How do you define self-love and self-care in 2019?
Is it your consumerism self-care routine of online shopping, skin care, and face masks?
Is it putting on some tattoo and showing it off to the world on social media?
Is it "cutting off toxic bitches" from your social media because of some drama?
If you answered *yes with the nail emoji star emoji* to these questions, then why is your definition of self love and self care so shallow?
This isn't to invalidate anyone who practice self-care and self-love. In fact, it is good to practice those things in a meaningful, healthy and sustainable way, where it maintains a positive impact on your overall health. But my point is that when mainstream nowadays advocate for "mental health awareness, self-care and self-love" that is so watered-down, it has lost its true meaning and made a lot of people delusional of what it actually looks like to practice those things. One of my biggest pet-peeve is when people use "self care and self love" as a slogan to look like you're spreading awareness. It's like seeing white gays putting "#blacklivesmatter" on their twitter bio but not do anything about it, or even worse, stanning ariana grande. I said what I said.
Sometimes I felt like people advocate for this neoliberal version of self care or self love because of the individualism in a capitalist society, where the value of community diminishes and we only put energy into self-betterment for maximum return for ourselves. It feels like we don't take care of those around us when we only focus too much on ourselves. To people who are marginalized in society and recognizes it, I think our race, ethnicity, identity politics can add a lot of depths and intense meaning into a lot of situations nowadays, including what it meant to love and care for yourself.
At 1:53:00 it talks about what self-care truly means radically to people who are colonized and displaced.
To me, self care and self love are political, and my siblings in Hong Kong has made me realized so much how to love ourselves and our community amidst revolution in the past two months.
Self care is collective care.
Self-care is staying informed about your own community and be an advocate for it.
Self-care is exchanging thoughts and spending time with each other being in a marginalized community, keeping each other validated and sane while also holding each other accountable.
Self-care is taking a step back from the fight when you feel drained, because dismantling the power structure is a long, exhausting fight.
Self-care is checking on yourself and people in your community physically and mentally to make sure they are okay because you genuinely see them as important (if not more important) than your own life.
Self-love is ally-ship.
Self-love is seeing hope in your life and in your own community, existing and resisting despite being silenced, marginalized, attacked.
Self-love is feeling empowered from your own community to live better each and every day.
Self-love is celebration of yourself and your communities.
I don't wanna hear about your self-love and self-care if you don't have the capacity to radically love and care for others and our communities.
Is it your consumerism self-care routine of online shopping, skin care, and face masks?
Is it putting on some tattoo and showing it off to the world on social media?
Is it "cutting off toxic bitches" from your social media because of some drama?
If you answered *yes with the nail emoji star emoji* to these questions, then why is your definition of self love and self care so shallow?
This isn't to invalidate anyone who practice self-care and self-love. In fact, it is good to practice those things in a meaningful, healthy and sustainable way, where it maintains a positive impact on your overall health. But my point is that when mainstream nowadays advocate for "mental health awareness, self-care and self-love" that is so watered-down, it has lost its true meaning and made a lot of people delusional of what it actually looks like to practice those things. One of my biggest pet-peeve is when people use "self care and self love" as a slogan to look like you're spreading awareness. It's like seeing white gays putting "#blacklivesmatter" on their twitter bio but not do anything about it, or even worse, stanning ariana grande. I said what I said.
Sometimes I felt like people advocate for this neoliberal version of self care or self love because of the individualism in a capitalist society, where the value of community diminishes and we only put energy into self-betterment for maximum return for ourselves. It feels like we don't take care of those around us when we only focus too much on ourselves. To people who are marginalized in society and recognizes it, I think our race, ethnicity, identity politics can add a lot of depths and intense meaning into a lot of situations nowadays, including what it meant to love and care for yourself.
One of the most inspiring things was seeing activists like Samer and Sangeetha sharing their thoughts on feeling uplifted from loving your community, and I think that's beautiful and inspiring.
She really made some points when she said "I love myself fine, but that doesn't mean shit in a world where I and others like me are coded as unlovable." In a world where we exist as individual beings with differences and hierarchies, in a way it doesn't matter if we "love" ourselves to the outsiders. Yes, to ourselves, it might be beneficial to keep ourselves sane. But it's also choosing to ignore the roots of the problem in an individualistic, selfish world, where people in marginalized communities are seen as unlovable or even hated by the ones in power.
I would also like to share this town hall meeting recording from one of my favorite organizations in New York City called Decolonize This Place.
"The thing that we need to do that we call self care is collective care. Because no one in the political sense does self-care as an individual act, it's about caring for each other. We relinquish the commons,we relinquish the state, relinquish any institutions that we are calling for that should provide for us..."
To me, self care and self love are political, and my siblings in Hong Kong has made me realized so much how to love ourselves and our community amidst revolution in the past two months.
Self care is collective care.
Self-care is staying informed about your own community and be an advocate for it.
Self-care is exchanging thoughts and spending time with each other being in a marginalized community, keeping each other validated and sane while also holding each other accountable.
Self-care is taking a step back from the fight when you feel drained, because dismantling the power structure is a long, exhausting fight.
Self-care is checking on yourself and people in your community physically and mentally to make sure they are okay because you genuinely see them as important (if not more important) than your own life.
Self-love is ally-ship.
Self-love is seeing hope in your life and in your own community, existing and resisting despite being silenced, marginalized, attacked.
Self-love is feeling empowered from your own community to live better each and every day.
Self-love is celebration of yourself and your communities.
I don't wanna hear about your self-love and self-care if you don't have the capacity to radically love and care for others and our communities.
留言
發佈留言