A Brief Theology of Self-Care

Self-care is a popular topic these days - and for good reason.  In some times and places it has been too neglected, and our current secular culture does well to bring its importance to our attention.  I want to lay out a brief theology of self-care and then make a few practical points.

Our Lives Are Not Our Own

The first thing we should note is that, in the Christian worldview, everything belongs to God.  God is the Supreme Being whose viewpoint constitutes the objective view of reality, for God is the universal consciousness.  Our consciousness and viewpoint, on the other hand, constitute an infinitesimal sliver of his.  To see things correctly, therefore, we must see them from God's point of view.  God's viewpoint constitutes what is real, what is good, what is bad, what is valuable, etc.  It is his will, therefore, which ultimately matters.  All things exist for God's purposes.  We are all part of his story.  We all belong to him and exist for him.

It is therefore our moral duty to "love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength."  We are to love God supremely and give ourselves to him fully.  We are to keep nothing back.  The idea that we can divide our life up, give some of it to God, and keep some of it for ourselves, is a notion alien to the Christian worldview.

Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24, New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [NRSVCE], verse numbers and footnotes removed and formatting slightly edited, here and in subsequent quotes further down).

If "self-care" is conceived of as a kind of absolute principle, an inalienable right we have to preserve and feed our lives conceived of as our own apart from anyone else, including God, then this concept has no place in the Christian worldview.  God often allows us much joy and pleasure in our lives.  But he also asks us to make sacrifices.  In principle, God can ask any of us to sacrifice anything, for all we have is his.  All of us are asked to make great sacrifices in this life in order to follow him, and some are asked to make especially dramatic sacrifices (like the martyrs, who have to lay down their very lives, or those who are called to be faithful through extraordinarily difficult circumstances that can sometimes even be so severe as to break their mind and body).  We have no right to refuse to make such sacrifices when following Christ calls us to them, for, if we view things properly, we will recognize that God is our life,  With him, we have everything.  Without him, we have nothing.  He is our all.  If we enjoy anything else, we enjoy it as a trickle of joy coming down from his infinite fountain.  "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

The Place of Self-Care

Well, you might say, if our lives belong to God and we can keep no part of them for ourselves, it would seem that self-care can have no place.  But this is not true, because God, who owns our lives, gives them back to us - fully in eternity, but significantly in this life as well.

As we see things from God's point of view, we should love what he loves.  God loves himself as the Supreme Good, but he also loves his creatures.

For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living (Wisdom 11:24-26).

All God's creations exist by participating in his Being, and so they bear, to a limited degree, the beauty and value of the divine life.  Since God loves his creatures, they have objective value, and we should love them too.  The two greatest commandments on which the whole moral law hangs are supreme love to God and love of our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40).

Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1822).

But love of one's neighbor as oneself includes within it love of oneself.  God values and loves me, so I should value and love myself as well.  I have objective value and am worthy of love.  Just as I seek the welfare of others, so I should seek my own welfare also.  There is a sense in which I must put others ahead of myself (Philippians 2:3-4).  That is, I must be willing to sacrifice all my desires for God and his will, which includes sacrificing for the good of my neighbor.  As we've seen, we must give our all to God and keep nothing back for ourselves as if it belonged to us intrinsically apart from God.  Love of my neighbor for their objective value infinitely outweighs my will conceived of as my own apart from God.  And yet, objectively speaking, others are not more important than me, for we are all loved and valued equally by God in terms of our creaturely and human identity (Romans 12:3-5).  If we all had to really believe our neighbors were objectively more important than ourselves, it would lead to an absurd paradox.  If I believe my neighbor is more important than me, and he believes I am more important than him, who is right?  These would be contradictory claims that cannot both be true.  Our willingness to sacrifice for our neighbors is a practical way of giving up our lives for love of God and neighbor, not an objective belief that our neighbor is objectively more important than we are.

So we should love ourselves and seek our own welfare.  We should seek our own good and happiness, and protect ourselves from harm.  This means that there is a balance required of us - a balance between service to others and self-care (or service to ourselves, if you will).  We need to be aware of our own needs and desires and devote a reasonable and moderate amount of our energy trying to meet them.  We should not live in such a way as to make ourselves miserable and burn ourselves out.  We should strive to be happy.  God has given us life in his world and he wants us to enjoy it.  He wants us to be happy and have a positive and cheerful attitude.  This doesn't mean that we have to go around happy and cheerful all the time in a superficial sense, or that we can't be sad, angry, depressed, etc.  In fact, Scripture tells us to "weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15).  There are times for anger and sadness.  Depression is normal at times.  But, insofar as we are able (recognizing that we are not always able, and that's OK), we should try to cultivate an overall positive attitude that avoids being saturated with negative emotions.  When we can see the bigger picture, as Christians, we have an infinite amount to be joyful for!  The Good and Blessed God is at the back of all things.  He is in control, and good will win in the end!  So Scripture encourages us to rejoice (Philippians 4:4) and to enjoy the good gifts that God has given to his creatures.

You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart. The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures (Psalm 104:10-24).

"We bring you good news, that you should turn . . . to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy" (Acts 14:15-17).

Wine is very life to human beings if taken in moderation. What is life to one who is without wine? It has been created to make people happy. Wine drunk at the proper time and in moderation is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul (Sirach 31:27-28).

A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones (Proverbs 17:22).

