“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”
– Audre Lorde
Skin care, gym memberships, fancy diets, and lavish retreats are self-care icons. These high-visibility ideas of self-care are well-marketed and tend to be expensive. Honest self-care may look more like taking the time to create and stick to a realistic budget. Self-care requires discipline. We take time to check in, listen to our needs, and carve systems into our routines that support the needs we discover.
We need self-care that is honest, radical, and generous, and to know the difference between this and “self-care” that is actually avoidant, hedonistic, even isolating.
Self-care has become a buzzword. It’s become popular in conversation. It’s an idea supporting work-life balance. And it’s a phrase used to encourage people to buy things. It can be a relief to those who are trapped in altruistic patterns. It’s an idea that’s liable to collide with selfishness. How do we navigate this, supported by the principals of Ayurveda?
Self-less Folly
When something is necessary for our survival, it is responsible to prioritize that. Consider the oxygen mask trope that comes up every time we listen to a flight attendant go over the airline safety procedures. The idea is: you must put your mask on first, before helping others (even babies) with theirs. This is because you’d probably pass out before you could finish helping them, and then everyone would be in greater danger. Bodhisattvas aside, it’s incredibly important to care for oneself and avoid a “heroic” choice which unintentionally harms everyone.
Selfish Pitfalls
On the other side of the coin, it’s important not to go to far and become self-absorbed. All too easily can a person lose sight of how self-interest may be harmful to another, and ironically, to themselves! What we need is a breather to check in with our own values about each situation.
Each case is nuanced and personal. Only you can do the work of looking honestly at what’s driving the decision to know: is this what hurts or what helps? It may be incredibly necessary for someone to rest in the stereotypical sense of cucumber-over-the-eyes. For another, it may be psyching up to interview for a dream job.
Imagine two archetypes within yourself. First, imagine yourself as totally “selfless” — you are an altruistic saint. Then, imagine yourself as heedlessly “selfish” — and we’ll examine how to mitigate harm in either case.
- Let’s imagine ourselves selfless — always prioritizing the needs of others, in some kind of caregiving role, like a parent or caretaker of an ill relative. In this case, it useful to remember that others can only depend on us so long as we can depend on ourselves. That is to say, if we can’t make difficult choices that sometimes let other people down in order to maintain our own mental, physical, spiritual order, we will lose the ability to care for them at all. In this sense, there’s truth in tough love: it’s imperative that we all do our best to take care of ourselves. Ironically, sometimes we are so involved with caring for a person that we forget to empathize with this person. We lose sight of what this person actually needs. We are too absorbed in the idea of ourselves as a helper to see how we can actually help. The attachment of caring for another can do more harm than help, especially when it doesn’t support either party in their independence. Obviously, this must be considered on a case-by-case basis. But a good way to check-in is to take a step back and open our hearts. Love can’t compromise integrity; love reinforces the well-being of each person involved. Honest communication about what we can and can’t do may be scary, but it is harmless — and it prevents actual harm from occurring to both the care-giver who’s overstretched, and the person who relies on this care.
- Let’s imagine ourselves selfish — totally absorbed within their own world, like a bachelor or a young teen, or someone on retreat. To practice good self-care, it is useful to remember two things: first, that the material world is temporary. Pain, pleasure, food, sickness, life itself will end. If we are too wrapped up in our own desires and needs, we are liable to cause harm and never know it. It is useful to reflect on how temporary self-satisfaction is; and how permanent being a total asshole to someone feels. The feeling of helping someone in need, the satisfaction of working honestly, and the delight in making someone smile are just as long-lasting. Second, it’s important to remember that everyone is the main character of a mysterious world. Empathy is a test of the imagination. We only get to see, breathe and feel from our own body. It isn’t easy (or even possible) to accurately imagine the world of experience happening in the head of the person beside you. And yet, life consists of more than the sum of our own experiences — every person has their own reality. It’s like Aristotle reflected — the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. The humility this wonder allows us invites curiosity to replace self-absorption. And it is such a relief to realize that we are not alone. Self-care means letting go of the heaviness of single-minded experience. Sharing and listening with the other characters in our world with an empathetic imagination can change the course of a life.
A huge part of self-care is asking for help.
Our part in another person’s life can be anything we choose. Most people in our lives don’t care about how attractive, intelligent, or impressive we are — they care whether we care about their experience. If we are willing to stretch ourselves and imagine, with compassion, what another is experiencing, we have the power to be vulnerable and trust that they are willing to do the same for us.
In essence, there is no self or other, only a stream of consciousness flowing through life, and the separation experienced as a way to learn. Tuning into the universality of life, one finds peace, truth, and clarity in serving this whole. To serve all in the name of what is good is to honestly take care of oneself. In this way, self-care is incredibly difficult. It’s a practice of watching ourselves, forgiving ourselves, and continuing to choose what we trust is truly good.
Here is some clarifying wisdom regarding self-interest versus self-care from Baba Hari Dass, who helped establish the school of Ayurveda at Mount Madonna Center, where our in-house Ayurvedic doctor received his certification to practice Ayurveda.
Q: In this country, there doesn’t seem to be much survival value if a person doesn’t seek for any self-interest.
A: It’s a universal thing. In every country, every person is running to seek for self-interest. The question is how to liberate ourselves from the effect of seeking for our own self-interest. The answer is by being nonattached to the fruit of actions. To take action to help others with no self-interest brings a greater sense of peace. That creates a desire for more peace.
Q. How do we develop discrimination in daily life?
A. You have to see what helps in your self-development and what harms. If anything harms, that you have to reject. That rejection may harm worldly life, but will help spiritual life.
Q. If you are performing action with no expectation of return for yourself, but we are still acting with some purpose. How do we know if it is a good purpose?
A. There is a purpose of self-development. If a person steals and says ‘I am stealing for God, or for poor people, then it will not work. Because the person is stealing for his or her own desire which is not spiritual.
Q: Could you explain what it means to be selfless?
A: The Self has two forms: individuality and universality. Every living being lives with the sense of individuality but, except humans, no other species has the concept of universality. Individuality is established by selfish actions, desires and attachments. Universality is established when selfishness is wiped out.
-Baba Hari Dass
Article by Luisa Rounds
Q& A Sourced from Mountmadonna.org/talks
Photo by Tatiana Syrikova
3/26/24
