Everyone loves self-care these days… including billionaires, wealthy celebrities, corporations, your workplace or academic institutions, pop culture, and every social media influencer & wellness “guru”. The flourishing multi-billion dollar wellness, self-help & self-care industry reflects on the popularity of the concept. Since I migrated to the United States, I’ve spent years trying to understand what the f*** “self-care” even means. The concept is entirely non-existent in many collectivist communities (particularly Indigenous or land-based communities in the Global South) and by extension it is incomprehensible to many of us. I’ve felt deficient, confused, & inadequate being unable to grasp something so many around me seemingly got (seemingly being the key word).

I kept asking “how can I care for myself when I cannot survive or thrive in a world by myself?” How can I care for myself when survival is a collective responsibility & we are fundamentally dependent on the care of so many beings? How can I care for myself in a vacuum when caring for others is inevitably how I end up being cared for? What does “self-care” mean when my wellbeing is inextricably tied to the health of my community, the land & every part of our ecosystems?

Read more in Cosmic Anarchy.