Beyond Bubble Baths: Searching for Deeper Self Care
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What I love most about my work is the joy of witnessing people heal. On the flip side, I also witness a lot of suffering. To be capable of holding the suffering as well as the joy, I’ve had to deepen my understanding of self care. It is no longer good enough to get a massage or take a yoga class when I find that I’m stressed out. Those things can be great to do, but real self care, I’ve found, involves adjusting my attitude about caring for myself, as well as setting up a lifestyle in which I attend to my own needs on a much more regular basis. It's about keeping my tank filled so the needle never ends up on empty.
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We have video funerals, like we have video conferences, and video doctor visits. We’re starting to gather, in some cases, with 6 feet between a handful of local mourners. It doesn’t feel like enough to me. Even the most satisfying funeral for a single COVID death isn’t the place to address the connection between all the deaths, and all the mourners. All the common threads among the lives that will never be the same after this pandemic. I feel a need for an additional way to mourn that acknowledges the global community of mourners, and honors the collective nature of our losses. One that enables mutual support among mourners who perhaps have different losses that are all part of the larger phenomenon.