Real Self-Care

Practicing real self-care involves caring for others.

Self-care has become a lucrative industry. We spend billions of dollars on oils, apps, and fitness programs that claim to enhance our physical, spiritual, and emotional wellness.

Observing the results of these products and these techniques among her patients, psychiatrist and author Pooja Lakshmin concludes that the self-care business doesn’t deliver on its promises. Her patients are at least as stressed and insecure as they’ve always been. Maybe more so, given the extra time and money they’ve invested in self-care stuff.

In her book Real Self-Care, Lakshmin urges us to move beyond the superficialities of self-care commodities. She’s got nothing against oils, bubble baths, and yoga classes. They can be pleasant and even helpful. But on their own they touch only the surface of our lives. Their effects are fleeting.

Authentic self-care is deeply transformational. It requires serious inner work. She outlines four pillars that support genuine wellness: setting boundaries, self-compassion, al…