the habit of wishing away my needs
my office this week #4
This week I hosted a “remedial self-care” workshop for my clients. Because as recovering overachievers, perfectionists, and neurodivergents, we often have below-average competence when it comes to self-care.
In the workshop, we created “care cards” — like the set of instructions you’d get for washing expensive clothing or keeping fine jewelry bright and shiny.
I called it “remedial” because I wanted us to focus on the absolute basics.
Before we talked about gratitude journaling, affirmations, or massages. Before any of those ideas even entered the chat, I wanted to make sure our foundation was solid.
The boring, simple, close-to-$0 basics.
What does your human need to function properly?
What needs to happen so you don’t lose it?
What helps prevent that “hanging on by a thread” kind of feeling?
I’ve always struggled with the straight-up basics.
Feeding my human.
Watering my human.
Taking my human on walks.
Making sure my human gets enough sleep.
I mean, it’s so basic it’s almost embarrassing. That’s why I framed the entire workshop around the idea of remedial self-care.
Because I didn’t want us to create an aspirational checklist of things we should do to be a “good, healthy person.”
I wanted us to create a foundation of nourishment.
A list of questions we can run through whenever we start to feel off.
Before we spiral into existential despair, we can do a quick systems check and see whether we’re missing any of the basics.
Have I been outside today?
Have I eaten a vegetable recently?
Have I slept?
Have I taken my vitamins or medications?
Have I had quiet time alone?
Have I moved my body?
Hmm. Okay.
Maybe I don’t need to question the meaning of everything in my life.
Maybe I don’t need to quit my job or end my relationship or do anything drastic. Maybe I just need a full night of sleep and will feel fine in the morning.
During the workshop, as we were determining our non-negotiables for the care card, an interesting pattern emerged.
We were trying to minimize what we actually needed.
Trying to convince ourselves we could settle for less.
To say, “Well, as long as I get 7 hours of sleep, I’ll be okay,”
When in reality, we need 8–9 hours to feel truly rested.
To say, “I can do a 5-minute meditation for my quiet time,”
when what I really need is an hour curled up on a couch. To journal, read, meditate, or just be.
To say, “I can get by with a 10-minute walk in the morning,” when I know that 11,000 steps a day is the level of activity that stabilizes my mental health.
Its like on some level, we were all hoping we could get by with less. We were all wishing our pesky human didn’t have so many needs.
And I wonder why that is?
Is it because having needs is inconvenient? Because we have other things to do with our time? (but why do we want to do other things- when we aren’t cared for)
Is it because we don’t feel like we deserve this level of nurturing? (and to be clear by this level of nurturing I mean…. the most basic level.)
Turns out this workshop wasn’t just about creating a non-negotiable self-care checklist. It was deeper than that.
It was about making new standards. Setting a new bare minimum of what we will tolerate. Refusing to keep settling for crumbs of convenience.
After the workshop, I took my human for a walk. Headphones on. Instrumental music playing.
A thought came to me:
What if I took this seriously? What if taking care of my human was my main job?
What if I committed to these standards, like it was my first and foremost priority? The thing I made sure to get done before even entertaining anything else?
What if sacrificing any of these needs was never even an option?
What would that look like?
What would that mean?
What would start to rearrange?
If I made it an absolute, unquestionable standard to:
get 8 hours of sleep a night
start my day with a protein shake
spend an hour of quiet time every day with just me — no podcasts, no screens
walk 11k steps a day
get 2 hours of forest bathing a week
Because I don’t think there has ever been a 30-day stretch where all of those boxes were checked consistently. Which, to be honest, makes me quite sad.
So what would happen, if I made a firm commitment to care for and nurture my human like it was my job?
Who would I become?
Who is this well-nurtured Chelsea?
And why does the idea of caring for myself in this way feel so radical to me?
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