Bestselling author, Jonathan Fields recently wrote an article on reigniting self-care after a bout of illness. You can read the full article in his Substack, but in a nutshell……
He got a bad case of shingles and was in severe pain with it for four months. Interestingly, he’s a fairly chill guy so those that know him were surprised since shingles often hits when stress levels are elevated, along with a dysregulated nervous system and immune system.
Fields is known as the founder of the Good Life Project, one of the top self-development podcasts so he’s no stranger to living a full and meaningful life that emphasizes self-care. In fact, in the time leading up to shingles attacking his body, he was taking better care of himself, eating cleaner, taking supplements, tracking his sleep, steps and heart-rate variability. And as always, he has longstanding mindset practices like hiking, meditating, and breath-work that have been a key part of the mix for years. And still, his system crashed hard enough to get shingles.
So, here’s the clincher. When he started to ponder why this happened to him, he took a tally of what he had happening in the time leading up to the onset of shingles. Yup, a huge amount of work projects.
Wait, what about ‘fewer things better’?
Ironically, Fields’s mantra has always been ‘fewer things better’. And yet, he realized that he had been ‘doing many things worse’. Maybe not poorly, but for sure, not well, either.
You know the saying, ‘hindset is 20/20’? Fields realized that, looking back, he had been ornery and was tipping into overwhelm and burnout. Now, this is a guy that has self-care practices galore but he had to acknowledge:
“You cannot self-care your way out of a fundamental misalignment in a core area of your life.”
Please read that last line again. Truth bomb right there.
What does that mean to reigniting self-care?
Let’s take relationships. If you are tethered to a toxic person, you can’t meditate that away.
Same for any other area of your life. Fields says: “If you have a condition, syndrome or disability that requires certain fundamental choices, interventions, support, accommodations, or lifestyle adaptations to be well, doing everything but those things won’t cut it.”
He uses his work as an example. Sure, he was doing a lot of meaningful work, which, on the surface was well-aligned with the kind of work that lights him up. But, the mode he was doing it in was where things were falling apart. Where the fundamental misalignment was.
All the self-care in the world couldn’t fix that. But, here’s the thing. As important as it is to have self-care as a key part of our wellbeing, it doesn’t make up for the damage done by violating a core norm, value, belief, or way-of-being. Denying that you are on a path that is likely not sustainable in the long run, will leave you depleted, facing burnout or in a worst-case scenario, illness. Self-care doesn’t compensate for “the profound dilution of purpose, meaning, connection, and joy we invite when we do what we believe to be the right things, but in the wrong way.”
Why is this a timely message?
Because, it’s September. Although really, it’s a valuable message at any time. But, autumn is often the season that we contemplate our goals, reset our routines and adjust our habits.
To do that, why not take a look at all you have on your plate? What needs to happen, in what order, and why. From there, you can create priorities with your self-care and happiness top of mind. That can be a tall order depending on what phase of life you’re in. For example, those with children have it tough this time of year but taking time to carve out a plan to manage it all can definitely help. But, how? Here are 10 rock-solid tips for parents.
Only you can decide how to make all that work.
But, for Fields, he is getting back into rejiggering mode, reigniting self-care and considering his priorities. And adding his new mantra into the mix…..
“You cannot self-care your way out of a fundamental misalignment in a core area of your life.”
TELL ME: What is one thing you can shift for reigniting self-care? How will you prioritize that?