Self-care is not a thing I am great at.
High-functioning anxiety means that I have a lot of trouble relaxing, and I feel guilty about it any time I even get close. There’s always something I should be doing, after all. Certainly always something else I could be doing. I try to absorb the good advice out there about self-care, and I try to take heart in inspirational aphorisms, but there’s always a part of me — the skeptical part, the self-flagellating part — who says these things are just symptoms of laziness. Self-coddling, not self-care. That only applies to me, mind you. What anyone else does to take care of themselves is necessary; for me, an indulgence. Being gentle with myself is not a skill I’ve much practiced.
There’s an irony that this topic comes up this week, as I’ve been hit with one of the flu strains that’s mutated its way around the year’s vaccines. (I work with a couple hundred elementary schoolers a week, so this was perhaps inevitable). And so, since I’m too exhausted to come up with more words of my own, I’ll leave you with those of some poets and artists, who have put it better than I could, anyway.
Visit these folks: TheLatestKate, rupi kaur, Nikita Gill, Clementine von Radics.
From Unseen Fire is available for pre-order, for request on NetGalley, and in a Goodreads Giveaway!
