What is Self Care For?

I've never been on an airplane when the oxygen masks deploy. Countless times, though, I've experienced the routine safety measures on a plane: Put the oxygen mask on yourself before attempting to put it on yourself. I sometimes wonder what I might actually do in the chaos of the moment.

It's a compelling image and one that's helpful for thinking about the work of self-care. It illustrates just how crucial it is to first pause, however briefly, to consider ourselves before we reach out to help others.

A life of service should be one of delight and joy. For it to be so, it requires intention and careful attention. A life of service that actually makes a difference in the world invites us to be every bit as generous with ourselves as we want to be for others.

There is great mystery in the Great Commandment: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Self and others are not mutually exclusive. It's true, we can be selfish. Like in the tale of Narcissus, we can become self-absorbed to the point of self-destruction, but this isn't the self-care we are talking about. The self-care that we want to grow into is this "as you love yourself" that empowers us to love our neighbors deeply. So rather than a self-care that's self-indulgent, here are some ways that rhythms of self-care can make us better human beings.

Self-care is for acknowledging our limits.

To be human is to have limits. We can't do everything. None of us are a superhero with a cape or a spandex suit. We are finite. But that's not a liability. It's not weakness. It's a feature rather than a bug. In fact, it's a thing of beauty. A poem isn't a poem without limits.

24 hours a day. 7 days a week. The proximity of our immediate surroundings and the people there. God knows what God has given us and we can only be responsible for what God has given us. No more. Not everything on the to-do list is for us to do. Our self-care reminds us of this. It puts things in perspective. We don't change the world. God does. It's God who keeps us safe and secure and not our own striving and hustle. We are human beings, not human machines.

Self-care allows us to pause and reflect on our "yes's" and "no's." It gives clarity to give ourselves more freely to those things that are truly ours to do. It gives us permission to not do everything.

Self-care is for seasons of grief.

To be human is to suffer loss. Sometimes that loss is something sharp and acute, like the death of a loved one. It might also be a friendship that went sideways or evaporated altogether. Other times, the loss we carry is the general ache of a world gone haywire with suffering. We are surrounded by heavy burdens that grind us down. From time to time, we need to take a moment to name that truth. Sometimes we need to fast from the headlines and the social media feed.

Our bodies don't speak English. We can't talk our way out or think our way out of the big things we feel in sadness, grief, and lament. Self-care takes the time to acknowledge our pain and trauma. Healing takes time.

When the suffering of the world and our own soul builds and builds in us like static electricity, practices of self-care provide a place to "discharge" in appropriate and healthy ways those big feelings and restore our inner equilibrium.

Self-care is for stewardship.

To be human is to be a steward. We steward physical bodies—muscles and bones, organs and parts. We steward physical spaces—our homes, our neighborhoods. We steward resources—our time, our money. We steward relationships—our family, our neighbors, our friends. We take care of things.

Matter matters. Through nearly every generation of church history, the idea has sprung up that this world doesn't matter. Only spiritual things are important. The physical world, just like the Matrix, is an illusion. But the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation tells us just the opposite is true. God so loved the world that God became a human being in true flesh and blood. The created world is gift.

Studies show that social isolation increases the risk of premature death comparable to daily smoking. Our bodies need other bodies. Our minds need other minds. Our emotions need other emotions.

So we take care of the bodies, minds, and emotions that we have been entrusted to our care. They are important because God made them. Self-care leads us deeper into reliance on relationships and community, never away from those things into our own self-reliance and individualism.

Self-care is for the marginalized.

Rest belongs to every person. Self-care cannot be the luxury of the elite. In Exodus 20, God gives the commandment of Sabbath to the people of Israel, who just weeks earlier had all been slaves. Sabbath here isn't a practice of indulgent self-improvement. It's part of the program for remembering our deepest human being-ness.

The rest of Sabbath is for every human—for the employed, for the unemployed, for the under-employed. Furthermore, the invitation to Sabbath calls us to live our lives in such a way that all those around us are also able to rest. This way of Sabbath rest breaks every human-made caste system that exploits some and privileges others. In this way, our self-care is bound up with that of all those around us but especially the poor. Self-care is an act of resistance against oppression of every kind. The well-being of all of those who bear God's image is at stake.

Self-care is for others.

To be human is to be for others. Self-care should grow my capacity to care for others. I'm replenished so that I can give well. Jesus is our ultimate model for self-care. Jesus best demonstrates for us a life lived for the sake of others. The Gospel of Mark shows us this scene: "Then Jesus said, 'Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.' He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat."

Even Jesus exercised boundaries and said "no" because he and his disciples needed to eat. They had extended themselves serving others and needed to withdraw and tend to their own needs. This is the same Jesus who, we're told in Philippians 2, was full of God and emptied himself in service.

It is deeply good for our souls to pour ourselves out on behalf of others. But this also happens within a rhythm of filling up. Our own self-care makes us like those buckets at public park splash pad that fills and fills, and wobbles and wobbles, until it finally tips and splashes everywhere. We are able to give out of what we receive from God.

If we extinguish our own hopes, our dreams, and our gifts because of burnout, we lose our ability to make a difference. This kind of self-care for the sake of the world is a gift we receive from God. It is never performative. Rather, it is love of self for the sake of others. It is the very embodiment of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13: "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."