Self-care became a “thing” during the COVID pandemic. It isn’t that nobody thought about it or did anything about before then. People have been working on developing “healthy habits” for decades. As mental health came to the forefront in a more infsistent way during the crisis, self-help strategies have been talked about with frequency and openness. A lot of it is very surface, whether talking about physical self-care or emotional self-care. “Take Vitamin D. Zinc is essential. Go to yoga class. Give up sugar. Become a vegetarian. Give up red meat.” And as you wade through the deluge of advice about physical healthy living – please don’t forget to use sunscreen – you find what feels right works for you and what doesn’t. All good.

On the emotional/mental/spiritual front, there is also a lot of advice out there about what constitutes self-care on those levels. It is usually delivered in short nostrums intended to fix the self-care problem quickly, without a lot of fuss. Now, in fairness, as far as a lot of this advice goes, most of it is fine – as far as it goes. As example, “Rewarding yourself for even small achievements is self-care.” Absolutely. Learning to honor ourselves and our achievements and accomplishments is an important life/spiritual lesson. Why? Because we are recognizing what we accomplished though our diligence or discipline or perseverance. And we are acknowledging that we did it. The reward should be proportional to the success. You clean house all day and take yourself out to dinner. OK. You clean house all day and then go binge buying online, not so much.

Another self-care idea I came across is, “Playing dumb to protect your energy is self-care.” Um, no. Playing dumb is many things, but it is not self-care. I understand that acting like you don’t know anything about anything seems a way to keep yourself from getting drawn in to gossip or drama and, in fact, there is truth to that. However, there are times in life when it is important to stand up and be counted and put your two cents in. First of all, when you refuse to speak the truth in a situation where someone could be negatively impacted if you don’t say something, the price you will pay is your self-esteem because of the lack of your forthright honesty. Secondly, it’ll piss you off to no end when someone else regards you as a complete numbnuts. The deeper truth here is that you are not so fragile that you must constantly protect your energy. Becoming spiritually tougher will serve you well as you are not a delicate flower and learning to stand in your own truth will help you develop self-confidence.

We could go on, and we will in future columns, about some of the ideas about self-care out there. But I want to take that idea to a deeper level. An important aspect of self-care is about knowing and learning to manage your default reaction setting. We all set a pattern fairly early in life in how we react to the unexpected, both good and bad unexpected. These patterns become default settings. The self-care aspect here is learning which of these settings is yours in order to manage and, hopefully, heal it as these are not things you would want to give into. Most of us fall into one of these seven categories: anger, hurt, fear, loneliness, despair, hopelessness, or shame.

Keep in mind that feeling each of these can lead to one of the others. For example, your default reaction is fear but when you get fearful, you also get angry in response to the fear, or you get aggressive as a way to quickly dispel the fear. Or when you feel lonely you can fall into despair about being lonely. You get the idea. But let’s start with what is your first reaction, your knee-jerk reaction, if you will.

Mine was always fear. Something unexpected happened, didn’t even have to be necessarily very negative, and I would go into fear. What would happen as a result of this occurrence? Had I done something wrong? Was this a sign that my life was about to fall apart? What did this portend for me? Now, I had to learn to put things in context. If Kroger was out of broccoli cole slaw for a couple of weeks, did that mean that I was being deprived and would need to alter my diet? Probably not. If someone misunderstood something I said, did I need to be fearful of being either judged or completely misunderstood and in that, somehow being subject to punishment? You see how silly and extreme It can get.

If your default is fear, how likely is it that what you fear will happen? How significant is this fear? Should this fear be realized, is it something that can easily be corrected or is it something that puts your well-being at risk? How rational is the fear or is your ego having a field day with you as it knows where to push your buttons? If, for example, you make a mistake at work, will you really be fired for it or is it OK to admit the mistake and correct it? If you are inconsiderate with your significant other but didn’t really mean to be, you just had other things on your mind, will they really leave you for someone more understanding – remember love’s greatest fear is loss - or can you apologize and ask them for the chance to make it right now that you are no longer distracted?

