It's been a long week filled with bad news- Tell someone you love them and hold them tight.

We are fully plunged into the world of optimization, productivity, and working ‘smarter’ to the detriment of thinking critically. 

 

I know that’s one cocky opener but stick with me because despite fighting every urge in my body to share my personal animosity towards advancements in technology overriding personal autonomy, I’m going to do my absolute best to at least inform you of how self-care tech is not all it’s cracked up to be and how you can better serve your needs through alternative means. 

 

In the world we live in, we’re used to sacrificing ourselves with pride because self-less-ness is holds a lot of value in our social circles. But in terms of self talk, this sounds and/or looks like:

 

"Finishing everything else first allows me to relax."

 

“Putting myself last is sometimes necessary, ultimately selfless, and a quality in others I admire and find great pride in for myself.”

 

 

If I DO this, then I will BE that.

 

All the above screams, I DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN AS ‘THAT’ PERSON! 

 

But herein lies the cold-hard-truth babes.. 

 

You’re finishing everything else first knowing damn well you won’t relax because the work is NEVER done. 

 

You’re putting yourself last and taking pride in it because the people who have benefited from it MOST support you the MOST- they know they'd damn well have to take personal responsibility for their own lives if you didn’t do it for them. 

 

You’re stressed and tired not because you have a million things to do, but because you neglect yourself in the process. 

 

You don’t want to delegate or tell people to pick up the slack because confrontation is more uncomfortable to you than suffering silently on your own and brushing it off as if you're immune to being undervalued or taken advantage of…. 

 

With love and respect, did I miss anything???

 

 

I’m not reading YOU to filth, I’m reading US to filth- whether this is your first time thinking twice about why you do things, this is familiar to ALL of us- especially since every single person on this list is a femme or self-identifying woman. (Minus the 1-2 of you who don't care that I don't talk directly to mens-issues because you're much more secure than your counterparts… Bless.) 

 

At the end of the day, we all know the impacts of being a woman in this society and have each felt the consequences of it to greater or lesser extent depending on personal situations, privilege, and access to support systems. 

 

Here’s some dry-humor to emphasize just how prominent this experience of self-awareness is in my Instagram community alone: 

 

 

It’s no coincidence that while personal optimization of self and health is sky-rocketing as a concept as we get busier and as the state of mental well-being of the world as a whole is on a sharp decline (ref), with womxn and femmes serving as a whole new demographic for this self-optimization market. (A market that mind you, rides the coat-tails of the self-help market.)  

 

 

Looks great on paper, but the message we’re sending hasn’t changed a lick since the 20’s - Do it all, and look good doing it. 

 

At least in the old days, our grandmothers were able to get caffeine pills to get all their shit done… that was probably a bad joke… but a very real solution to what was being marketed at the time as a motivational tool for optimizing work hours and completing house work. (ref)

 

Don't question being busy as fuck, just get better at it! 

 

We are still getting bombarded by this type of messaging today- but now it looks like apps, trackers, social media challenges, and this overall concept of ‘self-optimization’ which is leading us into short-term relief of stress in small doses to get us from one day to the next, such as with bubble bath self care (that you can read about in the last email) instead of addressing root causes of these issues and getting the life fulfillment we're all searching for. 

 

We don’t need something to numb us or hold us over to the next day, we need self-awareness, self-compassion, and support systems to guide our proactive efforts towards well-being physically and mentally. 

 

Short-lived moments of stress relief are necessary, and great, for when you feel like shit. However, self care has to be consistent and sustainable in order to be an effective proactive measure for reducing negative effects of stress over time. 

 

 

Either way, the end goal is to prevent neglecting one area of your life and/or piece of yourself for a 0-100 commitment to another. Otherwise, you run the risk of dysfunctional patterns becoming habits and turning into disordered behavior. 

 

So listen, if you’re scared of being ‘that’ person, then there are a couple things you likely need to hear from someone other than your best friend:

 

 

Speaking from personal experience, I grew up in a… challenging… home dynamic. I very much felt I had to be everything to everyone, including being a parent to my parents, the one who always stayed behind to pick up the pieces, and took responsibility that was never mine to hold with great pride and to my own detriment when shit fell through the cracks. Being selfless was my sole identify, and I’m still working through that. 

 

The biggest shift in my adult life was realizing there’s a fine, but stark, differnce between being selfless and self-sacrificing. And at some point- whether it take 20+ years as it did for me- there will be a moment in time where the weight is too heavy a load and there will be not a single person around you who has the strength to pick up the load you’ve been hauling around for so long. 

 

And I’ll be the first to tell you that setting boundaries with the very people you’ve been completely boundary-less with will have you questioning everything about yourself every step of the way. 

 

 

You may have to work alongside a therapist to reinforce boundaries if they're a struggle for you, but here’s the basis: you have to set boundaries YOU are happy with, feel you can maintain, and can be proud of. That way, WHEN, not if, someone challenges you, you know where you stand and you can manage their expectations accordingly- as well as your own. 

 

Because people will HATE the boundaries you set. They’ll make you to be someone you’re not. But this has nothing to do with YOU. It has everything to do with them feeling threatened by the person you’re becoming. Again, you standing on your own two feet may challenge some people in some funky-ass ways, making them feel inadequate if they don’t have the gull to do for themselves what they see you to be capable of doing for yourself and on your own terms. 

