Revisit- Self-Care Is An Inside Job

I'm Dr. Becky. And this is good inside self care. I mean, we hear that term everywhere these days, and yet many of us still don't know what to make of it. Or we might even have an eye roll reaction to it. My guest today, Dr. Pooja Lakshman, helps clarify what it really means to take care of yourself. The title of her book, Real Self Crystals, Cleanses and Bubble Baths not included, probably gives you a sense of her unique take on the matter. What comes up for you when you hear that word self care? And then maybe talk a little bit about how you're like, rebranding it.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think kind of the classic example is in my practice, you know, I'm a psychiatrist. I specialize in women's mental health. So all my patients are women and most of them are moms. Not all, but a good number of them are moms. So it's the patient who comes in and is like, you know, Dr. Lakshman, I'm stressed out, I'm burnt out, I'm not sleeping well, I'm not eating well. And I feel like it's my fault because, you know, I have this meditation app that I know I'm supposed to be using and I know I should go to yoga and I know I should do X, Y, Z, but I just don't have the time. I don't know how to find the time. And so then I feel bad and I feel guilty and I feel ashamed. And so, you know, essentially I'm screaming to my patients all the time like, this isn't your fault. The game is rigged. And I wrote for the New York Times, I think, last year or the year before that, you know, this is betrayal, not burnout, that the systems that we're living in are completely stacked against us. And especially for your audience, parents, right? We know in America, and I know there's folks, you know, internationally in the good inside community. And so this isn't just an American problem. I think everywhere, globally, being a caregiver of any kind, whether it's to little kids or whether it's to other family members, you know, you are front and center in sort of the fight for constantly having to figure out how to navigate your own needs and preferences and demands and to be giving to the people you're responsible for and then living in a social structure or where that's not supported, it's not made like that for us. So getting back to your original question, you know, part of what I wanted to really be putting out there is that. And you Know this as a psychologist, like, the reality is that there are best practices. There are things that we can do to take back our agency. Those are internal. They're not necessarily something that you buy or something that you check off a list. And so I'm reframing self care as something that is a verb, not a noun. It's something that we do on the inside. And so I think it's really kind of the perfect conversation to be having with you, sort of, especially in the parenting space, you know, in the good inside community. I think it really is about, like, bringing it back to the internal.

We'll be right back. So real self care, faux self care. Can you differentiate these two?

Yeah. So the faux self care is the bubble bath, the massage, the yoga class. And before, like, anybody comes at me, because I know people who love their massages and their bubble baths are listening and just like. But I love that, you know, it's not that those are bad. I'm not trying to demonize them. It's all about how. How you come to the thing. So here's an example. There could be a person, a mom, let's say, who is sitting in her bubble bath, seething in anger and resentment because the dishes are piled up, the kids don't have their lunches ready for school the next day, all the stuff that was supposed to be done in the house didn't get done. And she is using the bubble bath as an escape from the hard conversation maybe that she needs to be having with her partner. On the other hand, somebody could be in that bubble bath and they could have done the hard work of kind of like setting boundaries, bringing compassion to themselves, having a hard conversation with their partner about the mental load and the division of labor and sort of what needs to happen. They could actually really be present in that bath and know that they need an hour a week where their partner does bedtime and they get to kind of relax. That's a really different bubble bath. So it's less about demonizing any of these methods. Right. I called these things the methods and more about bringing our attention to the principles, the internal principles of how you actually get to the thing.

Well, it seems like you're talking less about form. You're like, let's move away from form and let's really pay attention to what's going on in you. You said, I love this line. You say, like, real self care is an inside job. The data your body gives you about how it feels, what's going on for you. If you're getting what you need, that's way more important data than the thing of how it looks on the surface. The form it takes.

Yeah, like bringing it back to process. Which makes sense. Like, you know, given our expertise is we're always sort of thinking about what's the why, what's the how and when you get too far away from the how and the why, that's when it's easy to sort of get lost. And I think in particular for moms, like part of the reason that the faux self care feels faux is because we are, you know, you're given sort of like a suggestion, well, why don't you just meditate? Or like why don't you go to yoga? Or why don't you get a massage? And it kind of feels like, well, that might work for someone else, but you need to figure out your actual internal process and then figure out what your form of real self care is. It takes actually a little bit deeper reflection, sort of understanding of your own unique family situation, circumstances, life stage, you know, all of those different things to know what your exact form is going to be.

And so I imagine people listening to this thinking, yes, that makes so much sense. And that is why maybe the bubble bath and massage doesn't work for me. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe that just doesn't work for me. Right. I often think that's a kind of a fork in the road, something's wrong with me or this isn't working for me. And that latter road I think is a lot more empowering. So if someone's thinking that, they're like, okay, but like, how do I figure out what could work for me? Like, how do you help people with that process?