How big is the fear really? How likely is it to occur? Is the potential outcome really that devastating? In what context is this happening? How significant is it and how much does it matter? Start with these kinds of questions if your default setting is fear. And there is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the world right now and it can be very easy, when we automatically go into fear, to use that fear as proof positive that everything is going to hell in a handbasket and no good will come of anything, so the fear builds and compounds, instead of being addressed. Finally, in looking at some of your worst-case scenarios, design a Plan B. If whatever I fear does happen, what is my plan? What will I do about it?

Others get angry when the unexpected occurs. For some, getting angry helps them to feel powerful enough to cope. We all know people, often men, who walk around with an underlying anger that is just under the surface. A good friend, who has been an air traffic controller, had worked for years in his spiritual development, to release his habit of being the “last angry man.” At heart he was a kind and loving and generous human, but his default was anger. Most people don’t know how to process and release anger in a constructive way, so they stuff it in their shirt pocket and walk around with it. When he had a stroke, which he survived pretty much intact, he was furious with his body and with God because as a spiritual person, that wasn’t supposed to happen to him. He felt shocked and betrayed and angry as hell. Rather than deal with his anger and living out a nice long life, he turned that anger on himself and did not follow his doctor’s advice and was dead in two years.

Others react aggressively in the face of anger. You just pissed me off or weren’t listening or whatever and I immediately go into anger rather than trying to figure out what just happened and why. And in my aggression spurred on by my anger, I can ruin relationships or jobs, by doing and saying something destructive or hurtful. Anger can be a very healthy emotion, but part of self-care is learning how to deal with it – recognize it, process it, and release it appropriately. And not everything that makes you angry rises to the level of importance that it is worth going to Defcon 3. If I forget to stop and by milk on the way home, is it worth a huge angry blowup? Just knowing you are headed into anger can help you walk yourself back from the immediate reaction edge, calm down, and make an informed decision as to how you would like to respond.

Hurt hurts. Right? When someone or something hurts us, it can tear at our self-esteem as well. And hurt takes time to heal. More than any other emotion, you have to give hurt time to heal. And you have to do the healing work. No one can do it for you. With that in mind, not everything that surprises us or that we don’t like or is unexpected is really hurtful. Yet for some of us, we have become habituated in our thinking and in our expectations that we are going to get hurt. Once those paths of least resistance get laid out in our brain structure, that is where we go. So the first question one would ask oneself is, “Is this really hurtful?” Or is it disappointing or challenging or unwelcome or whatever? If you still feel it is, then you want to look at why. Why is this hurtful? Or are you flirting with feeling like a victim? Meaning, whatever is happening, is it being done to you deliberately with the intent of causing emotional harm or are you feeling like a victim and powerless?

This is not the column to delve into the process of healing hurt but to make you aware, if it is your default setting, make you conscious of this pattern and begin breaking it up and lightening your load. The world is not out to hurt you. Life will still have its challenges. But you can heal and make your life easier. One more thing. If this is your default reaction, then either prepare yourself to take in stride answers you may not like to questions like – “Do these jeans make me look fat? “Did you like the peanut butter and sardine pannini?” – or don’t ask questions you may not want the honest answer to until you are ready for an honest answer. Just sayin’.

Loneliness. A big subject and one I will deal with, in more depth, in a future blog and podcast. That feeling of, “Here I am again, out here on a limb or floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, all alone. No one to help me. No one to care about me. No one to help lift the burden once again.” You want to be careful here not to let this slide into self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself. Yet that howl of loneliness, out in the cold and dark, alone, can be crazy making.

