A Psychologist Explains What Self-Care Should Actually Look Like For Parents

"Self-care" is served up as the answer to many of our struggles. Burnt out? Engage in self-care. Anxious? Practice self-care. Too busy? Do some self-care.

We are trying so hard to feel good—retreats, cleanses, gratitude journals, baths, crystals—and yet, on a large scale, it's not working. Recent research highlights that nearly 3 in 5 U.S. adults are feeling lonely. Not only that but 45% of adults ages 35 to 44 reported a mental illness in 2023, and nearly a quarter of adults rated their stress levels between 8 and 10.

We've bought into the belief that if we do better we will feel better, applying external solutions to internal pain points. While I can certainly get behind the benefits of relaxing rituals and being intentional about approaching our bodies and minds with care, as a therapist and group facilitator, I have found that people feel disappointed in themselves when they try to commit to a self-care routine and find that it doesn't alleviate "the problem.""

I see people make amazing strides in caring for themselves, but they still don't see these practices as "enough." We are living in a time when there is SO much choice—different gyms, workout types, diet fads, mindfulness apps—that even if we choose one intervention, we don't feel good about it because there are so many others that we could have said yes to.

When we feel dissatisfied with the outcomes of our choice, the roads not chosen yank on us. We tell ourselves, "Maybe there was something better out there" or "Maybe if I just keep working harder I'll feel freer."

Modern society tells us that we have to earn feeling good. How many times have you said or heard someone tell you how hard they worked before they granted themselves a vacation?

The global health and wellness market is expected to grow to over $5.3 trillion in 2023. Many wellness interventions want us to feel like we are broken so that we buy things to fix ourselves. If we are paying for a solution outside of us, we are not getting in touch with the wisdom inside of us.

If we think we are the problem, we are not blaming the systems (including racism and sexism) that make us feel unwell to begin with—a concept explored in Pooja Lakshmin M.D.'s book Real Self-Care and Chrissy King's The Body Liberation Project.

Real self-care is about "building a life we don't want to escape from," in the words of author Brianna Wiest. It's asking ourselves, in community, What does freedom for me look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, and sound like? 

It is often subtractive rather than additive, pulling back the curtains to see what is beneath all the things we bought or drank or ate or didn't eat to see what's there: What does my heart yearn for?

This sometimes requires giving up the thing we thought we wanted for the thing we need—for example, saying goodbye to the 80-hour workweek and corner office for peace of mind and healthy relationships. Or setting boundaries with a family member and therefore compromising being liked by them. 

Real self-care requires us to confront our fears of mediocrity and not being exceptional. Accepting mediocrity doesn't mean we settle, but rather we have an honest conversation with ourselves to determine if we have the energy, time, resources, and capacity to achieve the goal we set out to.

It's getting real about the things you might need to give up in order to get the things you really want. It's about asking yourself what you want to feel and what experiences you want to grapple with in this lifetime versus what you want to achieve. 

And lastly, it's about remembering that life is not just about being happy but rather about being alive: experiencing the full spectrum of emotions, which sometimes don't feel good at all.

Choosing real self-care might actually not have an immediate impact on joy. Sometimes real self-care is boring, like staying home to make a budget on a sunny Sunday afternoon rather than going out for $25 avocado toast.