“Self-care is how you take your power back.” – Lalah Delia
“When we give ourselves compassion, we are opening our hearts in a way that can transform our lives.” – Kristin Neff
First, before I write anything else, let me simply state, I’m grateful. I’m alive, I woke up in a safe and warm home, I’m 75-years-old, and I have a gift of this new day. I’ve learned not to take anything for granted and to acknowledge I’m loved and I have abundance in my life. Life is not always easy, yet it’s worth the commitment and work of self-care. I may not have everything I want; yet I have everything I need. I’m lucky.
Later this spring, I mark the 40th anniversary of when I began a journey of recovery, first from alcohol, nicotine, codependent relationships, and harming behaviors. 17 years ago, I began living a solitary life when my long-term committed relationship ended. It wasn’t easy. It took time. I needed to learn who I was, what I wanted, and what I needed to thrive. As I’ve written before, this was no longer a dress rehearsal, it was the final chapter of my life. I asked myself first, “How do I care for myself?”
I title my journals. This past fall, I began my 17th continuous journal since I began living alone, Things Change. Little did I know how much life would change. Since Trump was sworn in as the 47th President, we’ve been bombarded with changes to how our government functions, who it serves, and forces us to respond quickly to the harm to our democracy and its impact on our livelihoods and lives. Chaos and uncertainty.
In response to the chaos and uncertainty, people have been responding along a continuum from protest and resistance to retreat and isolation. For myself, I can swing from one poll to the other within a day, depending on the news and next barrage of pronouncements. Most of us are not emotionally nimble enough to know what action we need to take quickly. We’re feeling battered and bruised, fearful and confused.
How do I weigh-in on self-care? For myself, I need to practice the habits of recovery and the lessons I’ve learned on how to live well in my skin, pay attention to what my body is telling me, answer the basic questions of, Am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired (HALT)? At the same time, it’s important that I don’t judge others on how they care for themselves. I need to be self-aware, practice self-care, and support loved ones and my community without judgement or criticism.
Creature of Habit: Tools of Recovery & Resilience
Before I stopped drinking alcohol in the latter days of my alcohol dependency, I believed the world was an unsafe place. I often felt like an imposter, pretending that I had everything handled when I didn’t. I was a high-functioning alcoholic. I didn’t lose a job, a driver’s license, or friends, however, my family and intimate romantic, partnership relationships were the barometer of my dysfunction and addiction.
What finally propelled me to get help, was not stopping drinking, but not having the tools of recovery, when I was no longer using alcohol to cope with problems. As a person who grew up experiencing trauma, stigma, and shame, alcohol, food, and codependent relationships were the coping mechanisms I employed. They weren’t enough to live healthy and recover.
I’m grateful I went into outpatient treatment for alcoholism almost 40 years ago in May, followed by countless, and I mean countless, 12-Step meetings for AA and Al-Anon, harm reduction meetings, aftercare groups, a Women’s ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) Therapy Group, Codependents Anonymous meetings, and at least 10 years of individual therapy. Lastly, I attended a Healthy Lesbian Relationships Group led by my therapist since what I wanted most after sobriety was a healthy committed relationship.
Besides peer support, 12-Step meetings, and therapy, I used journaling as a tool for recovery. I had numbed most of my emotions and delayed maturing the years I abused alcohol, nicotine, compulsive eating, and recreational drugs. My recovery journals helped me get to know what I was feeling, the roadblocks I encountered preventing progress, and the steps I needed to employ to overcome them.
Recovery Journals
Another tool were my walking meditations. For a time, I lived near the South Arboretum. I’d enter for a 45-minute or hour walk through the woods and prairie. I’d have a problem in mind. Once I identified it, I’d let it go. Without consciously naming it, I was practicing mindfulness. I’d tune all my senses to the fragrant smells of flowers and pine, plus the muskiness of the changing seasons, the sounds of the birds, the wind rustling the leaves, the cracking of the branches, and how the wind, and morning dew, felt on my skin, and the sound of my feet walking on gravel, grass, pine cones, and occasionally sloshing in a muddy path.
I’d leave the woods with an answer to the problem I posed at the beginning.
When my 15-year committed relationship ended, I began journaling again so I could learn how to live a solitary life without relying on unhealthy behaviors. I didn’t have experience. Like my recovery journals, the process of looking inside, identifying my challenges, and integrating tools and healthy habits, were lifesaving. It was a journey. See Journal/Journey in the related reading section at the end of this essay.
For the past 17 years living alone, I’ve incorporated self-care habits and routines. I find them comforting. I protect my time alone, while nurturing relationships with bio and chosen family, friends, and people who share interests and commitments to social justice and recovery. I create a to-do list for the week. I reserve time to write, to read, to cook healthy meals, and watch and review films. I’m grateful for the peer support groups I’ve been a member of from early recovery until today. A short list: Recovery Support Group, The Orphans, PAL, Pod Squad, Death & Dying (it’s more about life and living), and the newest, Felon 47!
View from my desk
Current Status
Sadly, recent events of the last six weeks (and more), I find myself, like others, feeling that the world is an unsafe place. The chaos and uncertainty of our politics and the dismantling of our democracy feels like I’m on that rollercoaster again of highs and lows, hope and fear, optimism and dejection. There are days I’m literally and figuratively, beside myself, outside of my body, fatigued, forgetful, stressed, disoriented, and all I want to do is lie with my head under a blanket on the couch. There are moments too, sometimes in the same day, when I’m obsessively reading or watching the news hoping that if I can understand what is happening, I can do something about it.
Everything Will Be Okay
When talking with others, I find people react from both ends of the spectrum. Friends and family ask, “How can you watch the news, the State of the Union, listen to Trump, etc.” I bite my tongue to not judge and ask, “Why aren’t you?”
Fight the Good Fight
What’s Ahead?
This is where I rely on my tools of recovery and my daily living habits and routines. I say the Serenity Prayer like a mantra. I repeat the slogans from AA and Al-Anon: “This too shall pass,” “One day at a time,” the shorthand of “HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired),” “Easy does it,” and the list goes on. I journal, I write, I cook healthy food, and forgive myself when I falter, I’m committed to the recovery and peer support work for my community and for myself.
I strive to let others take care of themselves in ways that work for them, without judging as right or wrong. Self-care during uncertain times, like life in general, is a personal choice and journey. When I end a journal entry, I often end it this way:
Life is good. I’m grateful. Thanks, H.P.!
It helps me take it one day at a time, to live in the moment, to be a human being, not a human doing, and when I’m able, a human becoming.
Postscript
As I googled, searching for additional scholarly content, AI responded. Sometimes they (it) get it right:
To cope during uncertain times, focus on maintaining a healthy routine, staying connected with your support network, practicing mindfulness, limiting exposure to overwhelming news, and focusing on aspects of your life that you can control, while accepting the uncertainty and reframing negative thoughts to a more positive perspective.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!