It's a Matter of Survival
I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. Everything seems so big and large, even though many are just small little things. It feels like we haven’t gotten a break.
Is it just me, or do you, too, feel exhausted? It feels like one thing after another is being stacked upon a pile that’s already been teetering and groaning for a while. Kind of like when you’re with your kid, and you’re building the world’s largest Duplo tour, but you let your three-year-old build the base of the tower. It sways from even a whisper and keeps threatening to collapse, but your kiddo is still running around with all their energy. Every now and then, the hurricane child rushes in, throws another block on that shitty tower, and somehow, someway, that tower continues to stand.
Kind of like that.
So here’s what I’d love to hear from you about: When life is that full, that demanding, that ____________ (fill in the blank here), how do you deal with it? How do you care for yourself? Said differently, when everything is so freaking hard, how do you survive?
Self-Care Vs Self-Preservation
If you took a moment to ask Google what we were talking about here, you’d likely get blogs and tik-toks about self-care strategies, but what we’re really talking about here is not a strategy. It’s not as simple as a five-point plan to care for ourselves. It’s not just sipping mimosas as you get your monthly massage.
It’s a matter of survival.
According to the World Health Organization, self-care can be defined as:
“A broad concept which also encompasses hygiene (general and personal); nutrition (type and quality of food eaten); lifestyle (sporting activities, leisure, etc.); environmental factors (living conditions, social habits, etc.); socioeconomic factors (income level, cultural beliefs, etc.); and self-mediation."
As I type this, it strikes me that self-care is a privilege. It assumes that we have the capacity to have a moment to think. To have time to act upon our assessment of how we’re doing. The financial ability to afford to care for ourselves. That we can have the space to hold all that’s difficult without feeling like we’re going to drown.
Self-preservation, though, is a matter of survival. The word preserve means to “keep safe from harm.” In other words, self-preservation is the necessity of keeping ourselves out of harm’s way.
In order for us to practice self-care, we must be able to self-preserve our way into a safe space.
This idea of self-preservation is probably an idea worthy of more attention and intention. If you’re anything like me, your self-preservation techniques could probably go for an upgrade!
Here’s a list of some of my self-preservation coping methods:
Working out
Eating salty snacks (hello chips!)
walks with the dog
Netflix
Alcohol
Reading
Music
Emotional eating
Chats with friends and family
Spending money on things I think will help me
This is not an exhaustive list, but I think you get the idea. Half of this list is a way of numbing the pain that exists in those tough moments, and let’s be honest, sometimes we need to numb it so that we can make it through a specific event or series of events.
For those moments, they can help us out and give us the extra energy we need to make it through. They can give us the extra comfort we need to make it through. They can give us the extra confidence to make it through.
But if we continue to numb, we form the basis for addiction.
I’d love to say I have all kinds of answers about healthy ways that we can preserve through these really difficult times, but everyone’s journey is different. So instead of coming with solutions, today I come with a question for us all to consider:
Are the self-preservation methods I’m leaning on helping me get through or to a specific end, or is it becoming a crutch that I’m starting to depend on?
At the heart of this is how do I love myself, even in these difficult moments? How do I love myself on those days that I hate myself? How do I love myself on the days I’m not being treated worthy of being loved? How do I love myself in the face of messages coming from companies that tell me that I’m not enough? How do I love myself when all the external and internal factors feel stacked against me?
How do I love myself for being my beautiful self?
I think probably the most important piece is changing your inner script. If I'm always thinking about keeping up with someone or worrying about being exactly what the "right" model of person is right now, it's exhausting. I can only be me. My inner script needs to be telling me that I am who I am, and (being the only one of me around) I have a responsibility not to cheap out on being me. Nobody else is doing it. Being the bright spot in the day for someone else is worth a ton.
My work space was used last week for a Self-Care professional development session. Listening to it was harshing my buzz, so I cataloged books with earphones in blasting Beastie Boys. I loved myself a lot for making that call.