“With self-care, it’s not the “doing” that’s hard, it’s the remembering.” Lizzie Lasater
Does self care feel like work? Or like another thing on your to-do list? I find that when self care feels unattainable, it means that I’m holding onto how I think self care should be done instead of letting go and flowing with how the feeling of self care is already available in each moment. It is a state of mind, rather than a thing to do.
You hear New Age quotes here and there, such as: “We are human beings, not human doings,” and on a similar note, yoga is something that we are, not just something we do. It is a form of undoing as much as it is an activity that we do. I may think that I don’t have time for self care, but the fact is that I don’t have time to skip self care because it’s what I need most to stay happy and healthy as a mother. In that light, it’s not just care of myself, but care of my child as well. As Ram Dass says in Be Here Now, “I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!”
There’s nothing that replaces a one-hour professional massage, or an hour-long yoga class at a nice studio. But there’s also nothing that replaces your entire life and if you could find a way to insert moments of stress release, joy, awareness, and gratitude into each day, the consistency of that daily practice has the same gradual power that the ocean does as it slowly erodes a rocky cliff. Something soft, slow, and seemingly ordinary can shape something as hard and immovable as rock (a.k.a. that tension in my shoulder that doesn’t seem to ever fully relax).
So what is that thing for you? For me, that soft, slow, ordinary force is sometimes dropping my shoulders and bending my knees on an exhale while I’m going about normal daily tasks, to remind me to let go of tension where it doesn’t need to be. Other times, it is singing a few songs with my daughter or having a little dance party with her - this form of self care is great because it also comes in the form of caring for my daughter at the same time that I remember not to take myself too seriously.
Many times, it is rolling out my mat and doing just a few yoga postures with full awareness and appreciation for the fact that it’s the little things in every moment and every day that keep us connected to what matters most. When I give myself a few minutes to pause and be my true Self - that larger part of me that is not just a writer, teacher, mother, wife, daughter, neighbor - then I wear all those “hats” with so much more poise, calm, and even humor.