Non-productive self-care
Self-care has become really popular these days but is still often associated with luxurious baths, going to spas, doing face masks, going to a weekend retreat, and so on. The problem with this idea is that we don’t all have the money, time or privilege to do those things.
Self-care is also often associated with “creating something”, doing something “productive”, like painting something, knitting or crocheting, embroidering, writing… Nothing wrong with this idea as self-care should be considered anything that fuels up in a healthy way. However, it can reinforce that self-care has to be something ‘productive’, where you create something useful and you spend a fair amount of time doing that, even the days that you don’t feel like it. You feel like you have to do EVERYTHING. You have to exercise and maintain a healthy physique, but you also have to attend every outing with your friends, you have to eat healthy every day and you have to volunteer or have hobbies on your own. It is a lot of pressure, and it is normal that sometimes you are not going to want to do those things, but it creates guilt and self-blame. Because we live in a capitalist society this feeling is often normalised or even reinforced by other people.
When I talk about self-care with my clients, this often comes up. How am I going to take care of myself If I am not good at painting/writing/I don’t have any hobbies? I have tried to eat healthy everyday, exercise 5 times per week and go out and do more things, but I have failed.
Self care has become something that you can’t really afford or something that stresses you more, because is not about the activity is about creating something that others could consider good/artistic or something that ‘is perfect’, or about doing as much activities as possible in a day.
How can you practice non-productive self-care?
Set aside some ‘non-productive time’ or a ‘non-productive day’. Society demands things from us all the time, so taking a break from that can be really therapeutic. Give yourself permission to slow down and to not be ‘productive’. Sometimes that is everything you need.
You might notice the guilt creeping in, let that feeling be there but don’t act on it. Just sit with it.
Non-productive self-care is about listening to your own needs and ignore expectations that society or other people around you might have set for you. So it can look very different for different people. It can be just sitting and doing NOTHING, eating your favourite snack or listening to music that you really like. It doesn’t have to be something extremely creative or original.
Can you try it?
