The challenge is not to click on anything that has self-care in the subject header, or as a hashtag, but take instead the time you would have frittered away reading about exercises you will feel bad you are not doing and facial smoothies made with acai berries and oat milk-soaked cashmere you are not going to cover with the $6.17 in your checking account, thanks, on 5-10 seconds of conversing with the gigantic biosphere that is your body, given that you are, ya know, pretty much the G*d of a universe and no offense do not exactly pay minute attention to the epic struggles, tensions, tragedies, and travails playing out between gut bacteria and invasive species of your 3 a.m. dining decisions.
This doesn't work unless you can visualize the microbes, the cells, the bacteria, etc. as tiny spaceships of different sizes, and your organs as like basically a universe of independent planetary bodies who are right now enjoying a carefully negotiated truce between all parties in order to avoid an end-of-times style galactic war.
Have you been digesting food recently AND breathing? What about speaking with your larynx, and not growing fingernails instead of hair? This is all the product of an incredibly complex dance of organisms working in concert for the good of the Higher Power--i.e., you.
You see, chickadees, the differential in size between you and the nucleus of one of the many trillions of cellular organisms that is busy tidying your bloodstream, hurtling messages between executive offices, and frankly being wildly underpaid, is the same as the difference between earth and the universe.
No. I am sorry. Let me repeat that.
In every cell and every atom in your body is a distance that stretches across a vastness of size that is comparable to the distance between the earth and the entire universe.
You are full of trillions of universes. That is what your body is made of.
Look, don't let the nihilistic screaming of a bunch of political hacks and their corporate marketing sponsors get you down. And don't confuse self-indulgence for self love. They can occasionally be related, but not via the external behaviors that we are NOT practicing right now.
Self-love is the small feeling of wonder and joy that you hold just for a moment, like a child, when you can picture--for a brief second, you can picture it--your inner organs looking like Star Wars had a baby with the water park of your five year old dreams...and not just because it is full of bacteria.
And if you need a faster shortcut to self-care, try the following mantra:
"Once again, here we are, together, while everyone else is insane. And yet we bear it with grace and fortitude knowing This, Too, Shall Pass. Honestly, you deserve a medal and I am so grateful we have each other because everyone else around here is an obvious nuthouse, and not in a poignantly adorable way, like us."
Customize at will.
Next up:
The Wrong Self-Care : A Shocking Expose