One of the most obnoxious things to be asked when you are in a crisis is, “how are you taking care of you?” in that tender, soupy, life-coach voice, as the person attempting to support you sips a matcha oat-milk late and relaxes in yoga pants. 

Does this infuriate anyone else? No? Just me? I highly doubt it. 

The reality is that many of us know that we should be “taking care of ourselves”, but few of us know what that actually means, and fewer still have the capacity to actually do it. 

Enter life’s many challenges, curveballs, global pandemics and now we suddenly have a population that is stressed out beyond recognition and desperate for help and guidance. The wellness industry advises individuals to practice “self-care” which translates in most people’s minds to “take a bubble bath and drink rosé.” Really?! Bubble baths?! Rosé?! Is this real advice? 

When we do practice this type of Instagram-worthy self-care, and it doesn’t help us, we then categorize self-care as an overblown, stupid, waste of time pulling us from an endless list of highly urgent and important tasks. We are still stressed, strung out, just now perhaps slightly tipsy from the rosé and having an allergic reaction to the bath suds. 

Getting angry because “self-care” isn’t helping you cope with 2020 is like taking Advil for a massive infection and getting angry that you aren’t healing. It’s. The. Wrong. Medication.

The correct medication to take when difficulty spreads throughout our lives and rocks our world is: a healthy coping strategy.

If you have been confusing self-care for “coping” through 2020 – you aren’t alone. It was around April when I personally realized that though I was eating right, exercising, meditating, journaling… I was feeling really terrible. Beyond the obvious larger reasons that many of us have been chronically anxious and depressed this year, I lost a regular schedule and life rhythm, lost many helpful routines, and had my goals and plans for 20/21 completely derailed and shattered. Thankfully, by May I began to realize that exercising 2x a day was not going to solve the aforementioned problems. I also started to realize that the government wasn’t going to solve my problems. Finally, I decided to retool my coping strategy and directly address some serious challenges that were not going to magically disappear or improve on their own.

In order to get through a series of challenging months, I walked myself through a system of steps that I had created years prior as my own personal coping strategy:

1)  I got clear on what was chronically making me feel worse.

I set up a regular “new” schedule and routine. I made a to-do list of everything I had to do that day, even obvious things like working out, running errands. 

2)   Write down every single issue, and then identify the "linchpins".

For a few months, my husband and I both felt like we were looking at a tangled mess of complex and interconnected issues related to work, remote work and misery around our living situation during the pandemic. We decided to write absolutely every single issue down and from there were able to key issues – or “linchpins” – that would unlock other issues and help us move forward. We then were better able to identify conversations we needed to have to, and quickly realized there were some very obvious and relatively easy adjustments we could make to improve how we felt about our work and life.

3)   Make action items and start to tackle them one by one.

I identified what actions we could take to move the needle forward in the right direction and we started knocking them out one by one.

4)   Decide on a timeline that feels right for you to focus on.

I have long been a fan of 1-5 year planning. I still use a paper planner and I have a huge calendar in my home. I use Airtable for everything. But for once in my life, I realized that it isn’t healthy for me to plan out this next year in meticulous detail. For right now, I use the question, “what would feel amazing to have done in 90 days?” to guide my next steps and choices.

Your problem-solving approach might be different from mine. Regardless of how you approach challenges, you will feel infinitely better knowing that you have a codified plan of attack. Finally, in order to execute your strategy properly, you will need to be as healthy and strong both emotionally and physically as possible. Enter, self-care.

Self-care is maintenance – that’s it. Maintenance doesn’t have the same marketing appeal, but that’s all it is. Just like we take our car in for tire alignment and oil changes – particularly if we drive a lot – we have to take care of our mind, body and soul. It’s actually just a part of being human.

Self-care is a means to an end – with the end being a you that is more focused, more energized and better at solving problems. What are you actually looking to get from your self-care practice? Who do you want to become? Those very personal answers will give you amazing insight into what your self-care practice should consist of. 

There are two primary ways that we can “care” for ourselves: pleasure and necessity - two terms that are wildly debated and have varying responses. 

To some, having a blowout once a week is a necessity, to others it’s mere pleasure. To some, exercising every day is a necessity, to others it’s a “well, when I have time or my body completely breaks down, then I’ll do something.” Each person has a different "ideal" scenario, so it become imperative to come up with your own answers to these questions: What is necessary for you? What is pleasurable to you? What balance would help you feel empowered?

The key to making self-care work is to make it a non-negotiable and make the mental connection that your wellness is what holds the key to a successful life on your own terms.

We see people begin to understand this concept very quickly when faced with an emotional rock-bottom, a severe health crisis, or a death or other major traumatic life event. Suddenly, something that wasn’t a necessity becomes very important. Why wait for something terrible to happen before you start taking care of yourself?

It seems as though everywhere I turn, people are suffering in various ways. Some have holed up in their home and refuse to leave. Some people know they need to make changes and are still in “freeze” mode from everything that has happened. Some are just trying to keep all of the various plates of career, spouse, kids, finances, health up in the air without one of the plates shattering. Regardless of what you are currently experiencing, here is my tough love for you: it is imperative that you block off 30-60 minutes and take a hard look at what’s going on in your life. What changes need to be made? Who do you need to contact? What conversations would help move the needle forward for you? What self-talk needs to be modified?

The bad news: no rescue boat is coming to save you from this year and nothing can be transformed or fixed overnight.

The good news: you can save yourself, but you need to figure out how to build the boat, where you are going and develop patience through the process.

Take a deep breath. Roll up your sleeves. Address what’s bothering you and make a plan to tackle it. Let’s do this.