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I’ve noticed something in the last few literary salons I’ve facilitated: a link exists between self care and pride. Both words make people uncomfortable but in total different ways.

As a culture we have work to do in these areas. We’ve sped up the pace of our daily lives, causing the concept of self care to fall to the bottom of our to-do list. And we’ve also begun to define pride as selfish, egotistical, shameful.

Why do these two words (okay, three words but let’s lump “self care” together into one) make us squirm? I’ve heard women and men deflect away from questions centred on these ideas. In the two salons I ran yesterday in a high school, male and female students in grade nine and eleven shied away from anything involving pride and self care.

I find this fascinating. Like the brilliant Brene Brown’s research linking shame and vulnerability (not that I’m in the same league as my hero…see, there I go, qualifying what I’m about to say so it doesn’t sound too boastful), I am beginning to see that self care and pride are somehow connected.

I don’t understand it yet, but my Nurture is Valuable project ties in here (I’ve now interviewed 9 women on my way to my goal of 100 – please get in touch if you are willing to answer 5 short questions via email) and I want to pursue this further. We seem to feel afraid of our own strength. It’s uncomfortable to stand up and say, “I’m good at such-and-such. I’ve worked hard. I made/wrote/raised/cooked/organized/cold-called/created/cared for/succeeded at this.”

Why is it so challenging to own our abilities, work ethic and outcomes? When I wrote the question, “What is one thing you did last year that you are proud of?” I assumed it would be hard for women to answer but easy for men. WRONG. So far its stumped almost anyone who has drawn it randomly from a bag of questions, including straight A students and those with solid careers.

And self care baffles people across the age and gender spectrum too. I’ve had to define it over and over, and it still falls flat and lifeless among the different groups engaging in conversation. It seems to be arrogant to talk about our successes publicly and embarrassing to explore the topic of looking after yourself. How long has this been the case in our North American culture? Has it been brewing for years or for decades?

I’m going to dig deeper into this subject. Does anyone have thoughts that they would be willing to share with me? My work is taking me in this direction. Personally, I am longing for radical self care, anchored by strength and pride in who I am and what I can do in this world.

My heart aches for meaningful connection and intentional conversation with other like-minded people, which is the birthplace of the literary salon. I have identified my own need to learn to love myself, exactly as I am, so I can in turn offer this gift to others, for we can only give from our own overflow and not from our deficit. I have much to discover on this topic of self care and pride. Who wants to be part of this with me?

In my ongoing literary agent research, I came across a recommendation for a motherhood memoir called The Gift of an Ordinary Day, by Katrina Kenison. I just finished it, savouring the last fifty pages like a gourmet meal I didn’t ever want to end, and I feel profoundly stirred by Kenison’s heartrending observations on letting go of our beloved children.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day details her family’s journey to build a house as their two sons are reaching adolescence and growing away from their parents. It’s a familiar story of loss and change; a road I have yet to travel with my own children but can already sense, heavy in my bone marrow, for one day this metamorphosis from dependent to independent happens to all of us.

And what better time to face up to this fact than right now, the beginning of September, with the challenges and demands of a new school year upon us? We cannot freeze-frame the lives of our children, any more than we can halt the steady march of time for ourselves. The entire process of life itself is moving on: changing, dying, transforming. Nothing is static. Accepting this is better than fighting it.

But sometimes it hurts. We feel a deep ache, in the centre of our being, at just how fast our children are growing. We empty out drawers of pants that are too short and socks that no longer fit. We place pencil marks on closet doors until they are taller than we are. We love them at every stage, but we cannot hold them there. We must learn to let them go. It’s the hardest work there is as the mothers who fed them, rocked them, guided and nurtured them, until they have learned to do all of these things for themselves.

Tomorrow Ava begins grade 7 and William starts grade 4. We celebrate these milestones together, but privately I also mourn the ages that are now behind us, stored only in our memories. Parenting is one long lesson in letting go. It’s about transition, adaptation, surrender. Being a mother means loving with our whole heart, a process that opens us up to feel terrible pain and loss.

When we do our job well, raising kids who contribute positively to society and know how to look after themselves, by definition this means they will one day leave us to make their own way in the world. Each step they take in these school years is a step further from our warm, encompassing care. This is what we signed up for by having kids, but it’s important to acknowledge our own feelings around this process.

I’m so grateful to Katrina Kenison for holding up a light for me as I navigate the path of my daughter’s newfound adolescence. I do not want to overlook the beauty, healing and transformation available in each and every ordinary day to come.

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Self Care and Pride

The Gift of an Ordinary Day