Immigrant Guilt and Self Care

The following was inspired by a conversation with a young woman that is resistant to self care or at the very least fails to see the importance of it. She battles with inner voices that call her weak as she compares the ease of her current life with the struggles of her immigrant parents. But the care of self involves more than pleasure and self indulgence. So, to all those that struggle with this inner voice that criticizes self care, this is for you.

She speaks of her immigrant parents and the story of how they toiled sacrificially, juggling the complexity of multiple jobs without complaint. Her body sags with tiredness but she fears being seen as weak holding the mirror of past comparisons in front of her. 

The children of immigrants don’t need self care , she convinces herself. 

When this is the case, self care is not understood for what it is. 

It is the voice of preservation for the sake of longevity and eventual reciprocity. 

Preservation

All across nature each living being exudes the will to live. Attempt to take a life from something or someone and they will fight like never before. In the scope of self care the need for preservation doesn’t have to be on the same level of desperation. Yet, we rarely see it as a form of preserving our mind, bodies and everything that creates us as individuals. The need to preserve ourselves is an instinctual reaction and normally seen in the scope of danger. But there is a slower disintegration that takes place when we fail to practice the very things that help us care for ourselves. 

Longevity

The meaning is not only a long life but one filled with the weight of goodness, integrity and the building of a legacy that has passed on generosity and kindness. To understand the pursuit of self care is to plant the seeds of longevity. To produce acts that stretch out slowly over the length of your life. To acknowledge your old age before knowing if you will ever reach it and to sow into your life the quality of caring for mind and body. Curated habits that pave a long road ahead of you , even if that road is not guaranteed. Self care is wisdom. 

Reciprocity

The extended gift of self care. A product of a tested version of yourself to pour into the lives of others. To give from a place of sweetness and fondness for your life; and from a place that says I am full and I am ready. To give from a place of a rested and restored body instead of a shriveled one. To give from emptiness leads to resentment, that is not a true gift. 

Our immigrant parents did not have the opportunity to stop, breathe and refresh themselves with the habits of self care. However, I can promise you that they longed for it. I can also promise that they fought and worked so their children today could come up for air, breathe and care for themselves in ways they could never have imagined. For a higher quality of life and there is no shame in this as long as it is carried with the memory of gratitude towards their sacrifice.