Self-care has garnered a somewhat bad rap. And deservingly so.

In a digital scape of glazed doughnut skin and mental health walks, acts of self-care have transcended from bubble baths and shopping sprees to other, less obvious, still glamourized “healthy habits.”

I am all for skincare and daily walks, however, I believe in self-care that is impactful — not aspirational. Consuming TikTok’s of thin, beautiful white women with tightly pulled-back low-buns often contributes to the deterioration of well-being for their viewers. This type of advertised self-care adds to the already too big to-do list of many. Eliciting guilt and feelings of inferiority when we can’t measure up.

And at the same time, we need self-care in today’s quick-quick world. We need self-care that extends beyond the superfluous facade of reciting a gratitude list before your feet hit the ground and drinking lemon water before your lips touch coffee.

Again, I love a moment for gratitude and drinking water, but we need to dig a little deeper.

True self-care enables us to respond to life’s demands and complexity. It helps us digest the suffering of our world and be with our own tenderness as we experience shame, sorrow and grief.

I see self-care not as a band-aid solution to hardship, but as a practice to increase our ability to stay with ourselves and our communities amidst difficulty. And the beautiful thing about staying with ourselves in adversity is how it enables us to stay with ourselves in joy, pleasure and sweet, sweet connection, too.

What is Capacity?

I find myself using this word A LOT in client sessions: Capacity.

Do I have the capacity to say yes to the extra project my boss wants me to take on? Do I have the capacity to host my parents for easter? Do I have the capacity to call a friend after 8pm?

I liken capacity to a container. Capacity is our container’s ability to hold (or not hold) the is-ness of life. At times our container can overflow, and at other times, our container can shrink causing its accumulates to bubble over the edge or explode.

Many things can impact the size of our container. World events, family troubles, our health, death anniversaries, finances and more. So often I’ll hear, “Why can’t I just find the time for x? Everyone else around me seems to be doing x so effortlessly” without acknowledging the intricate constellations impacting each individual’s container.

The mom who drops and picks her kids up from school every day? Her sister just moved in and helps manage meals so she can squeeze in some hours of work.

The colleague who shows up to every meeting with her nails done and outfit perfectly coordinated? She runs an Etsy shop on the side for extra income, so new nails are a no-brainer.

The friend who brought a dessert AND a caserole to the potluck? She recently went down to part-time to focus on her health, and for her, cooking relieves stress.

So, we all have different capacities and our capacities are impacted differently by different experiences. I want you to ask yourself:

What expands the size of my container?
What diminishes the size of my container?

When we have the answers to the above we can predict seasons of life where our capacity might be low, bolster our capacity with acts of self-care and offer compassion to ourselves and others when containers shrink.

Energy Takers and Energy Givers

What diminishes your capacity is an energy taker. What expands your capacity is an energy giver.

Let’s do a quick practice and capacity audit.

Draw a line down a piece of paper. Write “Giver” and “Taker” on either side. Once you have a list of actions and experiences that impact your capacity, I want you to pull out your day planner, whether digital or paper. Assign one highlighter to Energy Givers and one to Energy Takers. Flip through the last few weeks and highlight every Giver and Taker.

Notice any patterns?

Was your entire week full of energy vampires? With little to no replenishing moments throughout your week? Most women’s are.

Our culture has taught us to see our bodies as machines. We fill our days with nothing but Energy Taking tasks (work, driving, grocery shopping, scrolling social media, staying glued to the news) and then are somehow appalled when we don’t want to visit a friend, move our bodies or fold laundry.

Please hear me when I say this: you are not a robot, you need nourishment and care, too.

When building capacity, we often need to shrink, before we expand.

Developmentally, we grow following a rhythm of expansion and contraction. When growing our capacity, our rhythm follows a similar ebb and flow.

Allow yourself to shrink as you take on new practices and endeavours and when the world is a heavy, threatening, grief-stricken place to be. Stay in on a Saturday, cook your favourite easy meal — white cheddar Annie’s mac and cheese with cherry tomatoes is a personal go-to — or heck, get take out. Wrap yourself up in your biggest duvet, light a candle, vow to not leave the couch for the entire day.

One of my teachers calls this breakthrough aftercare and it’s the perfect antidote to the exhaustion many of us experience after doing something stretchy.

Whether you’re presenting your dissertation or the claws of grief are holding you close, self-care that cares will help you soften. It won’t demand you “be better,” holding you to some idealized version of self. Self-care that cares will say, This is hard. Lay your head down. Rest. Even if just for a short while.

We need self-care to balance the score. And dare I say, to create an excess of energy so we have a little extra gas in the tank for when, excuse my language, shit hits the fan?

Like a honeybee, we can only survive if we live in overflow. Creating enough sweetness for ourselves to sustain the literal and metaphorical winter.