Ingrid:
Ok Rae, how does your block show where you are at with your journey with ‘care’?
Rae:
For a while, I was really awful at caring for myself. I was okay at caring about other people, but caring for myself felt very selfish. I feel like now I’m getting into a rhythm of what I know I need to be doing for myself and what I know is actually attainable right now. Especially in the past few weeks, I’ve been making an effort to go outside, stretch, put my phone away, and other things. I think I’m in a very comfortable place where I know I’m not doing everything right or everything that’s good for me, but I’m doing pretty good so far, and I’m comfortable with that.
Ingrid: What can we do to make this block a possibility/a reality?
Rae:
I think for comfortable silence to be real, we have to stop and pat ourselves on the back for the little things. With care, it seems like there’s a checklist of things to do so you’ll be ok, but it doesn’t work like that. So just accepting that I’m going to feel awful and not want to do some of this stuff sometimes, and that’s ok! And then appreciating what you have done in the moment, like getting out of bed, or eating breakfast. I think we get sidetracked trying to have everything and be perfect.
Ingrid:
What does care mean to you?
Rae:
To me, care means a lot of things. Care can mean leaving your friend alone because they need some space, or reaching out because you know sometimes they isolate too much. Care can also mean giving yourself basic needs, like water or food, or restraining yourself from spending a lot of money, or reaching out to others because it’s going to help you later on.
Onelson:
Care is such a broad term that it's hard to describe precisely what care means to me. However, if I wanted to state it in bullet points, I’d say care is a representation of how we interact with one another. There are many ways to go about it, and care doesn’t necessarily mean helping one another—care could also mean helping yourself, or selfishness, putting our needs before others. However, when our needs intertwine with those we care about, the sort of joy and happiness you get from that is practically indescribable. It fills you up inside so much that you want to care for people that you've never even met before, and sooner or later you're in the headline of a newspaper for helping the people that most people would shy away from, or even ignore. That's the type of person I want to be.
Ingrid: What do you think is possible when we connect our needs with care?
Rae:
I think when we connect our needs with care, we end up being a lot more conscious with our decisions about self care and care for others. When you’re thinking about self care, your first reaction might be “skincare” or “go shopping.” But when you start thinking about what you need right now, your acts of self care might end up looking more like brushing your teeth, taking a shower, calling your mom (or not calling your mom).