Happiness for Cynics podcast
This week, Marie and Pete talk about how self-care has become a buzzword with bad repercussions and ask the question, are you doing it right?
Transcript
[Happy intro music -background]
M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.
M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.
P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.
M: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
P: Laugh.
M: It’s round one, Pete.
P: Oh dear, I don’t look forward to these ones and where Marie’s all, you know motivated to strip me bare of any –
M: Laugh!
P: – challenges that I might have. This is going to get ugly, folks.
M: Laugh. So Pete, you have the topic for today’s show.
P: I have the floor, laugh.
M: And I am in the other corner, laugh. It’s like high school debate team. I’m just arguing for the sake of the other argument. You know, sake of the other side.
P: As we know, in terms of competitiveness. We know that I’m a competitive person, but I am nothing compared to the onslaught that is Marie Skelton when she’s motivated.
M: Laugh.
P: So, gird your loins people! Laughter!
M: Yep.
P: Today, we are talking about, are you doing self-care, right?
M: No!
P: Laugh.
M: Or am I yes? Am I the affirmative?
P: Let, me put my argument forward first, Laugh.
M: Laugh, put your argument forward.
P: Ahh, pressure.
M & P: Laugh.
P: So, I’ve been doing some research on the social media. I came across this rather wonderful article by a woman called Brianna Wiest, and she’s in Philadelphia, and she is a self-awareness and self-understanding author. She’s written several books in the early 20-tens and early 2020’s, Essays That Will Change The Way You Think (2016), The Mountain Is You (2020) and Ceremony (2021). It’s an interesting concept because she talks about self-care is often a very un-beautiful thing.
M: Mmm.
P: So, Marie and I are both proponents of the whole hygge concept that getting yourself into pyjamas, having a nice cup of tea, watching some Disney or something indulgent is really fantastic. We both agree on that, yep?
M: We even wrote a book on self-care Pete?
P & M: Laughter.
M: Why don’t we just go back a little bit further? Laugh.
P: Ok, we agree that things that are a little bit indulgent are good for us to do because they do contribute to our happiness, and it is good to reward yourself. Remember that phrase because we’re going to come back to that. It is good to reward yourself.
M: Hmm.
P: What I like about what Brianna is talking about is that there’s a certain part of self-care that is not the sitting in the bath having a chocolate cake frenzy and eating doughnuts. That’s not necessarily what you need to do to have self-care. Neither is it going on a shopping spree and spending lots of money on your credit card or indulging in over-eating snacks.
M: You’re really going hard on the doughnuts.
P: I’m going hard on it, yeah, but we’ve got to give you some fodder here Marie.
M: Laugh. Mmm hmm. So, she’s saying it’s not any of those things and it shouldn’t be any of those things?
P: It’s not the only part of self-care, and I’ll just paraphrase here. I’ll try and read out… try and surmise the article and what she talks about.
The opening statement is that self-care is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine, cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution? So, we agree on that. We’ve talked about that before. It’s about doing the hard work, putting things in place to make sure you address the issues rather than just going, ‘I’m going to tell myself to be happy.’
M: No, disagree. [Fail noise]
P: Ok.
M: Round One has started! Laugh.
P: Laugh, unpack this. Go for it, Muz!
M: I think that self-care is about listening to your body and your mind and your emotions and giving it what it needs and what it needs doesn’t have to be boring, hard, you know it, it’s framing it differently.
So doing your finances isn’t shitty and horrible. It’s, you know, looking after yourself. So, I think it’s a framing thing for me more than is it actually… like semantics, maybe we could argue.
P: Yeah, ok I’ll give you that.
M: I think that listening to your body and your emotions and all of that and going, I need to stop my diet and have five doughnuts –
P: Yep.
M: – and feel guilty about it and next time only have three.
P: Laugh.
M: And feel guilty about it next time, maybe have two when I’m needing that outlet that sugar rush or whatever it is on knowing that those adjustments and behaviour come sans-guilt and judgement and that we’re all growing and learning.
P: Yep.
M: I think that self-care is about when you’re feeling depleted in any way, as happens so often. Being kind to yourself and listening to what your body needs.
