In this solo YouTube talk, Dr. Jameca Cooper addresses why high‑achieving women often avoid regular self‑care, arguing that the avoidance is rooted in shame cultivated by patriarchal gender‑role conditioning and family/social learning. She cites a survey of her therapy clients in which 90 % report shame as the primary barrier, and references research on sleep‑deprived astronauts (300 % more errors) to illustrate the tangible health and performance costs of neglecting rest. Cooper then introduces a concrete intervention from her six‑week self‑care course: the “Permission Blueprint” (Module 2, Week 2). The exercise asks participants to write a statement like “I give myself permission to ___ because ___,” and to embed it as a phone wallpaper to reinforce the habit. She explains how implementing this framework can reclaim 2–4 hours per week, improve wellness, and allow women to remain dependable without sacrificing rest. The talk blends cultural critique, scientific evidence, and actionable coaching to reframe self‑care from selfishness to essential self‑permission.
Chapters
So you cancel your massage appointment again because you probably start telling yourself or thinking, why do I think I have time for this? I really don't have time for this. I have all these other things I need to do. But what if this habit you have of putting off your self-care is not really protecting the people around you, but instead it's really slowly killing you? Think about it. And I work with a lot of high-achieving women in therapy. When I surveyed them over the years, what I found is that 90% of them say that the reason they don't engage in consistent habitual self-care is because of the shame. The shame creeps in when they think about or are engaged in self-care. It triggers shame for them. So think about why is that, especially with women. Because you don't usually see that on the other side, right? It's because many women have been taught that taking care of them, or taking care of themselves, or prioritizing themselves is a bad thing. Why? Because we live in a patriarchal, misogynistic society, really, where women are seen as subservient, or should be seen as subservient, or only existing to aid and support, help men, right? That's been the traditional view of women in this country, right? So usually when you hear that voice inside your head that, oh, I shouldn't be doing this, it's because that's what you were taught. So now I challenge you to ask yourself, where were you taught this? Some people might be able to say, oh, in society, I've just learned this, I've just learned from what I watch on TV, what I watched in movies, or just the prevailing view in my town, in my community, everywhere. But if you really think about it, it's probably traced to what you've learned in your family, whether that's your immediate family, so your parents, siblings. Maybe if your father is around, like, what type of— how did you see your father interacting with women and the value that your father placed on women? Or Or you can see it in your extended family members, right? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. How were they? What were the gender roles? Were women valued, prioritized? Were women seen as important, significant parts of the family unit or the community? Think about all those things because that's usually where you see, where you've learned those messages. You don't just really come up with them on your own as a woman, but they're ingrained in you in some shape, form, or fashion. Fashion. It could be multiple ways, so think about that. Also, research says that, especially when they've looked at populations like military soldiers or astronauts— NASA has studied that and they found that sleep-deprived astronauts make 300% more errors. Meaning that if you're tired, you're making mistakes and you're not being the best you that you can be. So not just astronauts, but heck, everybody needs to be and operate in the best version of themselves. So that means getting adequate sleep, getting adequate physical activity, and also responsibilities, family responsibilities, but also the environments that we surround ourselves in. Outside of being physically, emotionally draining, psychologically it can be a burden for you. And it can really lower your overall wellness profile, your health profile, and make you more susceptible to health issues, medical issues down the line. So lots of reasons why it's important to take time for yourself, because when you're not taking time for yourself and prioritizing yourself, getting enough rest, enough relaxation, you end up presenting sometimes the worst version of yourself and making mistakes. And it begins to be a misrepresentation of who you really are when you're working on a full tank, right? So what I would like for you to do is to think about how we can start to change this, right? So in my course, my self-care course, I talk about this in week 2, module 2, where we have a permission framework, a blueprint that we will work on. So To give you an idea of what type of things that includes is I want you to write down this right now for yourself. I give myself permission to blank because blank. So you can say, I give myself permission to get 8 hours of sleep because blank. Whatever you feel like your reason is for doing whatever goes in the blanket. I just threw out sleep. It could be anything else, but I give my myself permission to blank because blank. You're gonna fill that in, right? Just write it down, whatever that is. You know you best, right? And then I want you to pay attention to that, think about it, reflect on it. But I want you to take it a notch up, and I want you to use your phone, whatever type of phone you have, and write those words down and make that your wallpaper on your phone so that you see it every time you look at your phone. That's one surefire way that we're going to make sure that you really get this kind of ingrained, put it in there. We want it to stick, right? So in my course, Module 2, we talk about this Permission Blueprint, this framework, because the goal is in implementing this framework in your life within the course, which is 6 weeks, but even a couple of weeks within that If you can implement this, you will begin to see those changes. You'll be able to realize you have some, some additional time. It might buy you 2 to 4 hours a week worth of time if you can start to implement this particular strategy. And you can improve your self-care regimen, get more hours, and at the same time, you will not lose your reputation as being qualified, strong, and dependable. You'll still be all those things, but you know what? You won't be tired and strong and dependable. You're gonna be rested and you're gonna feel better about yourself.
