Deconstructing “self-care” in 2021

Since it’s 2021, I’m assuming everyone has read at least twenty self-care articles. Most of them go along the lines of this:

Darling! Did capitalism kick your ass again this week?! Don’t worry, we got you!

Just get your credit card ready to buy these fifteen items we swear by —meaning we get some money for promoting it when in reality we don’t have the money to get them — on the biggest online retailer in the world.

Yup, that’s the same one that oversells subprime items as higher quality items so their ex-CEO can hop on a big obelisk (or phallus, your choice) and go to space while you can’t even save enough money for a 20% cash down payment for an obscenely overpriced property that won’t withstand the consequences of climate change that we’ve inflicted upon ourselves.

Yes, it may not have been our generation that messed up the planet; I’m fully aware of it. It was our parents and grandparents. They had it better than us in ways they’ll never comprehend. I’m sure they meant well.

What’s the point of having infinite access to knowledge if I can’t do anything with it? Why am I still using money that I could use in a mortgage payment in student loans I took out when I was still a teenager and had no clue a recession was coming?

Ugh, babe. I know life is hard, so why don’t you treat yourself to a delicious, sodium-filled, high-caloric meal delivered straight to your home? You just gotta pay almost the same at the meal (or more) for all the fees and tips, and other stuff you don’t even get, but what the heck, the week is over! This is self-care and you totally deserve it, boo.

Perhaps you’re more in the mood of legal, pseudo-illegal, or bull-blown illegal substances that can elevate you to a quick Nirvana in your luscious tub filled with bubble bath that belongs to your kid. It’s the best one, anyways. Thank you, Elsa! Let it all go.

And while you’re at it, remember that you can have your cake and eat it if you have a good credit score. You can even get another credit card, so you can keep that overall usage lower, and as long as you keep swiping, tapping, or double-clicking the button on your iPhone and putting down the mask for the Face ID to confirm your identity, you’re all good.

If you don’t remember us, we’ll keep bugging you on all your social media platforms. After all, we know you better than you know yourself. We get paid to analyze your habits, desires, and guilty pleasures. Yeah, incognito mode doesn’t cut it. We still know what you browse through after 10:00 PM.

Did I get it right?

Maybe I didn’t. Maybe it’s just me. I’m so used to gaslighting myself that it comes naturally.

When none of that worked for me anymore, I had to look for something else because I wasn’t aware I would never awaken if I kept scratching the itch. It sounds ironic, but it’s true.

But something happened one day, something I didn’t expect. I had another dark night of the soul, and not even scratching the itch was cutting it. I had to go through the pain cold turkey. And that was the beginning of my personal liberation from the collective state of being, which is my definition of self-care.

The more I felt separate from you, the more miserable I became. The more I got hung up in the disparity of your beliefs vs. mine, the lower my soul sunk in anguish and unbearable pain. The more I thought I was better or worse than you, the farther I got away from the light of consciousness.

I stopped getting more likes and comments on my social media profiles and turned inward to discover my true passions and preferences. I left social media altogether because I was either envious or judgmental of everybody else’s digital persona, with their perfect lives, drama, or outrageous opinions, which brought me more misery.

Another thing that helped me was defining goals based on my understanding of a full, happy life. No more vision boards showing beach houses, fit bodies, cute babies, a hot and understanding husband, and a Peloton as a quintessential part of the home office. I had to let go of everything I was programmed to want for the soul to show me the way to enlightenment.

In a nutshell

I have no idea what life’s all about. I won’t even pretend to tell you what to do. I’m a hot mess myself! However, if this helped you in some way, talk with someone else about it. Let’s start planting the seed of the real possibility of a new world. I have to believe there’s something we can do. We are powerless over many things, but I believe that's more than enough if we can capitalize on what we have control of.

*Originally published on medium.com