P: I definitely agree with the being kind to yourself.
M: Sometimes… The 1% means overindulgence, right? But the things you’re talking about is not. I wouldn’t say self-care is doing your finances, eating healthy, doing your exercise. That should be a day-to-day how we prioritise living.
P: I agree.
M: Not the stuff we do on top that we need to ask special permission from our bosses to leave early to go the gym… or any of the other things we shouldn’t be excusing all of those other behaviours as secondary to work or family, or you know, whatever else, your partner, it should be up there and just as important.
P: Yeah.
M: And this is the mind shift that I’m waiting to happen at the moment that all of those activities that make life worth living and make life happy and that are critical to our mental health should not be second class citizens in our schedule.
P: Yes, one of the other things she brings up is that becoming the person you know you want to and are meant to be.
M: Yep.
P: And someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life but not escape from it.
M: Yes. It’s not escaping, it’s just going ‘Oh, I’ve had a crappy day, I got fired from my job and I don’t know how I’m gonna pay next month’s rent.’
P: Yep.
M: Life’s good apart from that, but today I’m eating the cake.
P: Yep, laugh.
M: And maybe having that extra glass of wine.
P: Yeah, true.
M: Yeah.
P: And this comes back to rewarding yourself and the way that we choose to reward ourselves. There is an escapism in having the doughnut, having the bath, having the red wine. And that’s, I guess my question is, is that self-care? Or is that just a momentary reprieve?
M: Again, If your definition like mine of self-care, is that it’s listening to what your body needs.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: Then it is self-care, I think. Because for me, eating well, not drinking too much, taking care of your finances, being physically active, journaling, doing gratitude, practicing love, all of that stuff is how you should live.
P: Mmm.
M: Self-care is above that, and beyond that, and amongst all of those ways that you should live there are… We’ve talked about negative affect and positive affect, and I think it’s when those spikes hit, where your up or down, where self-care comes in.
P: Yep.
M: I’ve been working on a project that today has finished!
P: Oh, congrats!
M: And for the last month I’ve been exhausted just trying to get to this day. But I’ve booked a holiday for the end of this month and that self-care for me. I need that time at the end of this month to unwind, decompress and during that time I’m not going off to theme parks and travelling the world. Not that any of those are options for me at the moment.
P & M: Laughter.
M: I intend on going somewhere really quiet where I can write and read.
P: Yeah, right.
M: And that’s self-care. That’s special.
P: It is. You’re right, you’re absolutely right as well Marie. I don’t want, I don’t want to sound like I’m saying don’t reward yourself because we know that reward is important.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And we’ve got people like Gretchen Rubin, I think she’s one of your mates, Muz.
M & P: Laugh!
M: I wish she was one of my mates! I’ve mentioned Gretchen before, that’s probably where you got that, laugh.
P: Yeah, laugh. She talks about the importance of reward, the importance of the little treat, the receiving of the surprise gift or watching a funny video gained in self-control.
“The secret of adulthood, give more to myself so I can ask more from myself.” [Gretchen Rubin]
M: Yes.
P: I like that quite from her.
M: So, self-care is looking after yourself so that you can give more, be more, do more, etc.
P: Mmm. And you want to keep going into those periods where you are working hard because you know that there’s a little reward in the end.
M: Or a big reward?
P: Big reward, yeah.
M: There’s satisfaction in kicking these goals and getting stuff done.
P: Yeah. Susan Biali, who is also a medical doctor, also talks about reward and she talks about it in terms of the celebratory treats that will enhance us and not make us regret.
M: Mmm.
P: What Susan Biali talks about is that we need to choose our rewards carefully to make sure that they’re contributing and they’re not detracting. So, they’re not something that we’re going to regret later on and so that could be about having a reward that is proactive in terms of reinforcing what you’ve done.
M: So, there’s many models for happiness, but we’ve talked about relationships, purpose and meaning and healthy mind body. And I’ve been letting part of my healthy mind and body down recently, which is physical exercise.
P: Right.
M: I’ve been over indexing on a few other things, so now that we’re in lock down, I’ve got my treadmill and I’ve made myself a little deal.
