Confessions of a Soap Maker: I Don't Have a 12-Step Self-Care Routine
There is a version of self-care on the internet that looks absolutely exhausting.
You get up early. You journal. You meditate. You drink lemon water. You dry brush something. There are serums involved. Possibly several of them. Then yoga, a beautifully arranged breakfast and ten quiet minutes contemplating your intentions for the day.
I don't know about you, but by the time I've completed all of that, I need a nap.
My version of self-care is considerably less photogenic.
Sometimes it's a shower with a bar of soap I really love.
Sometimes it's taking my coffee outside and sitting there for ten minutes without accomplishing a damn thing.
Sometimes it's spinning yarn, pulling weeds in the garden, making something with my hands or watching truly terrible television.
And sometimes it's going to bed early because I'm tired.
That's it.
No eucalyptus hanging artistically from the shower head. No matching linen pajamas. No sunrise yoga.
Just a little bit of time when nobody needs anything from me.
You'd think that would be easy.
Turns out, it isn't.
Somewhere Along the Way, Self-Care Became Another Job
We're already surrounded by things we're supposed to be doing better.
Drink more water. Eat more protein. Exercise. Get enough sleep. Keep the house clean. Answer your email. Remember everyone's birthday. Take care of your skin. Be productive. Be present. Get off your phone. Maintain meaningful relationships.
And now apparently we're supposed to be good at relaxing, too.
No thank you.
If taking care of yourself requires a checklist, a shopping list and forty-five minutes you don't have, there's a pretty good chance it isn't going to happen.
Or worse, it becomes one more thing you feel guilty about not doing.
But I think there's something else going on here, especially for a lot of women my age.
We're not very good at doing nothing without feeling guilty about it.
Who Said We Had to Earn Rest?
I don't remember anyone sitting me down and explicitly saying, Karen, you are only allowed to relax when every other possible thing has been accomplished.
They didn't have to.
A lot of us grew up watching women who were always doing something.
There was dinner to make. Laundry to fold. A house to clean. Kids to drive somewhere. Groceries to buy. Work to do. Somebody needed something.
And if you sat down?
Well, there was probably something you could be doing.
That one followed a lot of us right into adulthood.
I can sit down with every intention of taking an hour for myself and suddenly my brain starts producing evidence for the prosecution.
There's laundry downstairs.
You haven't answered that email.
You should really vacuum.
Didn't you say you were going to weed that garden?
You could be getting ahead on work.
And there it is.
Could.
There is almost always something we could be doing.
The laundry regenerates. The weeds are apparently participating in some kind of competitive growing event. Another email will arrive. There will be another meal to make and another floor that could stand to be swept.
If we're waiting until everything is finished before we're allowed to rest, we're going to be waiting a very long fucking time.
When Did Sitting Down Become a Character Flaw?
That's the part I'm trying to unlearn.
Rest isn't something you win for completing the day's objectives.
Doing something simply because you enjoy it isn't wasting time.
And taking an afternoon to read, spin yarn, garden, watch television, wander around outside or stare blankly into space doesn't mean you're lazy.
I know that.
Intellectually.
Actually believing it while sitting on the couch at two o'clock in the afternoon is an entirely different matter.
Because that little voice is still there:
Shouldn't you be doing something?
I'm starting to think the better question might be:
Why does what I'm doing only count when it's useful?
Making something because I enjoy making it counts.
Resting because I'm tired counts.
Sitting outside because the sun feels good counts.
Reading a book that will contribute absolutely nothing to my professional development counts.
And doing absolutely nothing because I don't particularly feel like doing anything?
I'm working on that one.
Ten Minutes Counts
Maybe that's why I like the idea of ten minutes.
Not because ten minutes is all we're entitled to.
That's important.
You are absolutely allowed to take the whole damn afternoon.
But when you've spent decades believing you need to justify your downtime, an afternoon can feel almost impossible.
So ten minutes is a place to start.
Ten minutes where you don't get ahead.
You don't multitask.
You don't fold laundry while watching television so the television somehow becomes productive.
You don't answer email while drinking your tea.
You don't listen to a business podcast while taking your walk.
You just do the thing.
Drink the tea.
Sit in the sun.
Read six pages.
Take the unnecessarily long shower.
Pick up whatever you make things with and make something that doesn't need to be sold, gifted or useful.
Or sit there.
That's allowed too.
And maybe eventually ten minutes becomes twenty.
Maybe sometimes it becomes an afternoon.
Maybe we even stop explaining why.
This Is Probably Why I Make the Things I Make
It's funny when I think about it.
I make soap. Creams. Herbal body care. Candles. Tea. All these lovely little things people associate with "self-care."
But I've never really thought of them as a routine.
They're just little ways to make ordinary life nicer.
You're going to take a shower anyway.
You might as well use a soap that smells so good you stand there sniffing your own arm like a weirdo.
Your hands are dry. Put something wonderful on them.
It's been a day. Light the candle.
Make the tea.
Take the bath.
Use the good stuff on a random Tuesday.
None of it needs to become a ceremony unless you want it to be one.
Maybe self-care doesn't need to be about constructing an entirely different, calmer, more beautifully organized life that we're somehow supposed to find time for.
Maybe it's just sneaking little bits of pleasure into the life we're already living.
Not because they're productive.
Not because they're good for us.
Not because we've crossed enough things off the list.
Because they feel good.
That's reason enough.
The Soap Maker Is Still Working on This
Here's the confession part.
I am remarkably good at turning almost anything into a task.
Things I genuinely enjoy can somehow migrate onto a mental to-do list until I'm standing there thinking:
I should really relax today.
Which, you'll notice, is a completely ridiculous sentence.
I'm learning.
I'm learning that sometimes the laundry can wait.
Sometimes an email can wait.
Sometimes there doesn't have to be a productive reason for doing something.
And I'm trying to stop thinking of ten minutes as the consolation prize because I couldn't manage an entire afternoon.
Ten minutes is ten minutes.
That's ten minutes of my life that actually belonged to me.
And I'll take it.
So Here's Your Extremely Complicated Self-Care Plan
Find one thing you want to do simply because you enjoy it.
Do it for ten minutes.
Use the good soap.
Make the tea you've been saving.
Light the candle even though nobody is coming over.
Put on the ridiculously comfortable pajamas.
Pick up your knitting, your book, your paintbrush, your garden trowel—or the remote.
And when that little voice starts listing all the more useful things you could be doing, tell it you'll get back to them.
Or don't.
There will always be something else you could be doing.
You don't have to earn ten minutes of your own life.
Karen's Garden Notes
August in New Hampshire is when the garden starts looking like it has developed its own agenda.
Things are growing. Things are flopping over. Things need picking. And the weeds remain wildly committed to their personal goals.
My natural instinct is to walk outside, immediately identify seventeen things that need doing and start pulling something.
I'm trying to remember that sometimes I can just sit there and enjoy the damn garden.
I don't always have to be pulling something.
Ready for a Little Everyday Self-Care?
No twelve-step routine required.
Sometimes it's a really good bar of handmade soap. Sometimes it's a ridiculously rich cream, a cup of tea, a candle—or whatever little thing makes an ordinary ten minutes feel a little better.
