Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I've talked with a number of students recently who are struggling...struggling with life, college, anxiety, depression, relationships, family, juggling work and life, feeling alone...there is a lot of struggling and suffering. So, instead of sending a Well-Being Wednesday message out into the Interwebs without any expectation that you do something to facilitate your well-being this week, I am going to replace our normal class content this week with a "Well-Being Week of action." Instead of working on this week's material, I am asking you to do some self-care work and do some reflection on that self-care and how it impacted you. Several of you have said to me, "I am too busy to do ____ (fill-in-the-blank)!" Well, by not assigning new class work this week I am giving you several hours to do some of that self-care work.

First, what is self-care? I encourage you all to listen to an episode of Chelsea Tanner's Align Your Mind podcast titled "Real Self Care." In that episode, Tanner argues that self-care has been co-opted by "capitalism and Instagram," having convinced us that self-care is equivalent to spending money on manicures, essential oils, aromatherapy, spa treatments and "retail-therapy." We might enjoy those things but Tanner suggests those distractions will not get at the root of what is causing our anxiety, depression, loneliness, confusion, etc. Instead, Tanner defines self-care as "how you treat yourself; what you do for yourself in the long-term and how to deal with hard moments when you feel unmotivated or you just can't seem to handle things." Tanner goes on to say:

I think about caring for myself just like a parent would care for me or how I would want a parent to care for me. This seems kind of weird but as an adult I think we need that just as much as kids do but people don't teach us how to do this. When I'm anxious or sad I tell myself what I need to hear which is usually that it's all gonna be OK--like everything will workout--it's gonna be OK. When I make a mistake I aim to treat myself with compassion and understanding just like I want someone else to treat me with compassion and understanding; this is how I think self care should be framed. It's a skill; it's practicable

So, self-care is a skill that we must practice in order to get better at employing it in our lives. We must thus make it a priority, carving out time for that which is a foundation for school, work and everything else in life. So, this week, I'm giving you time away from class stuff to explore self-care and how you might better integrate self-care into your everyday life after this week.

Here is what I am asking you to do this week:

1. Engage in at least 2 acts of self-care this week. To draw inspiration, check out the various Well-Being Wednesday segments on this site. You can also check out this article from Psychology Today, which you can access by clicking on this hyperlinked text. I also recommend a New York Times piece on journaling which you can access by clicking on this hyperlinked text.

2. Write a reflection paper describing the following kinds of things:

   • How do you define self-care? In what self-care practices, if any, have you engaged in the past?

   • In what activities did you engage this week for the Well-Being Week? Were these new self-care strategies that you experimented with? Self-care that you have been doing? Acts of self-care that you used to practice but had fallen out of practice?

   • What were the challenges of engaging in these self-care practices? What were the benefits that you experienced?

   • How likely will it be that you maintain these self-care practices after this week? What factors will permit or prohibit you from doing so?

   • Anything else you want to write is welcome.

Be kind to yourself and take advantage of this time to practice self-care.