Why Self-Care is Becoming the New Normal
At 35 years old, I got my first wake-up call about the need for Self-Care. I don’t mean the self-care with a small letter “s” and “c.” I mean the Self-Care with big, fat capital letters that scream at you from the four winds. I mean the kind of Self-Care that requires a total re-evaluation of how you operate in life and work. This was the kind of wake-up call that stopped me in my tracks.
Like most healthy 30-somethings, I felt pretty invincible. I was driven, determined, and successful in my acting and singing career. When I was exhausted, I pushed through it. When I was stressed, I drank, or slept in, or went for a massage. There was a frivolity and disassociation with pain in my body, because I was filled with passion and a drive to succeed.
This is what I saw in the women around me too. I was surrounded by driven, passionate, successful women who managed to secure positions of leadership by developing valuable management skills, work habits, and attitudes for success. All of these attributes were masculine in nature. In order for women to be successful within the masculine systems and structures of government, industry, law, academia, medicine, and entertainment, we had to fit in to the well-oiled machine.
And we did.
We strove to be better at the system than out male counterparts, so we wouldn’t be cast out of the game. We knew the struggle that the “women before us” had to go through to get where they did. So we continued the fight. We essentially became masculine women versed in many of the skills attributed to the Sacred Masculine, such as drive, determination, single-focus, action, and competition.
All of this was normal to us. This was satisfying. We did not hate men. We liked playing alongside them in this game.
But then at 35, the first wake- up call came. I had an emotional breakdown.
I woke up in a hurry.
The “breakneck speed” with which I had driven my life and career had taken a toll on my physical and emotional body. I was a wreck. It was like every teardrop that I had suppressed for another day came welling up in a torrential downpour of grief and pain. There was no stopping it. It poured and poured and poured out of me for months. And months.
At the end of that period of release, I was different. I was lighter. I was more sensitive. To EVERYTHING! To light, sound, energy, emotions, smells, alcohol, coffee, and everything else. It was like I was living in a foreign world. I started to see things differently. I couldn’t do things the way I had always done them. I had to create entirely new work habits. Which meant, in some cases, I couldn’t do the same things I used to do.
My superhuman drive that fit well into masculine systems seemed to be broken. No longer was I a superhuman. I was just a human. And a very feminine human at that.
When I looked around, I couldn’t find workspaces where my feminine needs were being met and nurtured. No organization or employer was confronting and reducing the 50-70 hour work week. No company was tackling and increasing the number of days off for maternal leave, sick leave, or holidays. Nowhere were employers concerned with better work habits or work ethics.
In the existing structures, Self-Care was reduced to medical leave, if you were lucky enough to have it. Or extended health care, if you were lucky enough to afford it.
I had changed. And it became very clear to me, that the system hadn’t. It wasn’t going to change on its own. If I wanted the system to change, I had to work to change it.
I started to notice friends of mine breaking down. These powerhouse women, who could take on the world, were becoming sick. Their physical bodies were breaking down. Their brains were doing weird things. They were developing weird nerve disorders. Their emotional and mental health were severely disrupted. They were having trouble getting pregnant. And their nervous systems were overloading.
Stress-related illnesses were taking out my sisters at an astonishing rate. By the time I was 44, I knew:
five women under 40 who had strokes,
two women with brain aneurysms,
seven women under 40 who had nervous breakdowns,
three women with brain injuries,
two women with tumours,
three women with Lyme Disease,
six women who had severe car accidents,
three women who had lost chunks of their hair,
five women who were diagnosed with a mental illness, and
five women under 45 with various cancers.
The proportion of healthy women getting “stopped in their tracks,” was too high. It was happening too frequently to go unnoticed.
So I started to notice.
It turns out, I wasn’t alone in no longer fitting into the old system. Dozens of successful women had also been abruptly halted in their journey to succeed. They too were no longer able to drive themselves into the ground. They too had been floundering around, looking for ways to get their feminine needs met. Where were we to go? What were we to do? This masculine structure of business and operations was all we had ever known. Now what were we supposed to do?
Then the light of Spirit went on. When I looked around me, it wasn’t just women breaking down. Our men were breaking down too. The environment was in crisis. Our air was and waters were polluted. Our children were developing weird allergies and illnesses. Our world was in a mess. And when I looked closer, I realized that this breakneck speed and drive that the existing systems encouraged was the problem. The Masculine systems were running amok, because the tempering aspect of the Feminine was not present or built into the systems.
Can you say out of balance?
Where does compassion, inclusion, receptivity, or collaboration fit in these popular mottos that all of us agreed to live by?
Do or die.
Survival of the fittest.
Profits over people.
Best man wins.
An eye for an eye.
The King of the castle.
Eat them alive.
Live to conquer.
Dog eat dog.
These mottos are based on a philosophy of black and white.
The philosophy of the Feminine
is to live in full-blown colour.
Maybe you are begging for more colour in your workplace. Maybe you are unable to function the way you once did. And are no longer able to override your exhaustion. To ignore your stomach’s malabsorption of nutrients. To work until your raw and jittery nerves electrocute you. To overcome your feelings of isolation. Maybe you are just not feeling good about neglecting your family and friends anymore. Or neglecting the Earth.
The need for Self-Care has been the number one motivating factor in helping many individual break out of the system. Not the fear of fear of being fired. Not the fear of not belonging. Not the fear of being broke. It is your need to become well again. Your need to care for your precious Self.
When one person starts to change, by adding hues of colour to their black and white world, and adding Self-Care to their schedule and lives, others start to notice.
A revolution has begun.
A revolution that puts Self-Care at the top of the to-do list. Did the revolution begin with the revelation of my powerful women colleagues and I? Maybe, maybe not. But the need for Self-Care is so great, that work culture has been irrevocably altered. If you look around at the different leadership trends or working models emerging today, you will see hints of colour changing the black and white culture. Terms like mental health, safety, diversity and inclusion, reconciliation, zero tolerance, work-life balance, and flex work schedules are not just buzzwords.
Without Self-Care, organizations and teams are losing their best workers. And losing money.
Surviving your job is no longer acceptable to employers. Smart organizations are doing what it takes to minimize brain drain, disengagement, boredom and loneliness. Whether it’s to prevent losing profit or to prevent a health crisis, taking care of one’s physical, emotional, and mental health is becoming the new normal.
Colourful Self-Care Ideas in the Workplace
One tv producer colleague will not work for more than two days in a row. Every new organization that wants to work with her, must agree to her “2 days on, 1 day off rule.” And they agree.
Another professional accountant told me she takes a “Nature Break” every 2 hours. She has laid out four different 15-minute, walking routes that she and her colleagues walk every single day.
Many other women encourage their teams to participate in daily Self-Care activities like meditation, yoga, music moments, and dance breaks.
Other popular Self-Care activities include:
- massage therapy,
- water therapy (baths,)
- attending empowering events,
- emotional retreats,
- family days
- engaging in deep conversations with friends,
- attending ceremony,
- crying,
- sleeping in,
- reading uplifting books, and
- social nights.
How do you fair in this Self-Care revolution?
Are you still pushing yourself too hard?
Self-Care is like a pallet of paints. It holds all the colours you need to feel motivated, healthy, nurtured, appreciated and productive. Everything you need is now available to you if you choose to practise the care of the Self. Whatever product or practitioner you require is a google search away.
It’s time to engage in Self-Care before it’s too late. Be the change within the system before the system destroys you.
For more information about Andrea’s Sacred Retreats in Hawai’i, see below:
Goddess Gatherings: https://andreamenard.com/goddessgatherings
Sacred Men’s Retreats: https://andreamenard.com/mensretreats
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