Self-care for Women Without Money
Recently, I was thinking about how inclusive Pink Boxes Club could be. Every business owner looks for profit and ROI in every step and decision. Honestly, one of the goals with Text Pals was inclusion. I created it thinking about how could I give every woman, regardless of circumstances, access to something that helps them achieve their goals. But I didn’t (and still haven’t) bothered to ask women without money what they actually want. On the other hand, I think respecting others begins with “thinking well” about them. With these thoughts in mind, I thought about the connection between goal-setting and self-care. I thought about women who are struggling to make it and how they do either or both.
I’ve often preached the virtues of establishing self-care rituals that one has regular and easy access to; however, all of that was done through the lens of having the choice to spend. But seriously, what do you do when you cannot even day dream without seeing a price tag? Recognizing this gap took me back to my original question: what do you do if you can’t spend money?
Sidebar: I didn’t want to spend energy feeling sorry for the woman who can’t spend —- she may not even be poor, but has so many obligations that her disposable income is little-to-nothing. On the other hand, I didn’t want to spend energy feeling sorry for her because it isn’t helpful. Moreover, it is about the person extending it either feeling powerless or knowing they will do nothing to intervene and asking the person who is struggling to help you with your feelings of powerlessness.
Eventually, I landed on three things that I would offer to a woman without resources: rest, choice, and freedom from having to explain herself and her choices – worthiness.
Although the book Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey didn’t land with me (I thought it was redundant and the narration was missing something), I do think a woman’s ability to simply be, to do nothing, and not anticipate anybody’s needs is a gift. The weight associated with constantly anticipating somebody’s needs alongside the knowledge of what you MUST do creates a type of persistent stress. Thus, to have the opportunity to truly rest, coupled with the ability to choose what to do during rest is a restorative combination. To exist as someone who is perpetually subject to others or merely for the needs of others results in a type of death – powerlessness. I’d give her access to rest. She needs it.
In addition to rest, I would give the poor woman more control over her time. If she doesn’t have time to rest, what DOES she have time to do? I would venture to guess that she is involved with institutions and people who value her labor more than her heart. Therefore, even in places that she chooses to enter into, she finds work and the expectation that she will sacrifice her precious free time. Sometimes, she trades that free time for the embrace and accolades of those institutions and people because she’s in one of the few spaces where she isn’t invisible. She just doesn’t see that she’s still invisible – it’s her time spent laboring that is. In turn, I’d give her time to focus on finding at least one thing within her reach that matters to her and her alone.
Finally, I’d give her a path, tool, mechanism, or something to help her embrace a sense of worthiness so resolute that she no longer feels the need to explain herself. She would no longer need to explain why she chose to rest, why she said no to work she didn’t want in exchange for more platitudes, and she would stand firm without quietly wondering if she was going to be disliked, talked about or misunderstood. I would give her a witness to her realization that she can simply be without guilt, resentment, and exhaustion.
Whether you’re a woman of means or not, which would help you: rest, time or worthiness to resolute that you no longer need to explain yourself?