Yeah. So I think the first step is understanding that it takes time. It's not usually something that like the answer doesn't fully come overnight. And so even in real self care in the book, a lot of the kind of thought exercises are more about asking yourself different types of questions, like thinking about what matters to you and what gives you energy and what brings energy to your life. So that's sort of like the level setting of understanding that it's going to be a little bit of a journey to sort of figure out the answers. And then there's two things. So like the first principle is, is boundaries. The first principle of real self care is understanding how to communicate those boundaries and to deal with the guilt that comes up with boundaries. And I know that you talk about this all the time, so many of us talk about boundaries and it's it's funny, I think boundaries have become sort of a buzzword. One of my pet theories for why that is is because I think because it's so hard, it's actually really hard to set boundaries. And so that's why we're all talking about it, because we know how hard it is. But that's step one of real self care. Because without the boundary, like the boundary is how you even take back the space to even begin to figure out what you want and what you need.

And I think there, Pooja, I'm just thinking this as we talk. I think boundaries has become such a hot topic because there's more coming at us and more threatening to flow into us than there ever was. Like, I often think about my parents. You know, my mom was working inside the home. Mom, three kids, right? I'm one of three. And like, if she wanted to, you know, I don't know, take a break or something like that, do something, she wasn't confronted, not only with her kids, but she wasn't confronted by social media, by the ding on her phone, by the email, by the thing she could order right away on Amazon. And so setting a boundary, I think it used to be easier because there wasn't so much flowing in about all this information, all these tasks. Now for me, I have three kids too. And if I want to set a boundary, not only do I have to say something to my kids, which my mom maybe would have, also am not available, I'm doing something. I also have to set a boundary against all of this technology and the ability to do a million things on my phone. There's always, I could do this. I can get this done. I have to respond to that text message. There's an email, there's a bill to pay. There's so much we can do that I think boundary setting is harder and more important than ever.

Yeah, I 100% agree. You know, when I was pregnant with my son, who's now almost 10 months old, which is just wild, I was talking to my psychoanalyst, who is over 60, and she was basically saying the same thing. Like she was kind of just like, I am so glad that I parented before social media and phones and all these things, because it's just constantly there and the stimulation. And I also think part of it too, especially in the parenting conversation, is that I think we all really want to be doing a good job. We all want to be effective and to know that we. That we matter, that we're doing the right things. And so I think Especially with our phones. You know, the dopamine hit that you get from sort of like sending a quick email reply for checking something off the list. It's so seductive and powerful that you have to really kind of take a step back to understand, like what's happening and then figure out a way to bring yourself out of it. And I will say for myself, it's really hard. It's really hard. I'm by no means perfect at this. I'm not even great at it. The technology stuff.

Yeah, I don't put myself. I would not put myself in the good category either. Okay, so your principles around real self care. So one is setting boundaries. Because in order to have space for yourself, in order to have space to even wonder what could feel good to yourself, you need to protect yourself. And that goes back to boundaries. Okay, so what else. What else kind of comes into play in terms of those principles?

Yeah. So the next principle, principle number two is, is self compassion. And you know, I kind of always thought of self compassion previously as sort of like woo, woo, a little bit iroli. But the conceptualization that I use for self compassion comes from Dr. Kristin Neff, kind of the foremost researcher on self compassion. And when we're talking about self compassion here, in this context, it's about how you talk to yourself. And it's pulling from psychological flexibility, from act acceptance and commitment therapy. So it's more about learning, really paying attention to that inner critic that is sort of always there and sort of always telling you, well, you could have done more, you didn't do enough, you're not good enough, and pushing back on that voice and saying, but wait, gosh, why am I so mean to myself? Where did I learn that, huh? Ouch. Would I talk to a friend that way? And I know you talk about this too, kind of this martyr mode that we get into, especially for moms, and sort of recognizing when that's happening. And instead of falling into selfless or selfish, finding that middle ground of good enough. And with self compassion, I think we. The thing that I always come back to is like, you have to remember that you're the only person that can give that to yourself. If you're waiting around for somebody else to give you that permission, it's really. It's not gonna come.

How do you feel like parents start that? Because it is so natural for so many people to struggle and then, you know, blame themselves and then layer on shame. Oh, I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I did that. No other parent would have. You know yelled at their kid in that way or I told myself I would go to the gym today, not from a place of shame, from a place of empowerment. And I still didn't. What is wrong with me? Like where does someone start? They're like, okay, I remember that second principle I have to build self compassion. Well that was not very self compassionate. Like what could come next?

