On self-care

and practices that go beyond consumerism.

We highly enjoyed reading ‘Real Self-Care’ by Pooja Lakshmin, a psychiatrist who specialized in maternal mental health, on self-care as principles that can be practiced throughout life, instead of the trendy and often costly solutions usually proposed in this area.

You can get the book here, or hear a synthesized version of her thesis in a conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom on the Ezra Klein show.  

Too much of the wellness cultural messages focus on ‘hacks’ and consumerist products - in a $10B industry- that not only is very individualistic, but also usually disregards the social realities and inequities that make these self-care practices inaccessible. In that culture, if we fail to feel ‘well’, it is because we failed to take care of ourselves: to make the time to go to yoga, journal, and meditate. This creates yet another burden and source of stress that most people, mothers especially, find frustrating, and which is why the wellness space seems increasingly ‘toxic’ and dissonant. 

At best, those solutions can be tools to improve one’s life, but what Lakshmin offers is real principles to apply in everyday life and decisions, and to initiate a deeper transformation based around purpose and meaning, and therefore create more harmony with the self. The four principles she focuses on include boundaries setting, compassionate self-talk, identifying personal values, and asserting your power. By integrating those in your internal decision-making process, we can better address the roots of the problem. This eudaimonic approach, vs. the usual hedonistic one focusing on pleasure, is not always an instant gratifier, and sometimes comes with suffering, she warns, but is the best way to model change and ultimately address systemic issues that create burn out. 

Mothers have been the primary subjects of burnout since the pandemic. So much of these principles resonate to maintain a sustainable creative practice, not to mention that those practices are precisely what is needed to provide joy and a deeper sense of contentment.

Thank you Dr. for this new way of thinking about what we all struggle with.