3 Self-Care Strategies from Spoon Theory

Learn how to pace yourself.

Photo credit: Maryna Terletska via Shutterstock

Hi folks,

Welcome to a special Sunday edition of Real Self-Care. Today’s note, only for paid subscribers, will help you start your week with some ease.

For those unfamiliar with Spoon Theory, it is a shorthand framework that was coined by Christine Miserandino in her blog But You Don’t Look Sick. Christine wrote about a dinner where she was explaining to a friend what it felt like to suffer from chronic illness, and she grabbed a bunch of spoons to illustrate it. 

The crux of spoon theory is that basic tasks can take more and variable amounts of energy because you are contending with a chronic illness. I think the same can be said for living through the next few years. We need to be prepared for the unpredictable and that means being thoughtful about how we allocate our most precious resources: our time and our attention. 

I do have one caveat before we dive in. People who are living with and suffering from chronic illness will have even fewer spoons now than they did prior to the election. The ACA will now be under attack. Using language from spoon theory in order to make a real self-care plan for yourself does not negate the fact that this is a framework that was conceived and initially designed for folks who suffer from chronic illness. 

A primer on Spoon Theory

Each spoon stands for a certain amount of energy. While healthy people