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I think boundaries (which come from the inside of us) are quite different than rules (which come from the outside). Rules are necessary, of course, but becoming overly dependent on them makes self-trust (which is essential for setting boundaries) even harder. This is the difference between eating less sugar because you should to be “healthy” versus eating less sugar because you feel better when you do. Authentic self-care means carefully examining rules, really tuning into what you want and need and finally, doing the very hard working of setting a real limit (with yourself and others). More than anything, I think this boundary-setting work is what we need to grow as a society and yet, we usually aren’t taught how to do it (I sure wasn’t!). If you want more support in setting real boundaries, sign up for my upcoming free training Five Self-Care Shifts to Save Out World (link in my profile) this 1/21-25. I’ll break down the five self-care shifts that will revolutionize your life and our world. This one is going to be good, hope you can join!
I don’t think there’s any way to sugar coat this moment in time. Personally, I’m so sad thinking of every person affected by the the US government shutdown, every person trying to make a better life for their families at the border and for every person, no matter what side they are on, who thinks everything is falling apart right now. I see us getting stretched to our limits as a nation, and it’s really, really uncomfortable. I still have lots of hope (that’s a constant choice I make in my own mind), but I also have to be extra careful in my self-care right now, especially around numbing behavior. One of the most mind blowing selfcare discoveries has been the difference between self-care actions and numbing activities. Numbing, while looking a bit like self-care in the moment, (online shopping as a habit, nightly wine and Netflix when you’re exhausted, the afternoon splurge of a brownie when you’re stressed) only serves to turn the volume down on our problems. Self-care is much more about facing those problems head on, changing our behavior to create less suffering and being gentle with ourselves in the process. The less we numb, the more energy we have to advocate and change our system. While we will always numb to some extent, I think it’s a brave act of self-care to stop pushing our problems down, get the support we need and start feeling fully. (Your very intelligent feelings are also where the bigger solutions, for yourself and our world, are waiting for your attention.) *** If this difference between numbing and self-care feels important to you, please sign up for my upcoming free training, Five Self-Care Shifts to Save Our World. From January 21 to 25, I’ll send you an email a day teaching you the five essential differences that will take your self-care, and thus your ability to serve others, to a whole new level. Link in my bio, hope you sign up! Deadline news! Today (Wednesday) is the last day to preorder your copy of “Selfcarefully,” my upcoming collaborative book with @thickpress @ipsybipsystudio and @maninoush (Maria made this lovely photo mashup at the meeting when we arranged the order of the 30 illustrated “self-care and ...” essays that make up the book, along with interviews with three of my favorite people.)! If you buy an early copy then you’re invited to a special virtual book unveiling where our team will discuss what it means to collaborate, what it means to work slowly and why we believe people still value something beautiful that they can hold in their hands. It was an amazing feeling to step into 2019 knowing that “Selfcarefully” would go out into the world and share an updated, and I believe, much needed definition of self-care. Thank you for all of your support and for helping us meet our crowdfunding goal so early. Thank you for becoming part of our self-care revolution. We are in this together, one day (and page) at a time. Crowdfunding link my my profile. Photo by @maninoush Happy 2019 to you! (TLDR: You’re invited to a cozy self-care retreat this February 8-10th in West Virginia. Link in my bio. Really hope you can come!) Ahh, we’re just home from a week visiting family in Asheville (both Micah’s and my mother live there - another crazy twist of fate). We can home exhausted and thus we spent the last evening of 2019 watching “Maniac” and were fast asleep at midnight. Traveling with a toddler is no joke (he did fine on the flights but they were still stressful), and although it was great to be with family, I’ve found that caring for a 16-month old makes every occasion about ten times harder. Before motherhood, I heard people say that you don’t really know love until you have a child. Personally, that doesn’t feel true to me. I could love just fine before. What feels much more true is that I didn’t quite know sacrifice until I engaged in this kind of caregiving (which one does not need to have children to experience). It’s so hard and it’s so rewarding. What makes it work for me is being extra intentional in my self-care. Otherwise I get resentful and take