Yeah. So I think, I think of two things. One is coming back to again, the system is rigged. So the reason it's so hard is because a lot of the expectations that are put on parents are totally make believe really, you know that it's really tough to, to make these choices and the outside system is really pushing against us. Whether we're talking about patriarchy, whether we're talking about white supremacy, whether we're talking about end stage capitalism, all these different things. Right. They're all pushing against us. So you making the decision as a parent to try and exercise three times a week is actually, that's a radical decision and there's a reason that it feels hard. Second, I would say instead of beating yourself up, understand that, you know, this is a marathon. Like all of these habits, whatever it is, it takes time to put them into place. And the goal is not perfection here. Yes, of course there's going to be days where you don't get to it, where it doesn't work, where things fall apart and the actual practice is just getting back, getting back on the horse. Right. It's not about achieving a hundred percent. It's not about getting all the gold stars. It's actually, well, what do you do when it doesn't go to plan? I had an advisor when I was in my training who said like the marker is of success actually is what someone does after they fail. That's sort of the real prognostic indicator of kind of, of psychological health. So that's the other piece. And, and, and I also just want to add like I recognize too, like it's really tough. It's not like any of this stuff is easy in terms of even the self compassion. But I think when you start to think of it more from like we've been saying, an internal lens. How do I talk to myself when I don't get that run in? When I don't do the thing that I know is good for me, even though I really intended to, can I give myself the same compassion that I would want to give my child? Can I model that for myself? That's a really powerful intervention.

Can you name the other two principles just to Kind of wrap up the four.

Yeah, absolutely. So the third principle is identifying your values. And I created a tool called the Real Self Care Compass that kind of helps folks hone in on, well, like, what do I really care about? Because I think sometimes values can be a little bit of a triggering word for people because it's sort of like, well, I mean, I love my family, you know, Like, I really care about my kids. And it's like, well, values words are adjectives or adverbs, right? It's the how, it's what is the thing that you're bringing to it. So I use this example of imagining you have $200 to throw a dinner party. What is your dinner party going to look like? And it's really easy in that example to know and see immediately that every single person on the planet is going to throw a completely different dinner party. Like, is it going to be a potluck? Are you going to have it at the park? Are you going to have people dress up in costumes? And then from that you sort of look at, oh, well, like, what are the values that came out there? Maybe for me, it's really important that everyone's having, like, laughing, maybe. Silliness and humor for me is something that really fills me up. So then how do I bring that into my parenting? Maybe I should look at having more kind of unstructured, spontaneous time on the weekends with my kids. So there's so many different ways you can go with that. But when I'm talking about values, that's what I mean. Sort of like the how. And then the last principle is remembering that this is power. This whole process of reconceptualizing self care and taking ownership of it for ourselves. This is about taking power back from oppressive systems. So, you know, Audre Lorde said that self care is self preservation. So in the choices that we make in our own families, in our own workplaces, in our own communities, that's how we model for others, that change is possible.

And I'm just thinking about those principles, right? So boundaries, self compassion, values, power. And one of the things I think about a lot is if we go back to our earliest days, maybe not day one, but let's say, I don't know, month seven, eight, nine, or something like that. Right. I'm just thinking about our experiences as a baby where you're hungry, you scream and cry out for food. I don't know any baby who's like, oh, am I asking for too much? Maybe it's too much. You know, like, I feel Bad. I'm not gonna ask. That's not what happens. At least right away, or you are working on crawling and you don't get it that day. I just don't know what baby's like, oh, I'm such an idiot. Like, I wanted to do that, and I can, and I'm an awful baby.

Right.

Or, you know, and so what that always makes me think about is, like, we were not born questioning ourselves. We were not born wondering if we were too much. We were not born being critical after we struggled with something we wanted to do. Like, those voices were not there. And so that gives me a lot of compassion toward myself when I notice those voices activate. Cause I can kind of say, whoa. I've taken in these voices over the course of my years. But, like, they weren't there to begin with. And that gives me a little distance from them.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

And also brings, like, a little humor, which to me, always helps, you know, move things forward.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really powerful. And such a nice reminder. My son is just learned to crawl, which is a really fun age. And, yeah, he is just going for it. Right? He's just going for it. He's hurling himself everywhere, which is really fun. But yet there's not a doubt in his mind that he can do what he wants to do.

And he inconveniences you all the time, because then you're like, oh, I got to pick you up from there. Like, oh, you're crawling toward our knife.

Block or whatever it is.

