Most of what we call self-care is something that makes us feel better for a moment.
And then it’s gone.
I was listening to my teacher on a call when she said that healing and transformation only happen in presence.
It made me think of all the times I needed healing and where I went looking for it. The first sip of wine, a warmth filling my body, the first exhale I’d had all day. A warm bath with a book. Sex, my body alive in all its sensation, oblivious to any thought.
Transcendental. And gone the moment it was over.
As soon as the glass was empty, my clothes were on, the bath drained. I was left with what was. And how confused that would leave me. Isn’t this self-care?
These acts were certainly meeting the need in the moment. Admittedly, some sexual experiences left my needs feeling met for days. But once the buzz or the high or the warm wet relaxation dried up, there it was. The need. The constant inner vibration and static. The desire for more. That quiet question: is this it? The anxiety and overwhelm, immediately followed by: I’ve got to get out of this.
If changing the way I felt and avoidance were jobs, I could have made a career out of them. A successful one at that. I drank, moved, took anti-depressants and fucked my way through deaths and divorces. Economic downturns? Blinders on booking flights across the ocean and shopping. I couldn’t feel my reality, let alone look at it.
Isn’t self-care being packaged in a cocktail, a cream, another body and sold to us as the way, when what we’ve really been thirsty for is permission to soften, feel good, take up space in our own lives? And so far as I can tell, the messaging is exactly that. Have a drink and relax. Sign up for a dating app. Buy this book, change your hair, join this or that, take time off. YOU DESERVE IT. We call it self-care if there’s a nice bottle and a better candle involved. Nobody is asking what you’re actually trying to get away from. Or why the self needs care at all. No one profits off you relying on your body’s wisdom.
After several decades of reaching outside myself, I reached a dead end. I surrendered. No wine. No more casual sex. No trips. No shopping. I started to listen to what was there, moment by moment. It didn’t take long to understand the constant-ness of doing more, being busy, and trying to control every area of my external life was wreaking havoc on my body. Let’s just say there is no amount of face cream or cum that can solve for cortisol, adrenaline and epinephrine coursing your veins. (And if we are getting technical, one can hardly cum with all of those chemicals.)
When I stopped trying to change the way I felt, the way I felt started to change. I could breathe. I softened. I started to feel all that was coming up in this moment. And I realized this was the erotic act. Not the wine. Not the sex. This. Being present with what was. The pleasure of arriving to myself, as an altar, with my arms tightly hugging me back, was the embrace I had been looking for.
I witness the women I know and work with running the same errand. Different products, different people. Still empty. She doesn’t know yet that she was always the source. In many ways she has been taught to fear her body. So that’s where it begins.
And somewhere in that turning toward, she turns on.
What she finds is never out of reach. A few moments of quiet breath before she reaches for anything. A hand on her own chest. The question: what do I actually need right now? Usually the answer is smaller than she expected. A moment to soften. Permission to be.
That’s where transformation and healing begin.
