Self-care is thrown around a lot as a magic bullet to solve all of your problems. If you’d only take a second to treat yourself, you’d be fine!

But what does self-care really mean?

First, I think there’s a difference between self-care and self-soothing. Self-soothing might look something like this, for example:

Self-soothing: Activities that provide distraction and/or comfort in difficult times

Examples illustrated include: TV bingeing, bubble bath, fancy beverages, singing loudly, getting out into nature, time off from home responsibilities & childcare, fresh flowers, cuddling, exercise

Such delightful things!

Self-soothing is INCREDIBLY important to our well-being. Sometimes, though, these activities may not actually get at stabilizing you, or creating opportunities for you to move forward.

That’s where self-care can come in:

Self-care: Activities that help you find meaning, and that support your growth & groundedness

Examples illustrated include: Going to therapy, meditating, exercise, taking ownership of your finances, napping, saying “yes” and “no” when you really mean it, massage, getting medical care, eating well for your body, yoga, setting — and keeping! — boundaries

Do you feel the difference between soothing & care?

(That “finances” one may or may not be borne out of my own traumatic experiences with money, btw. Also: certain things may be self-soothing for some, and self-care for others. You get to decide!)

Still, it takes a LOT to be able to even do self-care, since the systems and cultural norms in which we currently live can feel impossible to navigate on our own.

That’s why it’s important to have workarounds:

Community care: Workarounds for systems that don’t inherently support care (ie, capitalism!)

Examples illustrated include: Childcare & education collectives, freecycle and buy nothing groups, dignified, supportive healthcare orgs, intimate relationships outside of traditional romantic couplehood norms, worker-owned coops, credit unions, co-housing, skill sharing and mutual aid

Taking one step further back, it’s also important to recognize that workarounds and harm-reduction are also only one part of the solution.

We also need to fundamentally overhaul (or tear down and rebuild entirely) the systems in which we live, so that we can be further enabled to work on the other kinds of care that we need.

Structural care: Systems that support community care, self-care AND self-soothing

Examples illustrated include: comprehensive universal healthcare, environmental defense and renewal, child- and eldercare, living wage, efficient public transportation, gender & sexuality liberation, racial equity & justice, paid family leave (and an illustration of the word “capitalism” on fire and melting)