What do you think of when you hear the term self-care? I used to think self-care meant massages, pedicures, and retreats. It was a reward, a luxury of time and resources. So, what changed? Seven years ago, I experienced two life-defining moments within two months of each other.
The first was earning my doctorate in public health. The second was being diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. As I prepared to enter a career in management consulting, I was bursting at the seams, literally. The medications that I was taking were leading to uncontrolled weight gain.
Still, I wanted to make a good impression. My first client required four days of travel per week. I worked long hours without complaint.
And that's why I chose to do this. I barely noticed when each day walking from my office building to my rental car became more and more of a struggle, and my legs were beginning to feel like they were tightly packed into my skin, like sausages. It wasn't until I was in my room, in my hotel room that night and I couldn't sleep from the pain, that I began to realize something might really be wrong. So I did what anyone might do in that situation.
I turned to Google for answers. When it failed to provide me with a clear diagnosis, I reluctantly asked my manager to meet me in the hotel lobby and drop me off at the emergency room on her way to work the next morning. There, I found out that a blood clot formed in my lower right leg. If you're keeping track, I was I was now dealing with chronic kidney disease and a blood clot. And if you think that because I have a doctorate in public health, I listened to my doctors when they told me that two medical conditions and a stressful career were a bad combination, and that this led me to an epiphany on the urgency of self-care, you'd be mistaken.
I was paired up with a peer mentor from the National Kidney Foundation to help me wade through my diagnosis. I can remember asking her several times early on, exactly how hard can I push without getting sick. She listened and she was patient but she would never answer my question. It wasn't until I went through multiple periods of disability leave related to my condition that I was ready to change and my question shifted.
Instead I asked how can I best take care of myself? I had to redefine my identity outside of what I did for a living. I thought about what first ignited my passion for public health. I wanted to understand how cultural and social factors shaped the health of black women. Growing up in South Central LA, I had experienced firsthand how preventable medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes were ravaging the lives not only of black women in my community, but in my own family.
I reflected on my cultural messaging. I had grown up surrounded by strong female role models. Many of them were the first in their families to attend college.
They worked in environments where they weren't always treated fairly or with respect. But I now realize the same strength I saw in my family. I saw as admirable was also a burden, a survival mechanism that often meant their own needs came last.
Health problems often took their lives prematurely or compromised their quality of life. Next, I reflected on broader societal messages that I received around success. Phrases such as, work hard, play hard, or burn the midnight oil, or worse, you can sleep when you're dead, rang through my head. I realized I believed that the roadmap to success required me to prioritize work and study over less important tasks, including self-care. In fact, I'd been rewarded all along for neglecting to care for myself, and now my recovery depended on me disrupting that cycle.
I decided to define self-care for myself as any practice that helped me to manage my stress and promote my well-being. I'd like to use a self-care assessment that has been widely adopted by researchers and practitioners to walk you through six categories of self-care that I applied in developing my own plan. My physical self-care includes walking or dancing for a minimum of 30 minutes, five days per week, and accessing routine medical and dental care. My psychological self-care involves writing in a journal daily for self-reflection.
This allows me to better understand my needs, set realistic expectations, and process stressful situations. my emotional self care Self-care means having compassion for myself every day of my life. My spiritual self-care involves connecting regularly with my source of faith and hope, being part of a faith community, and spending time in nature. My relational self-care involves regularly scheduled downtime with my husband and other family, as well as my friends. And finally, my professional self-care involves pursuing work that is invigorating for me, setting boundaries around that work.
and establishing mechanisms for support from peers and mentors. I didn't figure this all out alone. I had help from family, from friends, from therapists.
With the help of my doctors and trainers, I decreased my stress, improved my nutrition and physical activity regimen, found effective medications, and shed 40 pounds for my highest weight over time, eventually entering remission. Today, I feel better and stronger than before. The self-care practice I shared with you continues to evolve as I go through new challenges. I still struggle occasionally with anxiety and insomnia, and I still go through sudden, unexpected health events. This past year, I was diagnosed with fibroids, benign tumors growing in my uterus.
Just four months ago, I made the decision to undergo a hysterectomy. At the time, I knew a few women who'd been through that that were my age, and I often felt alone. I knew I wanted to change that for the women who came after me.
During my recovery, I became vocal about my story, posting regularly on social media. As I did this, a tribe of women began to form around me, women who were willing to honor my decision and share their own. As we shared each other's experiences, I felt less alone. The platform that I'm standing on today is a privilege. It allows me to use my story as currency and use it to empower others.
My transparency and vulnerability allows people who may not feel comfortable sharing their own stories to participate in critical conversations on self-care. I believe the problem with self-care is that it's focused on the individual. It reflects the individual. reflects society's value of self-reliance. It's flawed.
My larger vision for self-care is communal, with individuals benefiting from the lived experiences of others, from social support and accountability. I believe that self-care is a... In daily practice, it should reflect your interests, needs, and preferences, and it should have room to evolve with you over time. In order for self-care to be practical, however, it must be supported by resources on multiple levels. This is the social ecological model.
It's a multi-dimensional model used to explain that behaviors such as self-care are not solely determined by the individual. Rather, they're influenced by environmental factors on multiple levels. For example, your self-care practice is influenced by the practices of those that you interact with on a regular basis, what you do for a living, where you live, the resources you have access to, and the policies that govern your society.
I'd like to use this model to show how you and I can play a powerful role, not only in engaging in self-care for ourselves, but also making it a reality for others in our communities. At the individual level, we can make sure that we know important information to monitor our health, such as our blood pressure. We can also engage in healthy behavior, such as regular physical activity, and adopting a diet that is healthy and sustainable. At the interpersonal level, we can tap into the power of lived experience. We can share our stories and hold space for the stories of others.
We can provide and seek social support and accountability, and we can establish healthy norms among our peers and colleagues. At the organizational level, we can help to establish a culture of self-care in the organizations that we are a part of. Leaders in the workplace can serve as champions for self-care, modeling behaviors that sustain performance over time, such as asking for help, not rewarding overwork, and encouraging employees to take regular vacation to recharge.
At the community level, organizations can work together to create environments that facilitate self-care, such as making sure there are safe places to exercise and ensuring that healthy food is affordable and accessible. At the policy level, we can advocate for policy changes that help to dismantle stressors that are systemic in nature, such as racism and income inequality. These are both drivers of differences in health, that are unjust and avoidable. The missing ingredient in self-care is a multi-level approach.
Self-care should be practical, holistic, inclusive, and it should be supported by resources on each of these levels. I believe there's something that you can do to take action on what I've shared with you in today's talk. First, develop your own self-care action plan.
Think about what you can do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to facilitate self-care. in your own life. Focus on practices that are accessible, affordable, and attractive to you.
I ask you to prioritize your own self-care first, because your wholeness is vital to fulfilling your purpose and sustaining this work over time. Second, I ask that you take action on one of the levels that I've shared with you today. Each of us has the power to share our stories and not only address our own behavior, but write letters to legislators at the local, state, and national level.
For example, you can advocate for policies on healthcare to make sure that it's affordable and accessible for all. If you have a position of leadership in the workplace or in the political sphere, use your leverage to make self-care a practical reality for all. Whatever your position is, start where you are and do what you can. When it comes to self-care, we are all in this together. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.