By Maura Guzek • Special to The Cardinal
As a woman, the topic of “self-care” can be fraught. On the one hand, most women feel completely over-extended and under-supported and intuitively know that running on fumes will eventually catch up to us. On the other hand, well-meaning encouragement to take care of ourselves can sometimes only add to feelings of despair if accessing the resources to do so feels impossible.
Part of the fallacy of our concept of self-care is the belief that it comes nicely packaged in a warm bubble bath or an overdue coffee date with a good friend. While those can be wonderful, cup-filling activities, they don’t fundamentally address the systemic issues in place that leave you depleted day after day and night after night.
True self-care stems from making the slightest, most impactful shift in how you think about yourself as a woman and what you’re willing to tolerate. It requires embracing the belief that your family, work, friends, and community will all be fundamentally better off if they receive the best of you, not the dredges.
So the question begs, what would it look like to live a life where your needs didn’t always come last? Would you need to set better boundaries with others around your time and other resources?
True self-care can begin with getting comfortable saying, “no,” “not now,” or “I can’t do that, but here’s how I can help.” Or, do you need to get yourself out of a victim-mentality loop? True self-care might look like learning to accept or ask for help and abandoning a belief that you are uniquely blocked from receiving that help. Think creatively! I promise there are people and resources available and waiting to help.
Yes, you may need to do something outside your comfort zone to access that support. You may need to hire someone to help clean the house, find a mothers-helper to provide you with a mental health break, or take up your family member on their offer to bring over dinner. If you have never cared for yourself in those ways, it can feel uncomfortable or even “wrong” to take those first steps. But the reward, on the other side, will be a sense of lightness and freedom, knowing that the responsibility to hold it all together 24/7 doesn’t rest solely on your shoulders.
And please remember, as you step into this new version of yourself, you will likely fall back into familiar patterns or engage in other forms of self-sabotage (you are human, after all!). Making a change, even one we know is for the better, can be difficult. Talking with a therapist or other source of wise counsel about the habitual thoughts and beliefs that keep you stuck can be very helpful. I offer a private therapy practice focused specifically on helping women work through these types of issues and would be happy to provide a free fifteen-minute phone consultation to see if working together would be helpful.
Please know that perfection is never the goal! You can commit today to no longer accepting a life where your needs come last….and still find yourself facing depleting days. Life happens. But that doesn’t take away from the powerful impact of making consistent small changes that compound over time.
This Valentine’s Day, the best gift you can give yourself as a woman is to commit to truly love yourself—to live out each day with a willingness to value your needs, to provide weight to your desires, and to create a life that reflects back to you the love and support you deserve.
Maura Guzek is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker focused on working with women and postpartum mothers. To schedule a free fifteen-minute consult, please email me at hearthandharmony8@gmail.com. You can find her on Instagram at @the_woman_who_healed_herself.
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