Faux Self-Care vs. Real Self-Care

A launch week excerpt from Real Self-Care: Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble-Baths Not Included

REAL SELF-CARE launch week exceeded my wildest expectations. As a first time author, I didn’t have a mental frame of reference. But, I think it’s safe to say that it was a pretty fucking great week.

There was GMA, Times Square, a ginormous Amazon Books billboard towering over 7th Ave and 34th, a feature in the The New York Times. On pub day itself, the book was an instant Amazon women’s health best-seller (wut!)

And a surprise rave review in Vox by Constance Grady, where REAL SELF-CARE was held up with best-selling author Jenny Odell’s SAVING TIME, as a handbook for how to make sense of time in end-stage capitalism. This was a particular highlight for me because Grady so deeply got my core message.

“Where Lakshmin aligns with Odell is in her contention that once that internal work begins, it evolves into systemic reform…The biggest gift both of these books have to offer, though, is the possibility that life doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to languish, impotent, in our dumb dark world, letting time march us forward and watching everything burn... We can advocate for ourselves and for our neighbors. Instead of drowning in time, we can swim.”

If you still have not bought REAL SELF-CARE and have been meaning to but are procrastinating — DO IT NOW! There’s an e-book and audiobook too (narrated by me). Sales in this first week help a lot in terms of the lifespan of a book ♥️

In place of a Therapy Takeaway, this week I am (belatedly, yes) sharing an excerpt of the book with you all below.

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FAUX self-care versus REAL self-care

To illustrate the difference between faux self-care and real self-care, I offer the example of my patient Shelby. Shelby, a thirty-two-year-old married white woman, first came to see me for help managing her depression, which had long been under control with the help of psychotherapy and medication. During her time in treatment with me, she had her first baby. Shelby considered herself someone who had her act together. She had always been on top of her mental health, getting treatment for her depression in her early twenties, and had risen in the ranks of her career at a large ad agency. Shelby loved her job, and she loved getting things done. She had a healthy relationship with her hus-band, Mark, who had been her college sweetheart. When they decided to start trying for their first child together, they spent a good deal of time examining the various responsibilities they would each be in charge of and committed to an equal division of labor in the home. Together Shelby and Mark discussed all the different scenarios of how their finances would work and how much time she'd take off work because she was the primary breadwinner.

Shelby's main self-care strategy prior to having her daughter was exercise she loved to run and also had an elliptical ma-chine. She found that in addition to therapy and medication, daily exercise was incredibly important for her mental health and the health of her relationship.

Shelby went into labor a couple of weeks before her due date, and her daughter, Felicity, was born prematurely. Because Felicity was born early, her suck reflex was not fully mature, and she had trouble latching on to the nipple during breastfeeding.

Shelby, ever the problem solver and the one to "get it done," set out to fix the issue. She took Felicity to a specialist to fix her tongue-tie, and diligently followed the pediatrician's recommendation to triple feed, meaning that every feed involved three steps: putting Felicity to the breast for a period of time, pumping milk in order to keep her supply up, and then giving Felicity high-calorie formula to encourage her to gain weight.

Despite this, Felicity was not putting on weight as she should and was falling off the growth curve. Each feed was a knock-down, drag-out fight, as Felicity did not like breastfeeding. Each session typically ended in tears (for both Felicity and Shelby).

During this time, Shelly, in her sleep-deprived state, tried to find comfort in her typical self-care activity of exercise. She couldn't run postpartum, so she used her elliptical. However, she had very little time to work out and when she did, she became upset that her body couldn't perform like it used to. She went to a mommy and me postpartum stress class, but that only added more pressure as she compared Felicity's development to all the other infants'. The harder she pushed at some of these self-care solutions (which had worked for her in the past), the more disconnected Shelby felt from herself and from her family.

One day in a therapy session with me, Shelby described a new feeling that she was just starting to understand. During the triple feeds, after Felicity and Shelby would have their knockdown fight at the breast, Shelby would hand her daughter off to her husband to bottle-feed, burp, and soothe while Shelby pumped breast milk. In those moments, Shelby found herself looking at her husband with a combination of envy and resentment. He got to spend quality time experiencing the best of their cute little daughter- meanwhile, as a mother, she was forced into the misery of trying to make something work that was clearly not working. Shelby also realized that she was starting to develop negative feelings toward her daughter-she resented Felicity for not getting with the program and breastfeeding like she was supposed to. And, in the same breath, she realized that if she wanted to be the mother she hoped that she'd become, she would have to let go of breastfeeding. Once Shelby made this tough decision, she noticed that she started to feel more like herself. She was sleeping a little more and felt more comfortable in her body. She found herself going on short runs again, without having to force her-self. She felt more relaxed in group settings with other mothers.

In his bestselling book Effortless, author and leadership expert Greg McKeown elucidates an important point about decision-making--the difference between methods and principles. He writes: "A method may be useful once, to solve one specific type of problem. Principles, however, can be applied broadly and repeatedly.»10 Faux self-care is a method- in the moment, going for a run might improve your mood, but it does nothing to change the circumstances in your life that led you to feel drained, energy-less, or down. On the other hand, the work of real self-care is about going deeper and identifying the core principles to guide decision-making. When you apply these principles to your life, you don't just feel relief in the moment, you design a system of living that prevents the problems from coming up in the first place. In other words, applying a methodology of faux self-care is reactive, whereas practicing real self-care is proactive. To bring it back to Shelby exercise and the postpartum group were methods that on the surface seemed helpful, but in this new phase of life, they weren't nourishing her anymore.

By deciding to stop breastfeeding, Shelby was turning to the principles of real self-care. She set boundaries (coming from a large family based locally, she had many relatives who loved to give unsolicited advice about feeding the baby); developed compassion for herself (by recognizing that resentment was building between her and her daughter, and her and her husband); identified her values (in prioritizing her relationships with her daughter and her husband); and asserted power (by using her agency to make a hard choice). Her particular method for real self-care as a new mother was to let go of breastfeeding and accept a new direction that prioritized her relationships.

To be clear, it's not that exercise or the support group were bad solutions (in fact, psychiatrists often recommend movement as an evidence-based strategy to mitigate mild depression). The issue was that exercise was causing psychological stress because Shelby was comparing her performance to her prepregnancy state. Similarly, in the postpartum group sessions, she was preoccupied with her baby's performance. Once she practiced real self-care and reworked her feeding plan for Felicity, Shelby found she was able to return to her workouts in a healthier fash-ion, and she was able to be compassionate toward herself in her moms' group.

As we move through the book, you will understand how your own methods of real self-care will differ based on your particular situation. But the principles are remarkably consistent. If you start implementing these principles in your life (and you don't even need to do it perfectly--you just need to start), then you'll find that your unique methods for real self-care become clear to you.

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If hardcovers aren’t your thing, there’s an Ebook and an Audiobook (narrated by me!)

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