Q&A with Jennifer Louden

Jennifer Louden, author of The Woman's Comfort Book, which I read and followed last week, emailed with me about some of the more difficult issues of self-care, how she takes care of herself, and a little bit about the history of self-care. You can learn more about her at her web site, the Comfort Queen. Here is our Q&A.

Q. Do you find that women have a hard time making the time to take care of themselves? Why is it important to take the time?

A. Uh, that would be a resounding crystal glass breaking YES. Women struggle to see that self-care is what allows us to know ourselves and thus to build a life that matters, that is true to our values and desires. We tend to think self-care is only about losing weight or exercising or taking our vitamins-- all good but such a small part of it! In it's deepest expression, self-nurturing is about loving ourselves, warts and all. Especially warts and all. Which can sound like a bad 70's ballad but is the most important work any of us ever accomplish.

Q. What should a woman do on a daily or weekly basis in terms of of self-care? What do you consider to be essential for yourself?

In my newest book, The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to a Mindful Year, I talk about minimum requirements for self-care. I write, "Between surviving and leading a fully humming creative life lies the middle ground of determining your minimum requirements for centering self-care, a duded-up way of saying what you absolutely must have to stay in touch with your center. Basic needs, or minimum requirements, are different for each woman, although getting enough sleep, moving their bodies, eating fresh food, being touched, and connecting to something larger than themselves show up pretty consistently on women’s lists — but again, not on everybody’s. It can be easy to discount the importance of these basics, because getting enough alone time or napping when you are tired just doesn’t sound as sexy as realizing some fabulous dream. Yet without these basics, the dreams don’t always come true, or you can’t sustain them when they do, or, most tragically, it turns out that you are not following your dreams, but rather a script about what you should do. When you reach a certain stage of commitment to yourself, you find that you are willing to give the amount of attention and energy needed to your basics, because without them, it isn’t your life. You discover that you have less leeway to stray from what is essential than you thought."

Mine include:

• Centering myself: usually first thing in the morning with hot tea
• Bringing myself to the present when my watch beeps and praying
• Doing yoga: even if just a few poses in the middle of my walk
• Creating: writing a funny email, drawing, arranging flowers, dancing
• Taking herbs and vitamins
• Drinking lots of water, carrying water on errands
• Getting eight hours sleep
• Hugging and touching other living things (mostly my dog)
• Noticing thoughts, especially shoulds, and reframing or releasing them

Q. How has self-care changed over time? Do you know what women did in the past, say 100 years ago? Was self-care considered as important back then?

A. I don't think self-care has changed that much in that what most women like to do is pretty basic (being in nature, rest, walking, reading, bathing, creating, being with girl friends and pets, gardening) and it has certainly not changed in regards to our struggle to find the time. I found this quote years ago: "'When the fall sewing is done,' 'When the baby can walk,' 'When the housecleaning is over,' 'When the company has gone,' 'When we have got through with the whooping cough,' 'When I am a little stronger,' then I will write the poem, or learn the language, or study the great charity, or mater the symphony; then I will act, dare, dream, become." It was written more than a century ago by Elizabeth Stuart Lyon.

Q. What have you learned about self-care that you didn't know when you started writing about it?

A. Since I first started writing about it when I was 27, and I'm 44 now, I hope a lot! My biggest learning has been that self-care and spirituality are synonmous--it's about connecting with your core, which means connecting with something larger than your small self, something much more mysterious and nourishing than your mind's endless nattering. It’s about touching the ineffable. I've also learned that self-care is especially important in a woman's spiritual and psychological development because we live in a world that doesn't honor or value women, even though we are always seeing improvements, we daily experience the double standard and we all see the affects of this legacy in our families of origin.

Q. Does it seem like the field of "self-care" has sort of taken off in the last 5 years or so? (For example, books like yours, Oprah's encouragements, day spas.) Why is it so popular right now?

A. The Woman's Comfort Book was the ground breaker in this field, the first book to talk about self-care outside of recovery from sexual abuse. The trend is continuing to grow for great reasons and not-so-great reasons. The great reasons are women are evolving (more of us are aging at one time than ever before with more freedom and resources as well as the cultural changes of the last 40 years) and more of us are refusing to settle for an unhappy life. The not-so-great news is stress is such a overwhelming part of so many people’s lives, given how unsustainable our lives are, that we use self-care as a tidbit to keep us going AND corporations are using self-care to sell us all sorts of things (frozen foods, shoes, candy) which can really confuse the issue.

In the end, self-care creates the most beautiful and organic change because it orients us toward self-compassion and living a personally emotional physically sustainable life and that is very good for everybody!