- Self-care existed long before millennials did. Ancient Greeks saw it as a way to make people more honest citizens who were more likely to care for others. In her 1988 book, A Burst of Light, Audre Lorde wrote that "caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare."
Today, self-care, as it's defined by Gracy Obuchowicz, a facilitator and self-care mentor and coach in Washington, D.C., "assumes that we're OK as we are and we just need to take care of ourselves ... Self-care alone is not enough. You need to have self-awareness too. Self-care plus self-awareness equals self-love."
To answer the question, I don't think we're more interested in self-care than any other generation - but the friends who end up getting to mind, body, or spirit guidance do so exactly because there was so much in their life they didn't have control over. So, now, they try to focus on what they can control - themselves.
I guess...I don't really get the point of this article? Granted, I've also never heard the term "self-care" prior to reading it. But it seemed like the author was just stating that people go work out, or mentally recuperate, or whatever else? Doesn't exactly seem ground-breaking...
It's a term with an interesting history for something that became a Thing. A more interesting article would have talked about how that happened.
Pretty sure that every generation gets accused by the ones before them of being too selfish.
yeah, sorry. Not the most interesting article, but a topic worth discussing, I think. "Self-care," is not something that my grandparents would have considered a "thing," when they were young, I don't think. But they did take leisure and took joy in, and perhaps even zen in, daily activities. So, is "self-care," something that has always been en-vogue but is just now getting terminology around it? Prior to reading this I had only just downloaded, my second, meditation app for my phone.
I know when I started my first job working at a grocery store we were closed early on Sundays and shortly before that they weren't open at all on Sundays. When I worked in Nova Scotia I found out stores were closed on actual boxing day and they had boxing day a day late when I rolled up to work to find a locked door. I didn't think to ask how I unlock it because this was a 24 hour store. That in itself is different. I think self-care basically just means taking a break which we don't do much by default anymore.
It seems like it's just getting terminology around it. When I was a kid, my dad would put on a suit and style his hair every day. My mom visited a psychologist, but didn't tell anyone about it, and both of them had memberships to the Y so they could exercise. This also made me think of Oral Robert's "Quest for the Whole Man." Some time in the mid-60's Robert's said that getting close to God meant training mind, body, and spirit, and would require individuals to keep their weight down or keep in good physical condition to graduate. While a belief that overt wasn't widespread, the idea of a well dressed, physically fit, and over-all presentable person being of greater social value than the average man seems like a constant pressure for the last century at least.
I'm pretty certain the ancient Greeks and the ancient Chinese had pretty high standards and I'm sure they weren't the first civilization either.While a belief that overt wasn't widespread, the idea of a well dressed, physically fit, and over-all presentable person being of greater social value than the average man seems like a constant pressure for the last century at least.