I recently had a meeting with my pastors and a church committee in which I was asked about self-care. You have to understand that this was a meeting to hear about my call to ministry and it had completely come off the rails. Since then I've been doing a lot of prayer and introspection about why that meeting was so difficult and I've come up a few understandable reasons, but back to the question of self-care.
Self-care?? I have no idea what look I gave my pastor because I was mostly trying not to cry at that moment, but he oh so helpfully responded "You know, they'll want to hear if you spend 30 minutes on the bike in the evening or something." Thirty minutes on a bike?? In the evening?? I thought. Do you people not understand that I have a full time job, a child, a husband, meals to be made, a house to be kept somewhat clean and I'm about to take on seminary? I'm going to need to join a gym to check mark a box for ordination??? I attempted to quiet my brain. Just get through this meeting, Amy. Breathe, focus, you're almost done.
I'm not really sure what happened between then and when the committee (all of whom, except for my pastors, I'd never met or seen before) prayed over me, but I did finally get to gather up my shredded diginity and flee. (I headed home. It was my husband's birthday. I really, really tried not to make it all about my awful meeting and ruin it, but I totally failed. It was a rough day.) It was a few more days before I could muster the courage to email my pastor and ask for a lunch meeting to dissect the humiliation of this meeting. She told me to be kind to myself. With the exception of letting the housework pile up, where my kindness grows in abundance, that's not my strong suit.
But I was still thinking about self care. It's a question I'm going to have to answer in the future. The first things that come to mind is therapy and working out. It makes me want to roll my eyes. I've never had therapy, I didn't grow up in a family that utilizes it. It was something that people on tv, wealthy people, people with a lot of time on their hands, used. I now have lots of friends that utilize therapy as part of self-care and I respect that, but I haven't dipped into those waters yet. And working out? That goes back to the issue of 24 hours in a day and my lack of motivation. But I kept thinking about what self-care really means, beyond the surface, and here's what I see in my life as self-care. I think it's a pretty damn good list.
1: Sleep. I prioritize sleep and a consistent sleep schedule. We do this for Caleb and for ourselves. Our house is a sleeping house.
2: Eat. I eat good, wholesome food, most of which I make from scratch myself, which brings me to my next point:
3: Hobbies. I practice regularly at hobbies that I love. These include cooking, gardening, reading and writing. Yes, I make meals because otherwise my family wouldn't eat, but that's a task I take joy in, most of the time. Yesterday I made queso fresco for a corn salad. There's fresh cheese sitting in my fridge. It's delicious and I relished the quiet time I spent at the stove stirring warm milk and lemon juice into cheese curds.
4: Family. I have a healthy, happy marriage with my husband. We treasure one another and our time together. We practice relationship care by prioritizing time together and treating each other with respect and extra kindness. We keep the lines of communication open. I find joy in playing with Caleb, listening to him giggle, watching him explore. We keep our family ties strong and pray with our families and ask them to pray for us.
5: Body Image Balance. For the first time in probably 10 years, I don't have a gym membership and I don't feel guilty about it. I take long walks with my husband, get in my 7000-10,000 steps a day, I've lost the baby weight (I mean seriously, that's an accomplishment) and I feel good about my body.
6. Friends. I have a group of women friends that are active in the life of the church. They are a support group I can go to with questions about seminary and ministry. They pray for me and I for them. They babysit my son when our life gets chaotic.
The young woman in me wants to apologize for this list, or make concessions to the criticisms I already hear in my head: "You can't do this all and seminary. This will all change when you start school. Basically your family with starve September - May and your marriage will crumble. You will have no idea what's happening on all your favorite shows. You can't do it." To which I say: "I'll figure out. I always have. Leave me alone."
The "idea" of self-care can be a scary closet monster that might come out and bite you if you don't follow a prescribed routine. But the older I get, the more I can believe that there isn't one right answer for a problem. There certainly isn't here. This is my current version of self-care and it's working pretty damn well.
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