You're like, oh, I got to stop what I'm doing. Our babies, especially, they inconvenience us all the time. They wake us up in the middle of the night because they're hungry. Like, they don't not do that because it might inconvenience us. They are very willing to step into their power. We, at one point, were very willing to step into our power.

Yeah. And I think once you sort of recognize that, it's easier to feel it and to kind of visualize what that was like. Because everybody, I think, can think back to a time like you were saying in our younger years, before we knew that we were supposed to sort of turn the volume down. And I think about sort of in the parenting conversation, I think sometimes that. I do think sometimes it can feel like there could be some grief around this. I think, like, kind of feeling like, well, but now my life is such that I need to be the person that is sort of constantly watching out for the knife blocks and sort of, like, hyper Vigilant. Right. Because if I'm not there doing that, will things go off the rails? And so I also want to sort of just say that I think we can trust ourselves, you know, we can trust ourselves to, to understand that this is a balance. And that like by you sort of constantly assuming that there is something good that comes when you're able to re access that part of your humanity. And we're not saying it's sort of like all the time, willy nilly, but that when you're able to remember it and feel it and then thread that through your week, you're parenting from a very different space.

Yeah. So what about the parents who are listening, who are thinking like, it's just like one more thing on my list. Like, I am in it. I am totally in it. I am just trying to survive a kind of surviving versus thriving kind of difference. Where does self care fit in there?

Yeah. So this is a question I've been thinking a lot about. Cause I think when you're surviving, when you're in that surviving place, sometimes you really do need those life rafts of the foe. You just need the escape. You need to be able to just sit there and doom scroll if you're going to doom scroll or to just totally zone out to some Netflix and not beat yourself up for it. I think that knowing where you are on the map is really important. And this is also why boundaries is the first principle. And like, we're just always kind of coming back to boundaries. Because when you're in that survival space, usually not all the time, but usually it means that you have too much, you're doing too much. And so step one is kind of learning to figure out what are the things that you can let go. And I fully disclose in the book, I say, like, but sometimes it feels like, you know, all of the things, they're all glass balls, right? They're not. There's no rubber ball, they're all glass balls. And if I let one thing go, it's going to break and shatter. I think that's where you have to really learn to trust your community, your relationships, where you have to develop some of these skills of asking for help. This is really a process of getting creative and understanding that none of us can do this alone.

Yeah. And something I want to add to everyone listening who's in that kind of surviving stage is if you're in a surviving, not at all thriving stage, you know, it feels like you're like in a hole. Like it feels like you're in a Hole. And it does take energy to get out of a hole. I agree. And there's times you don't have energy. And to me, when I'm in one of those phases, one of the things I try to imagine is, Becky, can I just not dig this deeper? Because that also takes energy. Like, okay, I don't have energy to climb out, but it actually also takes energy to dig deeper into the hole. And when we think about self care as an action to take, I gotta get to that yoga class. I gotta take that bubble bath. Oh, I have to order a bubble bath with a scent I like. Then, yeah, it's like I don't have energy to do that. And I think it's okay to say that's true. You really might not. But when you think about self care as an inside job, like you say, well, can I today just be a little more aware of how I talk to myself? Because every time I tell myself I'm a piece of blank, every time I say I'm the worst parent in the world, I actually am using more energy than I think to dig myself. I don't have that energy. If I had that energy, I should probably do something to move myself up. At least let me not dig myself deeper. So if I can say to myself, which takes not a lot of time, maybe it's a post it on my mirror, hey, this feels hard. Because it is hard. Hey, this is a really hard stage in my life and I'm going to get to the other side. Or just this is a really hard stage in my life. I'm a good person, doing the best I can. That doesn't take the same amount of energy as like going to drive and see my friend for dinner four towns away. No. Okay. But that can stop us from going deeper into the hole. And to me, the difference between staying where you are versus digging deeper is actually a substantial difference cumulatively. And so I think for everyone in that surviving stage, just being aware the way I talk to myself can kind of keep me where I am. It might, even without me realizing, start to move me up closer to baseline, get out of that hole. And it doesn't take the same type of energy as kind of doing or going somewhere 100%.

I think that it also can lead to making it feel a little bit easier to set some of those boundaries too. Because I think the boundaries piece can feel hard when you're really in that hole and flooded with all the stuff and overwhelmed. So bringing in the self compassion and how you're talking to yourself and Threading it through then makes it a little bit more gentle to figure out what you can let go of. Yeah, I think that that, that totally makes sense.

So one of the things I love in your book is you have a lot of kind of exercises people can do. Could you kind of lead us through, you know, in this kind of moment, toward the end of our conversation, could you just like lead us through one of them or walk through one of them?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the dinner party one, I think is a really nice one to sort of dive deeper into. So maybe we can touch on that a little bit. Sure.

