets shit done? Understanding your brain and then deciding what you're going to do and doing it. 

When you understand the primitive brain, you stop taking "I don't want to" so seriously. You know that the primitive brain didn't evolve for Netflix and remote work and a fridge full of food, and you don't fall for its BS or confuse its opinions for your actual preferences. 

From that place, you decide what you want to do. The funny thing is, when we get rid of should, we find that we actually want to do a lot of what we've been doing, but it's MUCH easier to do it when we're like, yeah, I want to do that. Like, I actually WANT to feed myself nourishing food. Because I like how it tastes and how I feel when I eat it. But it's much more satisfying to do so when it comes down to choice instead of coming down to should. 

We also find some stuff that we don't want to do and we've only been doing because we thought we had to. Once we stop shoulding ourselves about it, we can actually decide how to creatively problem solve the situation. Maybe you've been grocery shopping for years, but you don't actually want to. Once you admit that you don't have to, solutions become obvious. You can have your groceries delivered or negotiate with your partner for them to do the groceries while you do something else. 

Right now, we're in a pandemic, and self care is more important than ever. But so is choice. There's so much in our lives right now that we can't control and that we didn't get to choose. Be honest with yourself about what you do get to choose, and you will feel a lot better. Even if you choose to not do some of the things you could to care for yourself. 

Self care doesn't mean you have to do everything or you have to do it perfectly. 

And the element of self care that I think is the most important is actually how you talk to yourself, no matter what else you do. 

So many of us spend so much of our time berating ourselves.

So much time listing all the ways we aren't good enough, all the ways we're failing.

We've been raised to believe that criticizing ourselves is how we get better, but that's bullshit. 

Think about it. When we're mean to ourselves, we either turn to numbing and avoiding behavior to escape or we try to achieve our way out of our feelings, which doesn't work. 

Here's what's true: you don't need to get better. 

But when you're kind to yourself and you care for yourself, you will get better. 

It's completely backwards to everything we were taught as kids, and that's the best news ever. 

So, be kind to yourself today, even if you're not perfect, and don't fall for your primitive brain's bullshit. 

ALSO: special announcement, I'm guest speaking at Three Moon Collective's virtual Moonday Meeting on Monday April 13th. And you can attend for free with this promo code: TMCGUEST. I'll be talking about how to handle anxiety and burnout in times of extreme uncertainty. 

Sign up for the Moonday event here.