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Episode 3468:
Kate Hesse highlights the critical distinction between self-care and self-work, explaining how each serves unique purposes in maintaining balance. While self-care replenishes energy and promotes relaxation, self-work involves active growth and introspection, often requiring effort and intention. By understanding and balancing these practices, we can better align with our needs, achieve personal growth, and maintain well-being.
Read along with the original article(s) here: https://nourishnestbreathe.com/self-care-vs-self-work-and-why-it-matters/
Quotes to ponder:
"I define self-work as any activity where you are actively working on yourself. This could be mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical."
"Self-care allows you to recharge. It gives you the reserves you need to keep working on both self-work and your day-to-day responsibilities."
"Sometimes the only difference between self-work and self-care is your attitude and approach."
Episode references:
Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation: https://www.yogabasics.com/yoga-postures/yoga-nidra/
The Eight Limbs of Yoga: https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/the-eight-limbs
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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Living Daily, Self-Care vs. Self-Work and Why Knowing the Difference Is So Important by Kate Hess of NourishNestBreathe.com. And I'm your narrator Justin Malik reading you blogs every single day of the year, including holidays. So now let's get right to it as we optimize your life.
[00:00:52] Self-Care vs. Self-Work and Why Knowing the Difference Is So Important by Kate Hess of NourishNestBreathe.com. Do you ever find yourself thinking, I don't know how I can be so tired. I've been making time to take care of myself. I know this happens to me at times, and when it does, I always take a few minutes and review what I've been considering self-care to see if I'm actually doing self-work.
[00:01:20] My dear friend Lauren introduced me to the difference between self-work and self-care several years ago when she noticed I was particularly exhausted despite doing a lot of what, at the time, I considered to be self-care. And understanding the difference is critical because the impact self-work and self-care have on you is dramatic. Self-work is hard. It can be exhausting and draining.
[00:01:46] The results are amazing though, so please don't think I'm discouraging you from making time for self-work. I define self-work as any activity where you're actively working on yourself. This could be mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical. Self-care is replenishing. It can be relaxing or energizing, depending on the activity.
[00:02:10] It also has amazing results and is critically important in your life, but it is very different from self-work. For me, self-care is any activity where you are passively relaxing in an environment created for nourishment. Again, this can be mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical. The difference between self-work and self-care. Self-care.
[00:02:34] You draw a nice, relaxing bath, pour in Epsom salts, light a candle, dim the lights, and sink into the bath without any plans or intentions. Just the desire to let the warm water and salts soothe your body. Self-work. You draw the same bath, add the Epsom salts, and light the candle. But instead of dimming the lights, you keep them bright so you can write in your journal, using it as a tool to process through something which has been keeping your mind spinning at night.
[00:03:04] Self-care. You get a massage, relaxing onto the table with no objective or goal for the session, just enjoying each moment as any aches and pains are worked out of your muscles. The self-work. You go in for a body or energy work session with the intention of moving energy, releasing something being held in your body, or processing through something which has been bothering you. You're an active participant in the session,
[00:03:29] working with the person providing this session to realize your goals. Self-care. You curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and wrap yourself in a warm blanket. You spend an hour reading a book you have been excited to dive into. Self-work. You curl up on the sofa, again, with your tea and warm blanket, but you also have a pencil, highlighter, and post-it flags along with your book. You read a book which you are excited to dive into, but instead of intending to simply enjoy the book,
[00:03:59] you're seeking knowledge, using this book as a resource in your quest to build a life you love. Self-care. You go out for a walk in a park during your lunch break, listening to the birds, admiring the beauty of the natural world, stopping to literally smell the flowers as you make your way along the path. You enjoy the feeling of the sun on your face and the grass underfoot. You don't worry about how many steps you take or calories you burn. You just experience and enjoy the world around you.
[00:04:28] In self-work, you go out to the same park for a walk during your lunch break, but you need to make sure you get 2,000 steps in during your break to reach your fitness goal for the day. The pace you need to keep to reach that goal is a great cardio workout, but it's too fast to really enjoy the world around you. You're not able to smell the flowers or note the different songs of the birds. Hopefully, these examples give you an idea of why it's so important to have both self-work and self-care in our lives.