Anger, hurt, fear and loneliness, if left unexpressed, can become destructive. As with the first four, loneliness and can dealt with and healed. That doesn’t mean you will never ever feel those emotions again. There will always be things that, potentially, make you angry or that hurt you or something that makes you afraid. But you are not consigned to a life of loneliness. There are a lot of layers to loneliness. Where to start is to begin to source where that loneliness came from. Many of us were motivated, as kids in school, to learn and keep up, or we would be left behind, alone, while everybody else moved on in life. Adolescence, a time when we are beginning to discover who we are separate from our families. Our bodies are rushing us into adulthood, and we want to find out where we belong and fit in. We want to be cool and accepted. But, if we’re not, we will be alone – so goes the emotional blackmail. For example, if you don’t know the entire Marvel Universe movies series, in order and know all the plot lines, you are toast. Right?

Where did the threat of being left all alone begin for you? What happened? Even those of us in development can be threatened. I worked for a while with the Ramtha material when I first started my spiritual path. Then one day Ramtha said in a seminar, that all gay men would be thrown out into the void. Anyone who is a supposed spiritual leader who peddles fear in order to make you conform is no spiritual leader. Period. But that fear of loneliness – you are gay and you are doomed in the eyes of God – is a very familiar threat to many of us.

A way to begin to break that cycle? First, let yourself feel it. Maybe I am feeling lonely at the moment for no particular reason. Perhaps an event occurred that left me feeling humiliated and alone. You can learn, as with any emotion, to sit with it for a few minutes – without telling yourself any stories about why you feel it or justifying to yourself why you feel it – and then release it. It is a feeling, not a life sentence. Then look at – did an expectation suddenly change? A trip you were planning suddenly got cancelled for whatever reason. Your date for a party bails on you last second. The future you envisioned for yourself or the job you wanted suddenly changes or is gone. Your significant other relationship suddenly goes sour. Sudden changes in expectation can leave you feeling lonely. It isn’t just what you were expecting changed. It is the suddenness of that shift in your expectation that produces the feeling of loneliness. “I’ve been suddenly, abruptly, abandoned and am left to deal with this all on my own.”

The crazy thing is that even when something wonderful happens – you get that job or relationship or car you have been wanting – you can still feel lonely at first, singled out, set apart because of the sudden shift in what you were expecting. And, no, the answer is not to go through life expecting nothing. That is harmful, limiting, and impossible. And if your knee-jerk or default reaction is loneliness, remember this. You can depend upon yourself, even if that negative ego voice in your head says you can’t. You do deserve. You are worth loving. And, yes, ultimately, you can cope with what life throws at you on a daily basis. Start here with all the times you have been able to depend on yourself and go from there. Also, please reference our blog post and podcast on Authenticity. The more you are authentic, that sense of being in touch with your authentic self can help you build the confidence you need here.

Despair. Despair is the worst form of loneliness. That hopelessness. That feeling of helplessness. “Nothing ever works out for me. What’s the point? It/life/relationships are just hopeless.” Then start doing things for other people. It can be as simple as asking someone how their day was and then being present and actively listening to their response. Or invite someone for a cup of coffee or offer to help someone complete chore they don’t really want to do. Get involved. I did volunteer work for many years. It will help begin to move you back into a more balanced place. But whatever you choose to do, do it from a place of honestly wanting to do it.

As with loneliness, what expectation suddenly shifted? Feel the despair and then begin to do something for someone else. There are people in your life who you do honestly and genuinely care about and love. Love and caring – not self-sacrifice – are tremendously powerful gifts that you have at your disposal. Despair has nothing to do with whether or not you are worth loving. Be careful to not let yourself slip into feeling sorry for yourself. And look at what expectation suddenly shifted and work on releasing it.

Hopelessness. Hope is tremendously powerful. It is not the emotion of last resort nor is it an emotion of desperation – “Well, when all else fails, at least there is hope.” No. Hope is a gift from the Divine. That said it can wax and wane. Some days you have more and some less, but it is always available to you. That said, if hopelessness is your default reaction, take a moment examine if what is happening is really an issue of hope. As example, something you are trying to learn just isn’t making sense to you. Is it that it is really hopeless for you to learn it or are you trying to make yourself understand and use something that has no interest for you at all?