P: Have you given your treadmill a name?
M & P: Laughter!
M: It does need a name, hey?
P: Laugh, Rupert?
M: I’m going to have to think about that, laugh. The way that I am motivating myself is that I can only watch Disney when I’m on the treadmill.
P: Laugh, [Clap].
M: So, I’m watching Raya the Dragon at the moment.
P: Oh! I really want to watch that too.
M: And if I want to get through it, I have to keep running, laugh.
P: Yep, like. There we go, that’s a great reward.
M & P: Laughter.
P: Oh, fantastic. Love it. The interesting thing about rewards as well is that, now Gretchen talks about this in her book as well, The Happiness Project, and she talks about the difficulties in setting rewards that may not be a good aspect, and one of the things she brings up is that the attainment of the goal and the reward marks a finishing line on the finishing line marks a stopping point.
So, you could have developed this wonderful habit of doing the treadmill. But then, if you reward yourself with something and you go, okay, well, that’s done never doing that again.
M: Then you break your own good habit. Oh, that’s a shame.
P: It’s a shame, but it’s something to keep in mind that you don’t want the reward to write you off because you want to keep that good habit going true?
M: Mostly depending on the habit. Yes, eventually, you’ll want to finish studying.
P: Yes, absolutely.
M: Laugh, for instance.
P: Yep, I agree.
M: I probably should not be aiming to finish running.
P: Laugh.
M: It’s a healthy habit I want to maintain.
P & M: Laugh.
M: Yep, so the other thing I’ve done for that. So, I take my lunch break and I make sure I take my lunch break and I’m not allowed to eat my lunch until I’ve done my run.
P: Oh, that’s good.
M: So, that’s the other reward.
P: Yeah.
M: And the great thing that many people before me have found, I’m not new to finding this is that the more I do it, the more I then choose healthy food options when I go to lunch, and you know –
P: Yeah, cause you’re reinforcing [healthy habits].
M: – it has flow on effect.
P: Yep definitely. There’s one other thing that Gretchen Rubin talks about in terms of rewards, and that’s the decision. So, reward requires a decision. I.e. Do I deserve this reward.
M: Mmm.
P: And every time we make that decision, there is the opportunity to make the wrong choice. There are too many loopholes to choose from. When you have that decision in place that we have an opt out if you like, it’s like, ‘well bugger it, I won’t go for a run, cause I don’t want to watch Disney anymore.’
M: Laugh.
P: You can fool yourself into making bad choices, even with a reward.
M: We are so good at fooling ourselves, aren’t we?
P: Yes, yes!
M: Damn human brains!
P: Laugh! So, when thinking about rewards and this comes back to the article by Brianna Wiest. What I like about it is, self-care is not just about giving yourself all the indulgences. There is a little bit of work in there, and there are sensible choices to make in terms of reward and pleasure and what to reinforce for good self-care.
M: Mmm.
P: And part of that as you were saying Marie, and I think we agree on this one is part of that self-care is looking after the body, looking after your relationships and having some purpose and that can be a little bit of hard work.
M: And if your day today is not balanced or you’re out of whack in some way, self-care is about understanding those things in your day to day enough.
P: Yes.
M: And listening to yourself enough to be able to identify when you need to change things. So, when you need to just go to bed earlier, that is self-care to me.
P: Yeah.
M: You know. For me it’s not the day to day, it is more the exceptions.
P: Mmm. There’s a quote here that I read from Brianna’s article,
“It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself.” – [Brianna Wiest]
M: Yes.
P: Now that’s diving a little bit deeper into addressing issues and so forth and trying to look at your lifestyle and go one of the bad influences. She also talks about the toxic nature – that may not be the best word to use – of this internal pressure of self-care. Like ‘Oh, I better be looking good, or I better do this, or I better do that.’
M: Everything is a to do list!
P: Yes!
M: We’ve talked about this before. All of this stuff that is meant to make us happier can just make people think, ‘holly molly how am I supposed to fit all this into my week.
P: Laugh, yeah.
M: Ahh, it can add more stress.
P: Absolutely.
M: Yeah.