[00:04:58] Balancing self-work and self-care. When you practice self-work, you're learning and growing. You're getting to know parts of yourself you might not have previously been aware of. Through self-work, you're seeking to improve your life both inside your own mind and body and in the way you interact with the world. Along with all the rewards, this work can be exhausting. When you add in all the other things that pull your time and energy throughout the day,
[00:05:25] the importance of self-care becomes even more important. Self-care allows you to recharge. It gives you the reserves you need to keep working on both self-work and your day-to-day responsibilities. Without self-care, we become exhausted, overwhelmed, and run down. The trick is to find the balance between self-care and self-work. This is not always a 50-50 split. It is instead something that will need to be recalibrated regularly
[00:05:53] depending on everything else going on in your life. Sometimes the only difference between self-work and self-care is your attitude and approach. I have a friend who did a fantastic job of self-work, but she wasn't always as great at finding room for self-care in her schedule. One afternoon, as we were getting ready to take a yoga nidra class together, she was remarking on how tired she was feeling. I asked if she approached yoga nidra as an opportunity to work on herself,
[00:06:23] i.e., did she see herself as an active participant in the class? She responded, yes, that was exactly how she viewed it. I suggested that when she was feeling run down, she could perhaps instead view the hour-long class as an opportunity for the teacher to care for her. She could allow the yoga nidra to be the verbal equivalent of a parent rubbing a baby's back to soothe them. Instead of seeking to achieve a goal through the session,
[00:06:50] she could just relax and enjoy the experience. After the session, she remarked on how much more rested she felt than she normally did after yoga nidra. The only difference, she went from approaching the class as self-work to viewing it as self-care. It doesn't mean that yoga nidra always needs to be self-care for her, just that in the moment, what she needed was for it to be self-care instead of self-work. What do you need right now?
[00:07:19] Get a piece of paper or a journal. Write down all of the activities you regularly do that you consider to be self-care. Now think about the intention you bring into each of them and determine if they're actually self-work. Take note if you're doing any true self-care each day. Now, looking at your list, determine where you can make shifts and changes either in the activities themselves or your approach to them to ensure you're getting a good balance of self-work
[00:07:48] and self-care into your life. It is important to find the balance that serves you best. This isn't necessarily a one-for-one ratio and will change over time as everything else in your life changes. Sometimes you will need more self-work and sometimes you'll need more self-care. But the key is to listen to your body. If you're feeling tired and worn out, the balance should shift to favor more self-care. If you're feeling stuck and like you can't find a way to reach your goals,
[00:08:16] then the balance will need to swing to include more self-work. I suggest creating a practice of a daily or weekly check-in. Ask yourself, what do I need more of today or this week? And then look at your schedule and find a way to get the right balance of self-work and self-care into your day. Remember, this doesn't mean you have to change all your plans. Adjusting the balance can be as simple as changing your approach to the self-care and self-work activities you've already scheduled in.
[00:08:50] You just listened to the post titled, Self-Care vs. Self-Work and Why Knowing the Difference is So Important by Kate Hess of NourishNestBreathe.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Thank you to Kate. This one really made me think about my own routines and what I consider self-care. It's interesting how something that seems like self-care could actually be self-work in disguise. When I was up at that meditation retreat center in the Rocky Mountains, I definitely experienced both.
[00:09:19] Sometimes meditation was pure self-care, just sitting and being present. Other times it was intense self-work, really diving deep into challenging thoughts and emotions. Both were valuable, but they affected me very differently. I can see this in my current routine too, like when I get some sun first thing in the morning. Sometimes I just enjoy the warmth and quiet, which I'd consider self-care. But other times I'm counting minutes or trying to optimize my circadian rhythm,
[00:09:49] which is more like self-work. Or with Tai Chi, some days it's just about moving and feeling good. Other days I'm really focused on improving my form and pushing myself. What really struck me was the part about distraction. I'm definitely guilty of this. Sometimes I'll tell myself I'm doing self-care by watching a show or doing Sudoku, when really I'm just trying to escape for a while. Not that there's anything wrong with a little distraction sometimes, but like Kate said, it's important to know the difference.
[00:10:17] I think this podcast can actually be all three depending on how you use it. It could be self-care if you're just enjoying the daily conversations and reflections, self-work if you're actively trying to implement changes in your life, or distraction if you're using it to avoid something else. So maybe today we could both try to be more aware of how we're spending our downtime. Are we truly caring for ourselves, or working on ourselves, or just distracting ourselves?
[00:10:46] And remember, we probably need all three at different times. So let me know what you think about this. I always enjoy hearing your perspective. You can get in touch at oldpodcast.com or reply to my free weekly newsletter, which you can also find at oldpodcast.com. And with that, have a great rest of your day. Thank you for being here. And I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.