I Don't Know Who Needs To Hear This, But If The Phrase "self Care" Doesn't Resonate With You, Try Calling

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase "self care" doesn't resonate with you, try calling it "system maintenance" and see if that clicks.

It's time to kill the idea that we can only grow and heal when we're uncomfortable. You heal every time you have a good conversation with someone. You heal every time you laugh. You heal every time something makes you smile genuinely. You heal every time you have fun creating something - anything. You heal every time you get so absorbed in something fun that you forget your struggles for a while. There is, in fact, lots of healing and growth to be found INSIDE your comfort zone.

best way I have found to comfort people who are endlessly apologetic of things outside their control (often as a result of shitty relationships) is the jokingly hyperbolic accusation of [gasp] "so you're behind it all!"

like someone giving me directions who starts apologizing profusely when I miss a light as if it's their fault--[gasp] "it was you who petitioned city council to build this intersection in 1893!!" because it snaps them out of it and they laugh like. oh yeah. that's a ridiculous thing to blame someone for. I'm not that guy. you're not that guy. it works.

“Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw — actually saw — a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs.”

— Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome

if something confirms your biases, that's when you REALLY NEED to fact check it!

if it scratches an angry little itch, fact check it!

if it gives you petty satisfaction, fact check it!

if it feels like revenge, fact check it!

ESPECIALLY if it's about a group or demographic rather than named individuals, FACT. CHECK. IT.