P: And that’s, maybe that’s what she’s talking about in terms of the ugly side of it. There’s a little bit of stuff about being dishevelled and doing your ironing so that you can go to work the next day and look decent and presentable for a professional interaction.
M: No way! That is not self-care!
P: No?
M: Nope, round two. Here we go.
P & M: Laugh!
P: Elaborate, Marie?
M: That’s living life, doing your ironing that is life. Doing your finances –
P: Ok.
M: – doing your personal hygiene.
P: Laugh!
M: Physical exercise, eating well, sleeping well, all of that is life, I think, and it is a juggle and It’s not easy. I don’t want it to be a seen as self-care anymore. I want it to be seen as skills that we teach kids. I want them to know how to be mindful and practise meditation and calm their minds and turn off the busy noise of the 21st century.
P: Yep.
M: I want them to understand how to control their emotions and when not to control their emotions as well. I want people to understand that life is not just about working.
P: Mmm.
M: What a sad, sad thing for your life just to be about –
P: Oh, absolutely.
M: – getting a house with a picket fence and two point whatever children –
P: Two point four.
M: – and a partner and entering the rat race and staying there till you retire. And then, I don’t know, maybe while you still can you might get on a cruise once a year, right?
P: Laugh.
M: Like that’s not life. That’s not living, that’s not life. And that’s not how to have a satisfying life.
P: It’s the checklist approach, isn’t it? It’s the tick, tick.
M: It’s the capitalist approach.
P: Ahh. Ohh.
M: It’s the consumer, you know, and you want bigger and better things along the way.
P: Mmm, mmm.
M: Pretty much.
P: Yeah, consumer self-care.
M: No, that’s the consumer approach that you and I went through school learning maths and English and all of that in order to get a good job so that we could be contributing members of society. And that meant following that script.
P: Yep.
M: I think that we haven’t to date done a good enough job of also telling kids, here’s how you also get satisfaction out of your job and here’s how you get happiness out of your life along the way and those things don’t need to stop or disappear.
P: No.
M: But there’s so much more in there and they’re not add-ons. They are not the icing on the cake.
P: Mmm.
M: They’re essential pieces for our existential health.
P: Wow, wow! Laugh!
M: They’re essential pieces of life. It’s how to live life, and that’s what we haven’t taught people to date very well.
P: So, they’re part of the recipe?
M: Absolutely. We need to add them in, and we need to stop apologising for it.
P: Oooh!
M: We need to stop as I said before, feeling bad for being 10 minutes late to work because we got caught up at the gym finishing a set. And, you know, we’ve just added all this stress and we’re 10 minutes late and no one notices. Just stay 10 minutes late at the end, who cares?
P: Laugh.
M: A lot of the time, obviously there are some places where it matters. If you’re 10 minutes late.
P: Yeah.
M: But we need to stop apologising for wanting to go see a kid’s theatre production or anything, going to get a massage and taking a long lunch.
P: Mmm.
M: If you’ve got the flexibility in your work to do that.
P: Mmm.
M: That is, that is living and it is a valuable and needed part of life and it’s not an add-on it’s not tack-on and I don’t think that it should be self-care. I think self-care is when all of that is just a bit out of whack or out of balance, and you need to take extra care.
P: Right. I like that, I definitely agree with that point.
M: Hold on, we’re not meant to be agreeing. Laugh.
P: I know, but damn it, we just, we always get to this point, Laugh!
M: This is the problem when you have two besties on a podcast.
P: Laugh!
So, I was meant to be having a relatively free week this week, and next week I was supposed to be going on a holiday, my one-week holiday for my 12 months of the year, I was going to go up to Byron and have a little week off.
M: [Singsong voice] Someone sounds a little bitter, laugh.
P: Oh, I’m not bitter… much. Laugh.
M: Right? Who wouldn’t be bitter? Let’s be really clear here, this sucks.
P: Laugh.
M: You’re in lock down.
P: Yes.
M: It’s not happening.
P: I was sort of looking at my diary going well, I’m not allowed to go to Byron, I’m not allowed to leave my house. I’m not allowed to even go to the gym. Which brings me a lot of pleasure and a lot of enjoyment.
M: Oh.