 

 

You’re an adult that gets to make that decision now- but you’ve been warned. I’ve been to hell and back a few times and have experienced both approaches, so I’m here to support you no matter which choice you make and no matter how long it takes you to stand up for yourself, too. (Even if you’re someone who’s judged me for standing up for myself over the years.) 

 

I was conditioned to be a doormat in every sense of the word. So if I can do it with the zero support and lack of resources I had, I promise that no matter how hard it gets and no matter how many times you stumble, you can, too. 

 

I know that was heavier than our usual context piece, but it was on my heart to share. So just so you know, the rest of the email will be lighter as we touch on HOW these deeply held fallacies about ourselves manifest in WHAT we’re pulled to when pursuing self-care, wellness, and personal development in general. 

 

Our WHY always informs the WHAT and HOW of our decisions, so even if the above was not reflective of your own experience, take your own truth and challenge it to see if it’s serving your current life and self as we walk through the rest below. 

 

 

Work before play is not a globally-held value, but is something many of us, including myself, have highly valued in the past or still highly value as an admirable characteristic. 

 

So what happens when this framework becomes a way of life? 

 

Without even realizing, you slowly sink into a life that feels like Caddyshack meets Twilight Zone. Those references are almost too dated for me, so for those of you who are too young to get those references, it looks like doing the same thing every day, constantly wondering when it will end and feeling like you’re living on a space ship with your head spinning in stress, your mood on a perpetual rollercoaster, and every off-color event leaves you feeling disconnected from yourself or holding on for dear life waiting for something better to come and take you away from the nightmare, or stress, you’re living in.

 

As a close friend put it, “I’m mentally and emotionally beyond exhausted.” 

She then quoted the song “All out of love… [but so lost without you]” but paraphrased the lyrics with “all out of fucks.” It’s a stretch to include this excerpt from a random conversation, but you get the vibes. 

 

However, while the world is in fact a hot-mess, not all frustrations you experience are from the world, AND not all that’s standing in your way is your fault. Both things can be true at once- we LOVE juxtaposition around here because that’s the reality we live in when engaging in this circus *cough* simulation, called life. 

 

 

Self optimization says, “Nooooo, shit’s not fucked, you just need to keep up! Let me help you do that- I got uppers, downers, sleep tracking apps, FitBits, cute little rings you need to close, self care challenges, gut-health programs, and MLMs you can recruit your friends and innocent people into to fix all your complex problems…”

 

And that all seems fine and dandy- helpful even. Until you learn that all those tracking apps are so inaccurate that they’re irrelevant, that NOT closing your rings gives you more anxiety than the relief if provides when you do close them, and the constant reminders that you’re not ‘optimizing’ your time enough piles onto the bad day you’re already having and makes your stress 10x worse…. Self care, anyone? 

 

 

 

The problem is you’re now looking at your body and brain like they’re a car in need of gas and maintenance when in reality, you’re a human in need of self-compassion and flexibility. 

 

So when you’re being pulled in a million directions and feel like nothing you’re doing is EVER enough, that’s when you need to fight the urge to kick yourself when you’re down and instead say, “You’re doing great, sweetie. The world is already too harsh of a place for you to give yourself the same treatment.” 

 

You don’t need another app for tracking your sleep, your calories, your mood, your steps, your recovery, sex drive, or the acidity of your pee to determine if you’re alkaline enough… 

 

 

And not the self compassion that gives you permission to stop showing up under the guise of avoiding responsibility or challenging situations, or the kind that sells you short of the very things you’re capable of accomplishing, but the kind that gives you permission to show up for yourself and meet yourself where you’re at no matter where that may be.

 

The kind that says, “You’re tired? Okay, be tired. But what does tired you need to show up today?” 

 

Once you have that, those apps CAN be a helpful tool for offloading your brain, but relying on them as validation that you're doing healthy living ‘right’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
 

So these tools of optimization, in the eyes of experts, are more accurately used as trajectories and trends informing the direction of efforts, rather than representations of calories burned, steps taken, much less a depiction of someone’s overall health. 

 

If you aren’t privy to how to use the data as a trend rather than an indication of success, or shaming yourself with it as a ‘should’, then I advise you drop them like a hot potato. 

 

You don’t necessarily need to completely purge things that are genuinely assisting you in remembering to care for yourself- especially for my fellow ADHD folks- but look at whatever it is you’re using and ask yourself if you’re allowing it to have influence over your self perception and what benefits, exactly, you’re getting from its use. 

 

And if there's an alternative you can use to get the same benefit without the shit-connotation of optimizing yourself for some unprecedented reason, then use it. I have a Masters in Human Performance and even I'm telling you optimization is a sham. 

 

If your self-care practices, tools, accessories, etc are making caring for yourself a stressful or finger-wagging experience for you, then it’s not cultivating a healthy, mindful relationship, it’s cultivating a controlling one. And in a world of adults already hurling ‘shoulds’ at you right and left, you don’t need electronics reinforcing it too. 

 

Take a break from other people’s standards and expert’s recommendations of ‘optimization.’ You know what you need despite being out of practice listening to your own needs. Trust yourself-  you’re a lot more insightful to the bullshit that exists than you give yourself credit for. 🤟

 

PS- There’s a pretty dope article in the Party Favor section that a client sent me today and was really fitting for this email, so definitely check that out if you’re new to this optimization wave happening in the wellness spaces. Chances are you’ve engaged or encountered it already without realizing it. 

 

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