The Journey of Self-Care

As leaders committed to making positive impact in the world, we are often awakened to the importance of self-care at the most inopportune of times.

In the middle of a recent grant writing deadline, I started shortening my daily yoga and meditation practice, staying up too late and sleeping less. I thought that it would give me extra time to work, but actually it made me more stressed and less able to focus. Instead of doubling-down on my relaxation time, I pushed harder – until I hit a wall of apathy where I could hear a part of myself saying, "Fuck it, this isn't going to work, why am I doing this anyway?..." and I found myself burnt out, overstimulated and miles away from my usual self-care strategies.

This self-care business is no joke. Without it, I literally can't do the work that is part of my deep purpose. I'm useless, but worse than that, I'm miserable – and when I'm miserable, I'm pretty good at making the people around me miserable too.

All for a few missed yoga poses, a bit of missed sleep and a too-short meditation? I know, it sounds extreme, but I promise you it's not. I notice the same slippery slope when I start feeding myself too much sugar and don't give myself enough time to exercise, or when I cancel a heart-to-heart with a friend because of a sprawling email inbox.

The other extreme is just as bad and even more joyless, when I find myself throwing an inward temper tantrum that a restaurant menu doesn't have the healthy choices I want, instead of indulging with grace and ease. Or I find myself pushing too hard during a workout when really, what my body wants is a walk on the beach and a nice warm bath.

Whether we've given up taking care of ourselves or are far too rigid in our daily regimes, both sides of the wellness spectrum can be damaging for our physical health and feed unhealthy parts of our psyche. What to do?

The Hero's Journey — Towards Wellbeing

In the 1940's, an American scholar named Joseph Campbell sought to identify a common thread in many of humanity's iconic stories. He called this the Hero's Journey, and its narrative cycle is mirrored in everything from Disney movies to Bible stories.

Over the last five years, as I've taught thousands of changemakers how to be healthier and happier while being of service in the world, I've come to think of our path towards well-being as a hero's journey.

As we set out, we are called towards our purpose, towards making a difference in the world. In the beginning, we are ill-prepared and don't quite know how to go about it, but something happens – some coincidence, or synchronicity, or well-timed introduction, and we set off to take that job as an aid worker, that position with the non-profit, or that new role with a social business start-up. At that point, we meet a new set of people who introduce us to new values, new ways of doing things, and everything begins to change.

But as we get started, everything is harder than we thought it would be. It's lonelier, it's scarier, and success is never guaranteed. We may have mentors, but we also have adversaries, and it can be very easy to feel discouraged and want to give up. A few months into the new work and culture shock hits, whether we’re in a new country, community or organization, and we feel disoriented and completely lost. We start to question everything and wonder why we left the comfort of whatever easy thing we were doing in the first place.

At this point, our self-care might look like beers after work and a weekend surf at the local beach. Maybe we go to a community yoga class once a week, and remember to eat breakfast before we begin mainlining coffee for the day. Maybe we're still being vigilant in the self-care practices that served us so well before, but those things aren't working the same way they used to.

Before we know it, we are burned out, isolated and panicking at what's become of the luminous dream that called us out to this edge in the first place. It's easy to turn on ourselves at this point, to get angry, to let things fall apart, and we do. We let go of everything we were holding so tightly before and see what happens. At the time, it feels like we have no other choice, and in many ways, we don’t.

When we do let go, we often realize just how much we have been neglecting ourselves, how deeply we have been denying ourselves the things that give us pleasure in favor of work, work and more work. We see that we can't go on like this without becoming burned out and cynical, or like the adversaries who stand in our way. And we open to change.

At this very moment, transformation becomes possible. We open to finding solutions for ourselves, to carving out the time for a more radical approach to self-care, one that puts ourselves first – as hard as this might be. Self-care seems to go against the grain of everything we've been taught about being of service, especially if we grew up admiring martyrs. In reality, it's the only thing that keeps us in the game long enough to make a difference.

Whatever new choices we start making for ourselves, we find ourselves on a new path, with a new foundation, able to return to the work but finding ourselves deeply changed.

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