it out on the people I love. Going on retreat is always such a powerful way to fill my well, which is why I’m so excited to lead a cozy self-care retreat in West Virginia from February 8-10th. Won’t you join me? You’ll walk away with a download of self-care that will sustain you through the ups and downs of 2019. More info in my bio. Early bird pricing before January 15th! (Photo by @unsplash.official) (Another amazing photo by @annmarieloveslove - if you’re in DC hire her for a family shoot!) Guys, thank you! We completed our crowdfunding goal on Friday night, just a couple of hours before I turned 37. I checked my phone and found out about the funding while Micah was dishing out ice cream to me and Molly, one of my best friends who was spending the night with her kiddos. I had that surreal feeling of all of my dreams coming true. The next day I woke up and instead of my typical birthday angst (I’ve gotten it ever year I can remember), I still felt grateful and soft-hearted. As the rain poured down that day, I kept thinking about all the people I’d lost over the years, either in death or we’d just fallen out of relationship. I felt quiet, internal and gentle with myself. Micah made us dinner that night and we spent the meal talking about death: our fears, our experiences and all that we don’t know. I know it might seems strange that this joyous moment of life would bring up such heavy thoughts, but this has always been my life experience. Strong feelings of happiness will also bring up sadness (hello weddings!), celebration will evoke grief, and love will bring out the violence - however subtle- in us. This is how the polarity works. To feel whole, we must embrace both and dance in the nuance of it all. For me, opening to my own wholeness is such a radical form of self-care and one that I wished we talked about more. If this is interesting to you, please consider preordering your copy of “Selfcarefully”, my new collaborative book project with @thickpress @maninoush and @ipsybipsystudio where we use nuance as a way to uncover a whole new layer of humanizing self-care. The link is in my bio, crowdfunding is open until early January, thank you and thank you again. Exciting news in our most backward of romances! After seeing the plus sign on the pregnancy test after only dating two months (whoops!), crazily deciding to go for it, falling in love with each other in the midst of midwives appointments, birthing classes and moving into our rental, buying a house when we had to move out of said rental after one year, Micah starting a new job and me overhauling my whole business, and more than 15 months of parenting, we’ve decided to get married! It turns out that doing everything out of order can still lead to the most romantic of partnerships. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive, hilarious and emotionally-mature partner with whom to go through the craziness that is parenting and life. We are very torn about wedding plans, so expect more thoughts on what it means to get married as we move into 2019. In other wonderfully exciting news, our crowdfunding for my upcoming collaborative book “Selfcarefully” is more than three-quarters filled in a week. Wow, I’m so grateful and humbled for your support! If you’d still like to preorder a book, check out the link in my bio. Oh, and my birthday is tomorrow so you can call it a birthday present for me and hopefully the gift that keeps giving for you! 💜 (Also, the second family photo is by the wildly talented @annmarieloveslove )
Hello lovelies! Exciting book news coming next week! In the meantime - in my ever-present search to define self-care - I wanted to share my latest definition. Today, I’ve decided that self-care is a shift… ...from feeling like you’ll never get everything done to realizing you’re allowed to do just one thing at a time (and take breaks in the process). ...from the desire to go on restrictive diets (or other ways of clamping down on your compulsions) to the desire to eat in a normal, sane way while exploring the roots of your compulsions with tenderness and support. ...from feeling like practicing your self-care routines will make you a boring person to understanding that your routines are a gift you give to yourself. ...from saying that you’ll take care of yourself once your to-do list is done to caring for yourself whenever you feel sad, tired, lonely or otherwise depleted. (Read the rest in the comments 💜) Meet Reba and Elsa, my dear friends and brilliant coconspirators in self-care. This Saturday, they are leading a FREE virtual self-care roundtable workshop for women of color. During this 90 minute session, they’ll discuss specific self-care approaches for women of color and the ways women of color can support each other’s self-care. As a white women, it brings me great joy to support this workshop! I believe that when women of color are given the space they need to truly care for themselves, our world will find it’s balance again (which benefits us all). If you identify as a women of color, please sign up (link in my bio) and/or tag your women of color friends in support of their self-care.💜