My Beef with Self-Care
When it comes to healing burnout for folks who are distressed about the rising sirens we hear around the world, I have a little beef with self-care.
I don’t have beef with self-care in itself. Self-care is important, and necessary, and we always need more of it (especially as we watch current world events unfold).
But I do have a beef with the belief that self-care is enough to solve our epidemic of burnout. Or as our one fail-safe to feeling energy and meaning in our life and work in our current world context.
Self-care is a necessary component to a healthy life. But it doesn’t give us meaning. It doesn’t lead to motivation and excitement in our career.
Self-care on its own, without questioning why we are so depleted in the first place, becomes a way to keep up our stamina up for a path we never chose. I think we need to zoom out a bit when it comes to the question of how to prevent burnout and create time and energy for what’s most meaningful to us.
The issues you care so much about fighting in this world–capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy– and the reason why you are burnt out now likely share a root. They are not separate phenomena. They exist in the same waters.
That’s likely a reason why what you’ve tried so far–courses about making more money, adding in more self-care and breaks, learning the latest productivity hacks–haven’t given you the time, energy, and meaning you crave in your work. Though well intended, all of these might be from the same school of thought that’s keeping you burnt out.
Making more money? A capitalist economy thrives on the belief that more money is always the answer to the mental health and impact you crave.
Self-care and breaks? Perfect for keeping up your stamina for a path that’s draining you because of how misaligned it is with you.
Productivity hacks–hold up, is the best we can aspire to be a machine?
If you are concerned about things like social justice and the climate crisis, my guess is that you are also someone who cares deeply about your own work and what you’re putting out into the world. You care about the why behind your work. You care about greater meaning in your life. You care about having time to process the world, and to feel your life moving in the direction of the change you wish to see in the world. You also care about the underpinnings of why you do what you do in the way you do it.
This deep caring you have for the world and your contribution to it may be one reason why you’ve felt so unsettled with your work. There’s an alert that’s been sounding inside that something about this path you’re on isn’t where your heart is. It may be why all the other things you’ve tried haven’t gotten to the core of it. And even why something inside you is digging its heels in when you think about switching directions. Because something inside you knows that switching directions without changing your compass will likely still lead you right back here, the oh-so-familiar burnout.
Sirens are rising inside of us just as they are around the world. Just as the reversal of our current world crises demands addressing the toxic, systemic route that led us here, our own internal crises demand the same. Once we name and address the path that was never meant for our individual and collective well-being, a path out of burnout and into meaning, passion, and sustainable impact can emerge.
I believe creating meaning, time, and energy is impossible without nourishing the parts of us that the dominant culture seeks to exploit. I find it’s in this nourishing that meaning, time, and energy can feel safe enough to join us again. Let’s invite them together.
