by Nikki Russell, CBHPSS

April 6, 2024

What does self-care look like? What does self-care feel like?

I was a new manager in a clothing retail store in the corporate world. In the beginning, I worked 50-60 hours a week. I managed 12-15 employees at any given time with scheduling, crunching numbers, training, and orientations. I sat in my office, dreaming of a way to excuse myself and walk away from the rat race. The job represented how I lived until then, sacrificing my vitality for security. I would leave work daily, pick up my daughter, and stop for my self-care, a bottle or two of wine. I would go home and pour myself a mind-numbing glass of Cabernet, help my daughter with her homework, and put her to bed. I would pass out around midnight, wake up the following day, and start the cycle again. Alcohol and that corporate job functioned just enough to cover my bases. Society told me that my life was pretty good for a girl like me: divorced, single mother, uneducated, and emotionally unstable. I listened to the external world and survived on validation. I wondered why I didn't feel it if I was supposed to be happy. Alcohol kept my emotions in check, and my corporate job gave me a paycheck while both robbed me of my spirit. I had to get so uncomfortable that I became spiritually bankrupt; I needed a do-over, a complete life rehaul. Recovery would save my life.

The root cause of my instability was a disconnect from myself. I was not responsible for my life; I blamed most of my adverse circumstances on my dad's abandonment. One of my first realizations was that my dad abandoned me 35 years ago. Yet, I held him accountable for my current circumstances. At that moment, I recognized that I had done the same thing he had done, abandoning myself because of childhood trauma. In an instant, I went from outward-facing to inward-facing, beginning my journey home to me. The journey home to my heart is how I define self-care. I learned about things I enjoyed, found new ways to cope and soothe myself, and bonded with my daughter, all-encompassing the healing journey called recovery. The recovery journey looks a lot different than the corporate ladder. While many people were proud of my previous accomplishments, they struggled to understand the introverted and sober girl I had become. It did not concern me most respectfully, for I was on a mission to heal my life. Self-care can be a gritty process because it busts through outdated patterns and creatively builds a new process. In the beginning, self-care felt selfish until I recognized that I had no tension in my body when I aligned with the creative process.

Elizabeth Gilbert speaks about the creative process, which is like a circle. It drops into us from outside ourselves and connects to a person open to it. She explains that half of the process is creative expression, such as writing, drawing, or painting. The other half of the process is sharing your creativity and completing the circle (Book: Big Magic). To be human is to be creative. All things before they are manifested in the world are thoughts; this is the gift of being alive. Self-care is using this life to express yourself as you are. Not for the world to judge, though they may, or for the world to grade excellent or bad, and they will, and not for the world to validate, but for you to dance to the beat of your own drum as if nobody is watching, and somebody usually is. Wayne Dyer said, "Don't die with your music still in you," meaning do not create anybody else's art but your own. Self-care is expressing your true self regardless of what the world thinks. As a little girl, I lived in an apartment building with a big stone-covered entryway. I would blast music from my boom box and use a microphone to sing my heart out to Cyndie Lauper. I did not care that I could not sing or dance or that the microphone was my hand; I was ME, expressing myself the only way I knew. I only stopped doing this after somebody told me I couldn't sing and I couldn't dance. Until then, it was art. After that, it was dysfunction. I resigned to appropriate behavior, sitting out the dance and lip singing. Some years later, I began using substances to cope with the tension caused by my inability to express my emotions. Emotions inspire a creative life; pent-up emotions create blocked tension, and reclaiming your life through self-care unblocks them, allowing them to be seen, heard, and felt.

Creating your life through self-care can look like anything you choose to make. It can be expressed through your clothes, hair, and makeup. It can be cooking yourself and your family a healthy meal and presenting it in a way that shows how much you care. It can be taking time for yourself through meditation, prayer, journaling, and reading. It can be walking in nature, taking time to smell a flower, or lifting weights at the gym. It can be coloring, painting, sculpting, drawing, or sewing. Lighting candles, listening to Mozart, breathing slowly, or humming a song. It can be speaking your truth when the world is not ready to hear it, advocating for someone who went through what you went through as a kid, or crying. It can look like all those things and so much more. But what is most important is how it feels because it is not about what you do but how you BE. Authenticity, fun, truth, alignment, connection, silly, courageous, and gritty are all feeling words that let me know I am dancing my dance, painting the portrait of my life, and following my arrow. I have learned valuable lessons: I would rather be true to myself than beautiful to the world, I want to learn more than I earn, and I want to listen to my spirit rather than think about what the world is thinking about me. Self-care is not selfish; it is the opposite because I cannot fill from an empty cup.