With October comes a change in seasons, a change in temperature, a change in the trees, and for me this year, a change within myself. October also brings Breast Cancer Awareness Month as well as Pride here in Atlanta. As a gay man with a mother who is a breast cancer survivor, October is a month that is both exciting and challenging. This month, my mother is celebrating her 4th year in remission and, to be frank, it was not something that came to mind until she reminded me. I also did not realize the Pride festival was going on until a friend asked me to join them. I was shocked that I did not remember such important events in my life and it led me to reflect on why these things were not on my mind.
As a new therapist in the community, my focus has been on my clients and trying to establish a rapport with them. My sole goal is to make my clients feel connected, supported, and hopefully, experience some relief. However, it dawned on me that I am not so great at taking the advice I give my clients and applying it to my own life. It was shocking to realize, that I promote self-care techniques, mindfulness practices, and attending to one’s emotional needs to my clients, when I’ve not been doing those things myself. These are things that I promote not only because it is my job, but because they are techniques that I whole-heartedly believe in and that work. This realization led me to want to write this blog to emphasize what self-care looks like.
Self-care is more than a platitude on wall-art, a suggestion from your therapist, or life advice from a TED talk or good book. Not to say these things are not helpful but the true process and action of self-care is something that often goes undiscussed. This realization led me to consider how much energy and effort it requires of us to take time to check-in with ourselves, to ask ourselves questions about how we are truly doing, to allow us the space and time to take care of ourselves. For me personally, and maybe others, taking time to focus on myself tends to feel selfish or self-indulgent. Considering my life is not that bad or difficult compared to the world at large, it might not seem fair to take care of myself especially when my focus is to take care of others who may have it worse. I’m incredibly grateful and fortunate to have what I have. However, true self-care is allowing ourselves to see our pain as our own, to not compare it to others, to not downplay or lessen that experience, and to challenge ourselves to not feel guilty for trying to attend to our own experiences and needs. Allowing yourself to do this takes a lot of effort that I might have expected in others but was not always great at doing myself.
With all these things in mind, the month of October for me is a time to practice what I preach. Not only because I truly believe it is good advice to others, but to empathize and understand more deeply what clients go through when I encourage them to practice self-care. This October, I will allow myself to experience the joy and the pain of realizing that I am lucky that my mom won her battle with breast cancer and that I get more time with her, while others may not have been so lucky. I will remind myself it is okay to be scared that things could have been different or could change while also being grateful for how things are. This October, I will allow myself to celebrate my pride as a gay man which is not something I have always been able to do. For me, expressing that pride comes with knowing the struggle of where I once was and where I am lucky to be now. Allowing myself to feel that pride without the guilt of knowing others may not be as fortunate to do so, like I once was also not able to. And lastly, this October I will attend to myself and my needs and accept that while it may be difficult to care for myself while also caring for others, that it is both necessary and possible.
So, for those reading or simply as my own advice, self-care is more than just the suggestion by therapist, self-help books, or a face mask and a bubble bath (even though those things are important in their own ways. Self-care is recognizing and coming to terms with the reality that self-care is hard. It requires a lot of energy, motivation, and strength to take a step back from our busy lives and ask ourselves, “how am I doing?” Self-care is also allowing yourself grace when you cannot find this energy, motivation, and strength but it is also not giving up and trying to find these things again. These things may seem simple when giving advice to a client or to a friend, but they’re much more difficult when trying to apply it to your own life. So, for those of us who are struggling with or find self-care difficult, I hear you. I understand. And I hope you allow yourself the grace to keep trying and find the self-care that works for you. I hope you understand that it is difficult, but really, really important. Writing this blog and examining my own faults when it comes to practicing what I preach to my clients is hard but this is my first step in my month of changing my self-care habits, what is yours?