Boring self-care

building ourselves, little brick by little brick

(This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited, and today might include a stomach grumble or two. If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it regardless!)

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Before today’s post, just a quick reminder that the Writing as Self-Care online retreat begins on September 10. If you’re already a paying subscriber to The Tortoise (thank you! 💚) you don’t have to do anything. The retreat will be released every Sunday morning for three weeks and will include a video, worksheets and writing prompts. In it we will cover:

• Why we write: the benefits, the reasons, the stories we tell ourselves about putting words to pages — and how to reframe them through the lens of self-care.

• How we write: exploring different modes of writing that we can add to our self-care strategies, and why you might want to play around with some new writing practises.

• When to write: looking at different ways to find time for self-care writing, how to write in the cracks, and how to show up even when the blank page is scary.

If you’re not a paying member of The Tortoise, but this sounds like something you’d like to be part of, you can join us for AU$5/month or AU$50/year and receive access to all my online retreats, the full Tortoise archive and several Sunday posts each month.

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Photo by Tim Hüfner on Unsplash

In the last episode of the plodcast, I briefly spoke about ‘boring self-care’. That is, things like drinking enough water, taking my supplements, going to bed early, working to get good quality sleep, getting up from my desk every hour… you know. Boring stuff. Annoyingly effective stuff.

If you’ve read my third book, Care, you know that I’ve long had thoughts about the ways self-care is packaged and sold to us, but the recent podcast reminded me of just how powerful it can be to flip our thinking on what truly constitutes self-care.

So often we think about it as something additional we need to do — meditate, take a bath, journal, go for a walk — which are all great if we have the time and capacity. But for those seasons of life where we don’t, the thought of adding ‘self-care’ to our list can feel like an ever-changing combination of frustrating, overwhelming and guilt-inducing. None of which helps us to feel particularly well cared for.

But what about all the ways we care for ourselves already? And all the tiny ways we know we should? Rarely do we consider those tasks — the boring, the mundane, the so-small-they-seem-insignificant — to be a legitimate form of self-care, and often they get minimised or outright ignored as we try to add shiny, impressive, significant self-care to our lives.

But here’s the thing: The origins of self-care are those boring acts of caring for the self. It’s literally where the term ‘self-care’ came from back in the 1950s — as doctors, therapists and psychologists tried to empower their patients by teaching them to care for themselves.

And we’re talking super simple* acts of care here. Showering, drinking water, brushing teeth, getting dressed, taking medication. (*Which is not to say they’re always easy.)

While it’s understandable to roll our eyes at this stuff — it’s boring, I get it — these tiny tasks can be the foundation on which we learn how to care for ourselves in larger ways. And honestly, sometimes they’re all we’ve got access to. So why not choose to believe that they matter? (Because they do.)

If you imagine your life as a building, a constantly-in-the-midst-of-renovation building, the foundation is self-care. It’s what helps us to feel supported, it’s where our inherent sense of self and worth come from, and it’s upon these things that we then build a life of loving and caring and making and working and friending and partnering and parenting. If the foundation is weakened or neglected, the rest of the structure eventually becomes unstable. And I’m sure we all know what happens when it gets too unstable — things turn to shit.

But a strong foundation made up of the tiny bricks of self-care is resilient and strong and, while the building may sway in the breeze, and there will always be bits and pieces that need work, it holds the structure in pretty good stead.

The beautiful prairies between the Rocky Mountains and Drumheller, AB

Examples of boring self-care

Some of these are things we already do. Some of them are things we know we should do. And there’s probably a whole lot in the middle that we do sometimes and should do more of, but because we’re human we self-sabotage a little.

Some feel self-care-ish, some feel like ‘stuff that just needs to happen’ and others feel suspiciously like chores. It’s all good. It’s not about luxuriating in them, but seeing their value as a moment of care — another brick in the foundation, if you will. Things like:

• Opening the curtains in the morning

• Making a coffee

• Making your bed

• Hanging the clothes on the line (and feeling the sun on your shoulders)

• Washing your face

• Stretching your body

• Eating regularly

• Getting dressed

• Showering

• Brushing your teeth

• Putting on make up

• Taking supplements or medications

• Going outside

• Breathing deeply

• Closing your laptop at the end of the workday

• Cooking a nourishing meal

• Reading a book

• Drinking enough water

• Closing the curtains

• Clearing the kitchen bench before going to bed

• Going to bed at the same time every night

I tried to trace the effect of one of these moments of boring self-care and quickly found that it’s impossible to do. But what’s not impossible is to imagine the largely unseen ripples that cast out from them.

Let’s say I get up in the morning, turn on the coffee machine and spend five minutes stretching while the coffee is brewing. Maybe I feel physically better from stretching and slightly more alert from the deep breaths I took at the same time. When I wake the kids up, maybe I’m slightly gentler, happier, and when they make their way out into the kitchen, I’m more present. Maybe I ask about the day ahead and they feel a tiny bit more seen because of that, and take that boost in self-confidence into their day. Maybe the eye contact we have as a result gives me an oxytocin boost which I then take into my work day. Maybe that oxytocin reduces my stress slightly and I’m able to write more clearly or solve a problem more effectively…

The truth is we can never truly know what impact these tiny, boring moments of self-care have, but I also don’t think we need to. To feel it is enough. To decide that we deserve care — even the boring, mundane, important kind — is enough.

Do you have any boring self-care rituals that you actively practise? What about things that you do, but have never considered self-care? What might happen if you start thinking about them as self-care? Do you think you might help you feel 1% more cared for? 10%? Some unquantifiable and yet very much real difference?

Enquiring minds want to know!

I’m currently…

Reading Dr Kate Henry’s Substack, Tending. This post on her upcoming writing retreat has me wondering how I can organise a retreat of my own. (Even if it’s an at-home retreat…)

Thinking about dinner. Eggplant schnitty. Yes please. Kind of like this but less fancy.

Sowing things in the garden. I planted some broad beans, radishes and kale seeds this week and will see what comes up. It feels so nice to have my hands in the dirt again. If you’ve lost your gardening mojo, you might want to read lofi life by Casey Lister. She has a knack for bringing all the joyful parts of gardening to the forefront and I always walk away from one of her posts keen to get outside.

Loving this collection of movies reimagined as vintage paperbacks, as seen on The Guardian. My favourites are Guardians of the Galaxy and Ladybird. (Wish it featured more films directed by women though. Lost in Translation, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman… so many to choose from.)

Using the Forest app a lot. My concentration has been shot the past few days so I’m back to using Forest on my phone and Freedom on my computer to lock down the procrastination opportunities. At least this way if I get distracted it’s by things happening outside my window.

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That’s it for the week, mates. I’ll be back on Sunday with an update on the 1% for August for paying subscribers (you can check out what it’s all about here and here) and until then, hope there’s some tiny moments of self-care sprinkled through your days.
Brooke xx