F*ck mani-pedis: There's more to self-care than spa days

Okay, listen, if you love mani-pedis, you can totally keep them.

But also, let’s broaden your view of self-care.

Despite what strategically-served ads and every stock photo ever wants to tell you, it isn’t just spa days and fancy chocolates and shit.

Those things are legit if they actually make you feel good and more like yourself, but they’re not the only way to “do” self-care.

Self-care is also:

serving cereal for dinner because you just don’t fucking feel like cooking.
blocking that douche from high school who won’t stop commenting on your shit.
having boundaries with your mom.
taking your multivitamin every day even when you don’t feel like it because you know it makes a difference for you.
getting up to pee or eat as soon as you realize you need to instead of making yourself finish just one more thing first.
saying no to plans because you just don’t feel like going out.
asking for what you want and not taking no for an answer.

It’s a million little and big things we can do every day FOR OURSELVES not for other people.

Because we want to.

And because we need to to be who we actually are.

It’s not an accident that the concept of self-care has over time been transformed into this tidy and easily labeled commercialized commodity.

Commercialized commodities make money.

And you getting a mani-pedi is WAY more convenient for the patriarchy than, say,

you going home at the end of your 8-hour work day (which, by the way, is also fucked but that’s another email) and not dealing with work again until the next morning when you’re actually at work.
you leaving your partner to do their fair share of the household-parenting-pet-paperwork demands instead of constantly rescuing them and doing it all yourself for eternity.
you refusing to jump through arbitrary hoops to get the approval of someone who’s constantly moving the goalposts and will never find anything you do good enough but loves to watch you try to measure up.

The patriarchy WANTS you to get the mani-pedi so then they can tell you, “What, look how nicely you’re taking care of yourself, your nails look great, if you’re still unhappy that’s on you because *gestures at nails* so suck it up! Smile more! Try harder! And treat yourself to a massage while you’re at it.”

You have been so conditioned by this bullshit system into denying yourself and your ACTUAL needs and your wants and your desires that you actually believe you don’t have them anymore.

And that a mani-pedi is all you need and if you’re not feeling better after that there’s something wrong with you.

So you try to self-care harder and be a good girl and perk up, and you don’t understand why it’s not working.

Or you give it up entirely and decide that, because you’re not into scented candles or some shit, self-care isn’t for you.

It’s like Stockholm Syndrome, but with more bath bombs.

Just because there are massages doesn’t mean it’s not still a prison.

You have been tying yourself in knots and denying yourself for so long you don’t even know who you are anymore and FOR WHAT?

More shit to do and feel bad about?

Fuck that.

You do still have needs.

And wants.

And desires.

AND YOU FUCKING SHOULD. You’re a human, not a robot, and no matter what anyone tells you, it doesn’t make you selfish.

But just like the dog who gets kicked every time it asks to play and eventually stops asking, your wants and needs and desires are so used to being ignored that they’ve gone silent.

They’re still there though.

And now you get to start listening to them again.

Not sure where to start?

Start small.

Start basic.

Go back in time to when you were a kid. What did you enjoy? What could you lose hours in? What did you fantasize about being when you grew up?

Did you just love swinging high on the swings because it felt like flying and you would just swing hard for all of recess? Go to a fucking playground.

Did you make up elaborate stories or artwork with amazing backstories? Get a pencil and some paper and fuck around and see what happens.

Can’t think of anything from childhood? No problem.

What’s the shit you always told yourself you’d do once you were “free” — from the kids, from the job, from the debt, from the partner, from how you feel about your own body?

What’s the stuff you see other people doing that you feel a longing for?

Those are all clues.

Pick something.

Anything.

There’s no wrong thing.

Try it out.

See what happens.

Repeat.

And that repeat part is IMPORTANT.

Self-care isn’t a thing you do once a month for 30 minutes.

Self-care is a PRACTICE that you do over and over and over.

Kinda like how you have to keep eating and showering if you want to, like stay alive and be clean.

Self-care is a PROCESS.

And it is a process that does not have to include mud masks or massages. (But it can if they restore you and make you more of who you are.)

You are not behind.

You are right on time.

What time, you ask?

Time to make taking care of yourself a priority the way you’ve made pleasing others a priority for so long.

Find out what you actually like.

And do more of it.

Be gentle with yourself as you rediscover your own joy.

Be gentle with yourself as you learn what self-care actually looks like for you — and unlearn what everyone else thinks your self-care should look like.

You got this.