Another place to examine hope is in your anticipations and expectations. Anticipation is what you expect will happen before it actually happens. The job you want, the relationship you are working toward, even relatively simple things like the movie you are going to see or the dinner out that you are looking forward to, you have anticipations attached to those about what you think they will be like. You anticipate/hope the relationship or dinner or movie or job, etc., will be like this or that. Then the event of whatever nature happens. What did you expect would come of it? Regarding the movie you are highly anticipating, you also expect will lead to a fun evening as a whole. But what happens, where do you go when the movie turns out to be a dud? The job you anticipated getting and finally have, you expected would bring you a greater sense of accomplishment or achievement. What happens when it doesn’t? You get the idea but when life throws you curve balls like a lousy dinner out, maybe you put too much weight on what you anticipated and expected the dinner to do for you and your life. Look at your anticipations and expectations.

Secondly, when something does not turn out the way you expected or happen in the way you anticipated, look around your life at the people, activities and things that inspire you and that you love. That which helps you get in touch with where your passions in life truly are. A lousy dinner or a meh date may suck but it won’t damage your passion for meeting new people or having fun. You get my point.

Thirdly, where can and do you trust yourself? We posted a blog and podcast about trust that you have access to. Where do you trust your own instincts, your own wisdom, your own abilities, and your own processes? If your ego jumps in here and tells you that you can’t trust a thing about yourself, that is usually a good indicator you are headed in the right direction because if you can get back in touch with where and how and why you can trust yourself, your negative ego loses its ability to tell you life is hopeless and that you stink.

Hope is an enormous subject that we can’t possibly cover here but those are few good places to start.

Shame. Shame is when you feel flawed and defective, that there is something wrong with you. Counseling is often required to help you lift it. It gets started in our lives when we are asked to be responsible for things we can’t be responsible for. A silly example. When I was young, I had a piano teacher who gave me a piece of music that was way too hard for me. Instead of helping me learn where my obstacles were in developing the ability to play the piece, he made me feel less than, accused me of not trying, and offered no help. But it was his decision where we started my lessons, rather than building a relationship between us and allowing me to work my way up to increasingly more difficult pieces. I felt defective, that I could and never would learn to play difficult pieces, and that was the end of my musical instruction in this life.

Another example. You have a business whose product line is either every limited or is of mediocre quality or is overpriced. Business is down. You hold your staff responsible for the lack of sales, but the issue is with your product line. How can they be responsible, but you nevertheless hold them responsible? That shames them. When you are asked to be responsible for something – “If you loved me, you’d know what I need.” – that you can’t possibly be responsible for, that produces shame. So, if shame is your default setting, start with the question – “Am I being asked to be responsible for something I can’t possibly be responsible for?” If you can’t be responsible for the issue being presented, then refuse to take on that mantle of something that could not have been your responsibility. Refuse to wrap yourself up in something you had no control over. If it is something you were or could be responsible for, then take your power back by taking action to correct or ameliorate the situation.

Shame is a very tough emotion to handle all on your own. But if and when it rears its ugly head in your life, you need not be at sufferance of it. And, if it is your default, are you, in fact, being asked to take responsibility for something that is beyond what you could have been responsible for?

A long column and podcast about a very big subject. Knowing your knee-jerk reaction and being able to work with it – yes, you are able to work with it – can be an immensely important step toward authenticity and is a critical part of self-care. To be authentic you need to know who you are and to tell yourself the truth about all of who you are. As you can begin to work with and mitigate the damage that inappropriate but habitual reactions can cause, you set yourself on a path of being more powerful, more authentic, having more self-esteem, and discovering more of your self-value. Please let us know if we can be of help in any way.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc