Greetings friends, and welcome back to Sunday Select, where selection is only natural. This week, some ideas, writings, and a 2-minute video on writing as a mode of Self-CARE from me, Sean Waters. Hand-edited transcript beneath an essay invitation. Thank you for being here, and thank you for your generous support!
Take Care of Thyself!
Self-care isn’t selfish.
When we take care of ourselves:
We care about how we receive ourselves.
We care about what we do with ourselves.
We care about what we value.
We care about putting our values in action.
It’s how we get our work done.
It’s how we discover, develop, and deliver our gifts back to the world.
For 99% of human history, self-care happened in community. We need supportive mirrors, perceptive encouragement, and notes of loving-kindness. We need our work to matter; we need our voices to be heard. Giving our unique gifts to others may be the supreme act of taking care of ourselves.
Since 2021, I’ve been creating small intimate groups where this happens. I believe that the future of learning is interpersonal. Kindness will be intelligence, and selfish altruism will be the norm.
If this sounds exciting to you, there’s nine days left to enroll for our April 2nd start. We’re centering on the theme of Writing a Good Life — how we authorize a writing practice that embodies the directions of our own flourishing. If you’re an educator, a personal development geek, someone in life transition, or a leader who cares, this seven-week experience might be a good fit. Message me or set up an inquiry via sean@wisdomworkshop.io.
What If We Approached Self-Care In a More Holistic Way?
When I lead writing workshops, I ask participants to come with a nice beverage, a cozy blanket, or anything else that sends signals: “I’m taking care of myself for the next twenty minutes.” I invite participants to see our journaling practice as a mode of self-love.
It’s not just caring for ourselves that makes this work:
It’s also caring about care itself.
It’s a way of savoring our ability to love at all.
Let’s bring in the rationalist philosopher emeritus Harry G. Frankfurt, who writes about Bullshit and the Reasons for Love:
“The key to a fulfilled life is to pursue wholeheartedly what one cares about . . . love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love.”
And what is self-love?
“The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love.”
According to the modern Ethics of Care (💯), care is attentive, responsible, competent, responsive, and pluralistic. With care, we speak up. With ourselves, and with others.
Let’s gooooooooo!!
How to Take Care of Thyself? Three Ways
(1) Practice the Four Dimensions of Self-C.A.R.E. (h/t )
Self-care is about Self-Communication - how we talk to ourselves, whether or not we move our inner critic into an inner coach, or our inner sage.
Self-care is about Self-Awareness - understanding what we're thinking and feeling right now, being curious about it.
Self-care is about Self-Responsibility - taking responsibility for what we're able to change in our environment that we can and then changing it.
And lastly, it's about Self-Expression - communicating with others, and how we communicate to others what we need in order to do our best.
(2) Practice Self-Care as the Art of Receiving Your Whole Self
If someone comes into the room, when we love them, that love isn’t just about what we do or what we say. It's more about how we receive them, how we receive the fullness of who they are. How we do what we do, how much we honor them for who they are.
Self-love — and the attendant self-care — is similar.
Self-care is about how we receive ourselves.
How do we practice receiving our whole selves when we walk into a room?
One way is writing in a daily journal.
(3) Practice Journaling as Caring with Values-in-Action
Our pages are a good place to embody what care about. For example:
I value perspective. The pages offer a path of cultivating different perspectives, where I play with seeing things from different perspectives.
I value curiosity. The pages give me room to ask questions, to consider and wonder out loud on the page.
I value the love of learning. The pages give me a place to take notes from podcasts, books or other people I'm listening to.
I value creativity. The pages give me a place to be creative without worrying whether or not it's good or bad or if I'm speaking well or not.
I also value discernment or judgment. The pages help me make better decisions about things. I get distance from them.
Remember:
Values aren't something that we just believe in. Values are something that we do.
✍️ Five Invitations: Write to Take Care of Thyself
As we move into spring, 🌱, consider how you will deepen your self-care practices:
Notice how you talk to yourself. How could you move your inner critic to hang out with your inner coach, or your inner sage?
Set aside time for daily journaling as a way to "receive yourself" fully. What times will you dedicate to making yourself a cozy guest?
Revisit your values. What do you value? How can you enact those values in your daily writing practice?
What do you need to express to who to better care for yourself? Write a draft of that expression in your pages. Why haven’t you told them yet?
What do you need to tell yourself? What do you need to hear? Give yourself some notes of lovingkindness.
Want to go further? To learn more about our April 2nd start of Writing the Good Life, send me a message. Syllabus provided upon request.
Self-care isn't selfish.
It's the foundation that allows us to show up fully for everything else that matters.
With gratitude for our growing Wisdom Workshop community,
Sean
Below the paywall, a brief essay on Why I keep Writing, and my favorite 49 Writing Invitations with a bit more guidance on how I’d get started. Thank you for your support!
Why I Keep Writing (March 2025 edition)
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Wisdom Workshop to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