P: I’m not allowed to go for a drive in my car. It was so sunny the other day and I was in my car driving to work, which I was allowed to do because apparently, I’m essential services. And I just had the top down and I had music on, and it was sunny. And I just wanted to keep going. I just wanted to drive to the mountains like I had his utter urge. And I couldn’t do it.
M: And it’s winter, so you can’t even tend your rooftop garden, laugh.
P: Laugh, true. Well, I could have on that day because it was sunny. It was a momentary burst of sunshine.
M: It is Sydney.
P: Yeah.
M: Which isn’t really winter.
P: Yeah, we get like six weeks of winter. The point was that I looked at my diary for next week and, well, I can’t do any of the lovely things that I was going to do for myself. So, I may as well just open up my diary for work because I’m allowed to work. And I thought, oh my god this is horrible.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: Like the one thing that I’m allowed to do is to actually work. So, Tuesday and Monday every week we’re really busy and I realised that I’d actually booked myself entirely out with work obligations because there was nothing left that I could do, and I thought ‘I don’t want this.’
M: You need to do nothing every now and then too.
P: Exactly, yeah. And it was a really realisation that me the free spirit is all I’m about, you know, all the buying into all this stuff on doing it naturally and I was really confronted with it with the lock down experience.
M: Lock down just makes us question everything, doesn’t it?
P: It does. It definitely does and that can be a helpful thing.
M: And healthy.
P: And questioning, re-questioning, re-prioritising, finding yourself.
M: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” – [Socrates]
P: Oh, who said that?
M: I have no idea, I can’t remember.
P: Laugh!
M: I’m so bad.
P: Laugh!
So, one thing before we wrap up here, I want to also address the idea that self-care means being the hero of your own life, not the victim.
M: Yes. No one likes a… Wait, I’m taking that back. That’s horrible.
P: Laugh! This is, again what Brianna was talking about was that it means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from.
I think this is super important and this aligns exactly with what you’re saying Muz.
M: No.
P: Oh, oh. It doesn’t?
M: Because she’s still going with the idea that self-care is the add-on, still go on it’s a valid point.
P: Oh, no. I don’t know. I don’t think she is, because I think she’s talking about building a life, building the recipe that has parts of the self-care paradigm in its such as doing your exercises, eating well all that sort of stuff, indulging in a small reward at the end of a project. Treating yourself to a theatre experience, for example, when you’ve had six weeks of really tough work obligations.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: But it’s also about taking care of things so that you don’t need therapy from your own lifestyle. If you’re pushing hard and going for those tick list items, and it’s creating drama and creating stress, that is just so all-encompassing that you need to take a week off of the end of it because you enforced this on yourself. That’s not helpful.
M: I think it’s reality though.
P: To a certain degree.
M: To a certain degree, yes. There is a line, absolutely. If you’re a serial over-committer then assess your life and take something out.
P: Yep.
M: Look at what you can find or change or whatever. Find?
P: She actually mentioned that as well.
M: 21st century living is not smooth, it’s not linear are and it’s not predictable. And there will always be times where a well-oiled machine will break down.
P: True.
M: Just like your story for next week, right?
P: Mmm.
M: You could not have predicted a lock down.
P: Yeah, yeah absolutely.
M: You had planned for a healthy mental break from your studies. And it’s not happening. And you know, you’ve had to go through a little bit of self-exploration to work out what to do instead that is going to set you up for success next semester. Again you still need that break.
P: Yeah. So, to wrap it up, sometimes we need to be a bit more mindful of the things that were involving in our day to day life. We need to build that recipe that includes those elements of the self-care, whatever they want to be, and that in finding our ways of rewarding ourselves, we need to be mindful of the types of rewards. Make sure your rewards will invigorate rather than burn you out or be detrimental to your life.
M: Oh, I like that. We’re going to end there.
P: I got an agreement! Yes! I scored! One for Petey! Laugh!
M: On that note I’m going to wish you a happy week ahead and we’ll see you then.
P: Laugh, bye.
M: Bye.
[Happy exit music – background]
M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.
P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.
M: Until next time.
M & P: Choose happiness.
[Exit music fadeout]
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