Why Self-Care Might Feel Unsatisfying

You know how sometimes, you have to charge your phone, but you also need to use it, so you take it off the charger right after it gets out of the red zone? 

That’s the approach I’ve been seeing more and more in self-care. And it’s got my attention – not only because it’s not especially effective, but because it’s based on this underlying idea that self-care is a transactional task that can be optimized for maximum efficiency and minimum resource drain.

If you’ve found yourself hovering around the red zone for a while, know this: you’re not alone. And if your self-care feels like work, something’s off.

It’s so easy to fall into a transactional relationship with your self-care. You know you have to have a certain amount of energy and focus and maybe happiness to function, so you give yourself just enough of the things you think will make that happen. 

You give yourself just enough to keep your battery above the red line, and you keep it as efficient and optimized as possible, because you’re already tired and the thought of adding a whole new layer of tasks seems heavy and exhausting.

And then, all the messaging around self-care comes in, and you’re told to “Just carve out a little more time for yourself!” or that if you find the right task, or perform it the right way, then somehow the self-care will kick in and you’ll get some returns on your energetic investment.

But self-care isn’t a transaction. It’s a relationship, one you hold with yourself for the whole span of your life, and when you approach it like this, it becomes so, so much more fulfilling.

All of a  sudden you don’t have to try so hard – at least, not in the same way. And the just-right action that fills you up and nourishes you emerges in the moment and from you, instead of being something you pick up from somebody else, or do because you think you should.

That’s my invitation for you this month: to ask yourself what you need right now, as opposed to what you think you should need.

It might be really different than what you originally thought. For instance, the other day I was deep in the red. Conventional wisdom might have dictated that I take a bubble bath, or color in a coloring book, or get on a yoga mat. What I actually needed was to signal to my insides that I knew how things are – to meet and match myself.

What is meeting and matching?

You might have heard me talk before about how I used to work at a 911 call center. One of the first things we taught call operators is that you have to meet and match the  on the other end of the phone.

If someone calls you up in a panic, with their emotions at 11, you can’t come back to them and tell them to calm down, that’s just not on the cards right now. You have to meet them where they’re at, and match them, if you want to help them, and certainly if you want to calm them down. The same thing applies in your own relationship with yourself. You have to meet and match yourself, not try to push yourself into what you think self-care should look like.

And so on that day when I was deep in the red, I met and matched myself. I lay in my bed, in the dark, and watched videos of baby cats and goats. That’s what I actually needed, it’s what refilled me, it’s what made me feel genuinely nourished. 

And, simply the act of acknowledging that, and meeting and matching myself, was calming and nourishing in and of itself. So where might you meet and match yourself? 

How can you show your self that you’ll give it what it needs, even if it sounds a little weird, or doesn’t look “right” or doesn’t seem like it’s hard enough work?

There’s real power there – and real peace.

And, as always, if you’d like some support in this process, I’m here for you. Find out how we can work together here.