The Most Important Form of Self-Care Is Practicing Radical Compassion Towards Yourself

Self-love has always been something that I profoundly struggle with. I’d never known what it was like to love, or even like, who I was, rather than expecting others to validate me. Instead, I believed that everyone else had the power to embrace what I felt unlovable, as in all the things that I lacked, forgetting that everyone is flawed.

Recently, I realized it was more about unlearning certain things, as opposed to re-enforcing certain practices (though, don’t get me wrong, a monthly acupuncture-and-reflexology sesh is beginning to feel mandatory for my literal health!) that our culture so often encourages. Understandably, though, the merit of self-care has consistently been debated: Is it indulgent? Is it too capitalist? Or is it, in actuality, necessary for our survival?

Consumed With the Circumstances Around Me

2017 was a difficult year for many of us. In the throes of the Trump administration brandishing its ill will onto us collectively, it has been hard to be — and then remain — positive. during the early moments of the year, I had just come out of a brutal depressive bout that saturated my days with malaise. My mother had attempted suicide, and I had found her, strung out on the floor. And my professional pursuits did not offer me relief, as a book deal that I had very excitedly gotten then unexpectedly, and very devastatingly, fell through. I suddenly felt like I had no recourse for positive action in my life.

Days later, the ban was announced just as I had plans to potentially re-enter the States to accelerate my writing work, and I was a Muslim immigrant. Confused and completely exhausted to the core, I felt there was no future for me where I could be happy. With a proclivity for depression, some days it’s very difficult to not be consumed by the sometimes very real feeling that I am worthless.

When I asked Kimberly Drew, one of my loves, for input on this story, they offered beautifully wise words. “I've learned that self-care and compassion are actions that we have to commit to on a daily basis," they said. "In the second year of the Trump presidency, there can be no revolution without restoration.” This is precisely why self-care has been so incredibly, transparently motivating.

Like many others, I never experienced true, maternal love. Consumed by her mental illness, my mother was incapable of being a parent. She was the child, and I, the perma-caretaker. So, the foundation of self — my self — was always susceptible to being quashed by someone else’s motivations, as I had been made to sustain other people’s desires.

When others called me bad, I believed them because I had never had the option not to. My mother had called me bad, difficult, terrible, satanic, and worthless my whole life, and even if I never felt these painful descriptors were accurate, even if I had the hubris not to believe her, I sometimes wondered if she alone knew the truth, that I really was all those things. This is what abuse does to you, especially sustained abuse from someone you love, it thwarts your thinking so that negative affirmations seep into your nervous system, condensing into your bloodstream, becoming cellular. Very soon, it’s etched into the echoes of your skin. Then, you have to do everything in your power to not believe it.

A few years back, I decided on giving myself the foundation that I never had, as in the basic notion that I am good, that I had the right to be happy, that I am worthy of love — from myself foremostly, but others, as well. This was the turning point when I realized that I needed to actually like myself, which sounded like an impossibility. How could I like such an awful, disgusting thing as myself? I obsessed over my flaws, declaring my miseries.

That’s part of how my self-care journey started: Slowly realizing I had no other option but to like myself, and that in order to be truly loving towards me, I needed to begin taking the steps to get there.

Listening to Those Who Love Me

In 2017, I realized I was very sensitive. On a night with my friend Alok, over a blend of teas in Chinatown, on a conversation tangent, we discussed my tendencies of being hurt by others, by the betrayals I’ve felt and received, and how they’ve impacted my soul. They, very astutely, explained to me that due to my feelings of insecurity and sensitivities, I had kept myself small, almost systematically, as if not to offend others. It was one of the truest things I had heard of myself, and the next day my body curved to the moon, getting so sick that I felt like I was puking out the fears that I had locked into my deep interior and not allowed myself to describe, even to myself. Wow, I had kept myself small out of fear I would offend others. It was a particular strain of imposter syndrome, one where I hadn’t even dared to believe in the possibility of my success because it terrified me so.

A recent tweet from my friend Ashley Ford reads, “If you’re holding yourself back because you think being successful might make some people hate you, please know that anyone who wants to hate you will find a reason one way or another.” My goal, resolutely, has become very simple: to refuse to make myself small. This is how I intend to show radical compassion towards myself in 2018. Instead of painstakingly critiquing my numerous faults — be them real or imagined — I’ve decided that I no longer want to hold myself hostage, waiting for a better time, or permission, to shine.

When I talked to Arabelle Sicardi, my dear friend and confidante, they told me this: "I am just trying to remember that I am duty bound to heal — not to anyone else, but to myself. I am trying to do my best to build goodness for myself and for the people I love, so we can feel resilience and not just resistance, I don’t want to feel like I’m constantly repairing myself from emergencies or horror. So, I’m tuning in to myself and learning long-term habits of visualization, boundary building, and behavioral therapy solutions."

In the past year, “trauma” and “triggering” were words that felt powerful to articulate. But what do you do after you announce such things? How do you move past the bolt of a trigger, from the examination of trauma? It’s so important to say — this hurts me, or this is what happened to me, but how do you heal from such things? Right now, I’m focused on that. I’m focused on how I can sublimate my grief and create a legacy of positivity. I want to be better, for myself, to myself, and begin creating fundamental structural changes that go beyond just survival. Because I’ve already survived, now — I really want to live.

Read more stories about self-love, reflection, and confidence:

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• This Inclusive Gym Is Like Nowhere I've Ever Worked Out Before

• 5 Women Pose for Striking Portraits of Their Pubic Hair

Now, watch Tyra Banks do goat yoga:

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