If you think that piety requires us to burn ourselves out in lives of service with no thought for our own rest and joy, or if you doubt that self-care is a biblical category, take a look at these words from Sirach: 

Do not give yourself over to sorrow, and do not distress yourself deliberately. A joyful heart is life itself, and rejoicing lengthens one’s life span. Indulge yourself and take comfort, and remove sorrow far from you, for sorrow has destroyed many, and no advantage ever comes from it. Jealousy and anger shorten life, and anxiety brings on premature old age. Those who are cheerful and merry at table will benefit from their food (Sirach 30:21-25).

No one is worse than one who is grudging to himself; this is the punishment for his meanness. If ever he does good, it is by mistake; and in the end he reveals his meanness. The miser is an evil person; he turns away and disregards people. The eye of the greedy person is not satisfied with his share; greedy injustice withers the soul. A miser begrudges bread, and it is lacking at his table.

My child, treat yourself well, according to your means, and present worthy offerings to the Lord. Remember that death does not tarry, and the decree of Hades has not been shown to you. Do good to friends before you die, and reach out and give to them as much as you can. Do not deprive yourself of a day’s enjoyment; do not let your share of desired good pass by you. Will you not leave the fruit of your labors to another, and what you acquired by toil to be divided by lot? Give, and take, and indulge yourself, because in Hades one cannot look for luxury. All living beings become old like a garment, for the decree from of old is, “You must die!” Like abundant leaves on a spreading tree that sheds some and puts forth others, so are the generations of flesh and blood: one dies and another is born. Every work decays and ceases to exist, and the one who made it will pass away with it (Sirach 14:6-19).

That last passage from Sirach reminds us that our life on earth is fleeting, and the writer encourages us to make the most of it for others and for ourselves while we have it.  If we cannot enjoy even a moderate use of the good things of the world in this life, if all things are taken from us or we must sacrifice them to follow what is right, we know that we will reap eternal rewards with God after this life; but, if we can, we should try to seek enjoyment even in this life, for God has freely given us many good things for our joy.

Balance

So we should seek to moderate our service with appropriate self-care.  But it is also true that reasonable self-care is an important foundation for our lives of service as well.  If you've ever flown in an airplane, you know that the little speech at the beginning that tells you what to do in case of an emergency instructs people to put the mask on themselves before putting it on others.  Why?  Isn't that selfish?  No, it's because it is very difficult to put a mask on somebody when you yourself are passed out!  The same principle applies more broadly.  We cannot serve others well if we do not take care of ourselves.  We need rest.  We need recreation.  We need to take time to relax and soak in the beauty of creation and enjoy the things God has given to us.  We need to have fun.  If we do not provide these things for ourselves adequately, we will find ourselves too weak and miserable to help others as well as we could have otherwise.  One of the things that struck me when I became Catholic and started learning about the lives of various saints is how many times saints have been exhorted by their spiritual directors/mentors to moderate their discipline.  One example that comes to mind is St. Aloysius Gonzaga.  He used to practice great austerities in his early life, including fasting three days a week (!).  Then he entered seminary as a Jesuit.

Like other seminarians, Aloysius was faced with a new kind of penance—that of accepting different ideas about the exact nature of penance. He was obliged to eat more, and to take recreation with the other students. He was forbidden to pray except at stated times.  (Franciscan Media, "Saint of the Day: St. Aloysius Gonzaga," accessed 7/13/24.)

There are many other such examples.  If you're the sort of person who is going to get canonized, chances are you're pretty extraordinarily zealous in some ways!  But not infrequently that zeal has led to a blindspot where an imbalanced piety or service overwhelms adequate self-care.  Those of us who take our duties seriously and are on the scrupulous side often feel guilty and selfish for engaging in even moderate self-care, but this is a distortion of true, healthy piety.

Before we conclude, I should address an imbalance on the other side.  We can go too far in the other direction and idolize self-care or develop such an extreme version of it that we become as unhealthily unbalanced as those who denigrate proper self-care.  For example, it is necessary for our self-care that we learn to set proper boundaries to protect ourselves from those who would try to control our lives or monopolize our time and energy in an imbalanced way.  We have to learn to say no, etc.  But we don't want such boundary-building to turn into a kind of paranoid fear.  There is a tendency for some in our culture today to feel that any significant disagreement with their beliefs or values constitutes an unacceptable threat to their self-care, justifying an extreme reaction where they cut themselves off from all those who don't see the world the same way they do, refuse to listen to others or be challenged by alternative viewpoints, and isolate themselves into "echo chambers," as it were, where they can surround themselves only with people who are "affirming" - that is, who think the same way they do and will never challenge their thoughts or feelings.  Or there are some who feel that any difficulties felt in a relationship constitute a threat to their self-care, and they take extreme actions to respond to this threat - by ending relationships prematurely, etc.  There are, of course, intolerable situations that happen in relationships requiring a distancing or even an ending to the relationship, but some people react too quickly and strongly and end or damage relationships that should rather be worked on and healed.  Living in this world and getting along with other people in community requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice.  We have to be able to deal with difficulties, conflicts, and disagreements.  We don't want to have such an exaggerated concern for self-care that we keep ourselves from developing the emotional and psychological maturity necessary to live a balanced and healthy life in a world full of people with different personalities, viewpoints, etc.

It's a tricky balance, no doubt.  As with many other areas of ethics and practical life, virtue lies in seeking the mean between the extremes.  And that is not easy.  That's why Aristotle famously said that living an ethical life is very difficult.

That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in what sense it is so, and that it is a mean between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency, and that it is such because its character is to aim at what is intermediate in passions and in actions, has been sufficiently stated. Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows; so, too, any one can get angry- that is easy- or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble (Aristotle, Nicomachaen Ethics, Book II, section 9, found here).

Let us pray for grace and wisdom to live the balanced life God calls us to strive after.

Published on the feast of St. Henry II.