For Black women, 2023 will be the year of radical self care

• The radical self-care movement is popular on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for its rejection of traditional self-care.
• According to proponents of radical self-care, traditional self-care is driven by consumerism and individualism.

In a TikTok video posted in September, Asiyah Muhsin, a women's wellness coach and consultant for Black women, labels rest as a form of radical self care. "Indulging in rest is absolutely necessary for you to achieve and maintain your health and wellness goals," she adds. Her video is one of hundreds explaining a "radical" form of self care that embraces the idea of taking up the space needed to be full people.

"Radical self care, in this concept, is a rejection of hustle culture. It's rejecting this idea that, as human beings, our worth is intrinsically tied to our work, and instead that we are worthy, independent of our participation in capitalism on its own," said Jasmine Hill, an assistant professor of public policy and sociology at UCLA.

The traditional self care movement, which skyrocketed in the early 2010s, Hill says, was fueled by the wellness industry's initiative to coerce people into buying wellness products like massage subscriptions and bath salts, essentially contributing to more capitalist production.

"While those things can be very relaxing, they're inaccessible to a lot of people from different working class backgrounds. Also, one cannot find actual rest in a bubble bath, per se," she said, adding that, "We are people, we are not personal brands, so we have needs that relate to community, food, water, and rest."

Healing a different kind of trauma

What exactly does radical self care look like? Rest is the greatest component, but it could also mean taking breaks, setting boundaries around one's time, protesting and organizing against systems that deplete you, opting out of labor, and ultimately recognizing the injustice of situations and pushing against that, individually or collectively. "Radical self-care looks like actions that you don't have to pay for, or are accessible only to the elite, but really push back against notions that, as people, we are infatigable," Hill said.

To an outsider, these notions might sound simple, or standard. But for Black women in America, who have historically been expected to work, serve others, and support the family unit and community, things like rest, quitting a job, or cutting ties with a loved one that is creating toxicity in your life is a radical act.

"Black women, specifically, because of our place in the racial and gender hierarchy, are called upon to be constant laborers for our families, for our workplaces, for society," said Hill. "So radical self-care for Black women is rejecting this belief that we are meant to be super women who do not need to rest and instead actively claiming pleasure, rest, joy, silliness, and all these things that are not typically associated with how Black women are supposed to be."

Many factors point to the various stressors Black people, and Black women specifically, face on a daily basis. From being the demographic that is highly underpaid, neglected in medical settings, overlooked in business opportunities,, to dealing with daily microaggressions in the workplace and online, simply existing can create daily traumas for Black women. And because racism cannot be outbought or pampered away, resistance, through an active choice to care for oneself and one's community, becomes a form of self care that actually enriches the livelihood of Black women.

Historic roots

"Radical self-care to me means returning to yourself, it means prioritizing your wellness above everyone else's. Because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others," said Oludara Adeeyo, psychotherapist and author of "Self-Care for Black Women: 150 Ways to Radically Accept & Prioritize Your Mind, Body, & Soul." Her book, which is designed specifically to help Black women revitalize their outlook on life, improve their mental health, eliminate stress, and self-advocate, mimics that of the life she chooses for herself.

"Radical self-care differentiates from what people may know as self-care because it's a little bit deeper. It really connects you to yourself and it's more than just treating yourself and rewarding yourself. It's really about learning about yourself and being able to find your voice in this chaos of the world."

Although the radical self-care movement has become a trending topic across social media platforms in recent years, its origins are as early as the 1980s. In Audre Lorde's 1988 essay collection, "A Burst of Light," she writes, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Her version of self care, which highly differs from the isolated and individualistic version of self care today, coincides with community care.

As writer Kathleen Newman-Bremang said in a piece titled "Reclaiming Audre Lorde's Radical Self-Care," "Community care is about using our power and bandwidth to support and provide for our communities when the systems we exist in don't. We need to ask ourselves what we can do politically, socially and in our relationships to offset the harm our governments and institutions are already doing to our communities."

The re-emergence of the movement can be credited to many factors, but Adeeyo believes it to be a combination of the pandemic, recent tragedies in the Black community like the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and shared information through social media platforms. While many people may have moved on from the BLM movement online, Adeeyo said, Black people had to look at themselves and figure out ways to continue that level of resistance, radical self-care being one of them. That also requires slowing down without feeling guilty for not being constantly productive.

As Hill said: "It's not about getting over burnout so that we can come back to the workplace and do the same thing all over again. It's about imagining what might things look like if we saw a collective problem and addressed it, in our communities, through organizing together to really transform systems."