Hi Friend
Last week I asked you this:
What is the oldest story you still tell about yourself? Where did it come from? And is it actually true?
This newsletter got the most responses of any I have sent. And what struck me was how quickly so many of you knew. You did not have to dig. The story was right there, the one you have been telling about yourself for as long as you can remember. I hope when you found yours you were able to look at it with some love. And if not, I hope you are at least in the place of beginning to question it.
Here is mine.
My oldest story is that I am fat and that it has some kind of meaning about my worth. You already know where it came from. I told you last week. Grade one. Snowbank Princess. A lens set before I was old enough to question it.
But I want to come at this question a little differently this week. Because something has shifted and I want to show you the actual mechanics of it.
In building Unearth Your Yes and The Crone Stories I have put myself on camera a lot lately. And here is what I have noticed. I am completely fine filming. I have always been a bit of a ham. I love being on camera. I love it when someone tells me something I made landed for them. When I am in it, I am not thinking about my body at all.
It is only afterwards, when I watch it back, that I see the rolls and think maybe I shouldn't post that one.
And that is the thing I finally understood. I do not actually see myself as fat anymore. Not in my daily life. Not when I am doing the work I love. I only see it when I compare myself to an image on a screen. It has become a comparative identity, not my core one. The old story does not run me anymore. It just gets triggered by the comparison.
That might not sound like much. But to me it is enormous. Because for most of my life that story was the first thing I felt in every single room I entered. Now it is something that only surfaces when I hold myself up against a photograph. The rest of the time I am simply living. Building. Loving what I am creating. Beginning, actually, to own the beauty of who I am as a person.
That is progress. And I will take it.
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What love would do
Now I want to be honest about the other side of this.
I am probably the most physically unhealthy I have been in a long time. And for a while I felt unmotivated to do much about it. But I have come to see that this is not an identity either. It is just a frame. And frames can change.
Here is the frame I am changing. For most of my life, when I thought about looking after my body, it came from a place of hating it. Trying to fix it. Trying to shrink it. Trying to make it acceptable. That kind of motivation never lasts because it is built on self rejection.
So I have made myself a different kind of commitment. When I get back from Halifax (yes I am back in Halifax for 4 days for my daughter’s graduation from Dalhouuse…see Instagram and Facebook for the proud momma) I am going to look after my body. Not because I hate it. Because I love it. Back to yoga. Back to nourishing, yummy food. Movement and care as devotion rather than punishment.
This is where I want to challenge how we think about self care.
We have been sold a very narrow version of it. The bubble bath. The face mask. The glass of wine at the end of a long day. And listen, I am not against any of that. Rest is real and we need it.
But self care is not only the soft, indulgent, collapse-into-the-couch version. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is the hard thing. The walk after dinner when you would rather sit down. The gym class you keep meaning to join. The yoga mat you keep stepping over. The nourishing meal instead of the easy one. The thing that brings you genuine joy that you are simply too depleted to reach for because you have spent the entire day servicing everyone else.
Think about that for a moment. Are you so tired at the end of the day from everyone you have taken care of that you cannot do the things that would actually make you feel better? That would bring you joy? That would care for the body you are going to live in for the rest of your life?
That is not self care. That is self abandonment dressed up as responsibility.
A woman I interviewed for The Crone Stories, Bari, gave me a question I now carry everywhere. When she is facing any moment of decision she asks herself this. How can I show myself love in this situation?
Not how can I be disciplined. Not how can I be good. How can I show myself love.
Sometimes the answer is rest. Sometimes the answer is the bubble bath. But sometimes the answer is lacing up your shoes and going for the walk. Sometimes love looks like the harder choice.
There is wisdom in choosing your hard. Staying exactly where you are is hard. Changing is also hard. You get to choose which hard you want. And choosing the hard that moves you toward the woman you are becoming is one of the most loving things you can do.
Going last, every single time, is its own old story. And it is one that deserves to be questioned just as much as any other.
Research on women and caregiving shows a consistent pattern. Women, and especially women in midlife, are disproportionately the ones holding everything together. The emotional labour, the scheduling, the caretaking of partners, children, aging parents, often all at once. Studies on what gets called the second shift and the mental load show that women carry the bulk of invisible household and emotional work even when they also work full time. And the cost of that is real. Chronic depletion. Burnout. A nervous system that never gets to fully come down. We are not imagining the exhaustion. It is structural.
Which is exactly why putting yourself somewhere other than last is not selfish. It is necessary. You cannot pour from a body you have abandoned.
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Your question for next week
So here is your question. And this week it comes with a small invitation attached.
Where do you consistently put yourself last? And knowing that, what is one act of self care, the unexpected kind, the kind that actually moves you toward yourself, that you can commit to this week?
Not a someday. Not when things calm down. This week.
Maybe it is a walk in nature. Maybe it is finally booking the class. Maybe it is going to bed early without guilt, or asking someone in your house to carry something you have always carried alone. Asking for support counts too. Going last is often just an unwillingness to ask.
Pick one. Commit to it. And if you want, reply and tell me what it is. Naming it out loud makes it real.
I will answer it myself next week.
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If you want to start hearing her again, the Unearth Your Yes questions are waiting for you at www.karenamy.com/free-resources
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The life we don't examine stays the life we didn't choose.
In love, light and laughter — Karen
P.S. And yes, you are absolutely allowed to ask me next week whether I actually went to the gym. Please do. I clearly need the accountability.