Great.

So you're imagining that you have $200 to spend on this dinner party and there's no right or wrong answer of how you're going to approach the dinner party. The whole point is that it's a fantasy. Right. And so one way to think about this is to really let your mind sort of just dream it up. You know, am I the type of person that really wants folks to show up and have fun? Am I gonna ask everybody to bring a dish from a different continent? What kind of music am I gonna play? And how is the music gonna impact how people feel at the party? What are the kids gonna be doing? If there are kids at this party, there's like a million different ways that you could take it.

And so, Pooja, maybe I'll share with you what's coming. So like, for me, at my party, there are no kids. This is definitely a Leave your children at home. Okay. And there's dancing, there's dancing to. I don't know, for me, it would probably be music that other people are like, Becky, I've heard that song like a hundred times. And I'm like, yeah, but I know the lyrics. So I just wanna dance and sing to this very silly song. And it's like a medium sized group. It's not, you know, kind of eight people. But it's not a hundred, right? I don't know, maybe like somewhere 25 to 50, something like that. And there's live music. I'm gonna say that there's. Well, I guess I can't. I'm not gonna be able to do all that for $200. But I'm. I'm. I'm dreaming. Okay, so there's a band who's agreeing. Okay, so that's my. And then the food is just kind of being passed around. It's almost secondary to just the dancing. So what might that tell me? Cause, like, right now I'm like, I have to plan that dinner party. But, like, I don't think I can do that. How can I use that?

Yeah. So for me, the things that stand out to me is the music, the live music. It sounds like there's. That's where the meat is. And so I would wonder about that live music, like, and the band. What does that mean to you? Why is it important that there's a band there? And what does that band bring in the guests? I would wonder about the value underneath there. There's something about the spontaneity of, like, having the live music. Something about maybe, like, the connection that having a band brings to a party environment that's different than when there's just like a, you know, a record player or whatever. So I'm curious if you want to sort of speak a little bit more on that.

Yeah, I guess I see everyone, like, coming onto the dance floor a little bit more. I see there's, like, a lot of movement. I really do love to dance so much. It makes me so happy to be dancing kind of with my friends and singing along. And I think a band would kind of, you know, allow that to happen.

The other thing that I'm hearing in that is that, like, the physicality of it, that word movement. Yes. So this is like, kind of in this exercise, right? It's sort of like you're pulling out these different words and you're thinking on them and thinking what they kind of mean in your life. And so if we're talking about something like movement and physicality and valuing that, if that's something that you really enjoy, maybe embodiments. So like, one way that we could then sort of bring this into real life is like, sure, incorporating dance into your life or with your kids, but actually, it's something much bigger than that. The embodiment, the movement, how do you bring that into your parenting? Is that something that you, you know, you sit down with your partner and you say, like, how do we find space and time for us in our lives to, like, go out for hikes, to do things in nature, to kind of be together in a physical space that is different than just, like, in our living room watching tv? But how do we bring some of that physicality and connection inside the physicality to our weeks or our months? And again, it's not going to be something you're not going to be able to do it every day, but it really changes your quality of life if you're able to incorporate that even once a month.

And, you know, this is really interesting because I actually do feel like self care is something. I mean, I talk about it a lot and it is something I feel pretty strong at, like my boundary setting. And I really don't see taking care of myself and taking care of my family as mutually exclusive. I see them as kind of going hand in hand. And probably my primary kind of regular act of self care that I engage in is on Thursday mornings I meet up with a group of friends and we do this kind of like dancey exercise class together. And it's definitely not the most intense workout, but we move our bodies and we kind of are in it together. And it's fun, you know, it's really, really fun. And so it is interesting now that I reflect on that. And I wasn't even thinking about that when I shared my kind of dream dinner party with you. But I think for anybody listening, take that dream dinner party and think, what values does that suggest? And also what parts of that can I replicate? I don't have a live band at this exercise class. Okay, that's not happening. But we have a speaker where there's some like pretty loud music and we can move around, we can be with each other. It's not quite a dance floor, but that does come close enough. And I really do feel that lighting me up inside over the course of my week.

Yeah, yeah. And I love that too, because it's unique to you and it's specific, but with some taught with some time and reflection, you can find it. And I think that that's what's so powerful about this, in that we all have the potential to be able to give this to ourselves and it's going to be different for everybody.

Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com podcast. You could also write me@podcastoodinside.com parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world and parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside Membership, the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like valued parents. It's totally game changing. Good inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsem at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhee, Julia Natt and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go, let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves. Even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.