Self-care and herbalism seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. All part of that amorphous wellness we are all searching for. Lately I have been thinking about what true self-care is. This passage below inspired me.
“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.
It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.
It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend that you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.
A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.
True self care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.
And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.
It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people ca’t.
It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were trained to think before you even knew what was happening.
If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot to do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long term wellness.
It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself…and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.
It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.
It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
Brianna Wiest
Holidays
Holidays are time out of time. A chance for space and if you are lucky a break from the usual routine. I read this passage before leaving home to celebrate the holidays. I have been thinking about this passage since I read it. It is easy to link together self-care and herbalism. Let herbs heal and nourish your body. Yes, absolutely. But. I am longing for deeper healing – for my clients and for myself.
The line “making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.” is something I can’t stop thinking about.
I’ve been lucky enough that our whole family could get together for the holidays. This is on the west coast. There is no snow. I see eagles on the daily.
Local newscasters think plus 7 is cold. Ha!
The added extra bonus is spending time with an old friend. We ate dinner together the first night I arrived. A restaurant called Chongking. I really can’t explain how delicious it was. My husband and my friend frequently have dinner there and I have often made fun of them for always picking the same restaurant. No more.
Prickly Pear Cactus
Xerophytes are plants that have altered their physical structure to survive. The prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) is a perfect example. It can survive years of drought on the water it collects and stores from a single rainfall.
At dinner with my friend I felt like I was a cactus. He was long needed rain. I spent the entire dinner talking to him and only him. We were 4 people but I really only had time for him.
In light of the first passage about making a life you love I’ve been contemplating what my reaction to my friend means about the state of my life overall. Obviously I love the guy. We’ve often had the opportunity to connect over the years (despite the miles between us) and I never before had this reaction. I may be obtuse sometimes but even I can hear the bells ringing.
New Year’s Herbalism
Right now it’s the end of the year. A time to look both backwards and forwards. A time for resolutions and clear eyed assessment. You might be thinking what this has to do with herbalism? My herbalism is about whole people. What point is there in my helping you heal your body if your heart is in despair? I want to work with you so that every facet of your being is in harmony. That is the true self-care and herbalism match I am looking for.
Folks of a certain age will remember an advertising campaign with the tag line “Calgon take me away.”
If you are thinking something similar more often than not – I would invite you to take a moment as the year ends to really reflect. It is certain that we all want a life we love.
Think about the what. The how can come later.
For myself, I am still enjoying the mists of Vancouver. But I am preparing myself for our return home when I will be thinking about my prickly pear moment and what changes I want to make. For you and yours I wish you a vision of what you want your life to be and the courage to make it happen.
Happy New Year!