Read the full blog post here: https://www.connectiondocs.com/blog/what-therapeutic-self-care-actually-looks-like

A woman I saw not long after her diagnosis told me that her oncologist had encouraged her to focus on self-care. She nodded in the appointment the way most of us nod when we do not want to seem difficult. Then she went home and bought a candle.

A few weeks later she said, with real frustration in her voice, "I lit the candle. I still feel like I am disappearing."

She was not doing self-care wrong. She had simply been handed a word that has been quietly emptied of meaning. Somewhere along the way, self-care stopped describing how a person stays whole and started describing what a person buys. Bath products. Face masks. A weekend away that you spend answering email.

None of that is bad. It is just not therapeutic.

Therapeutic means healing. Restoring. Something that changes the way your body and your life actually function, not something that changes how your evening looks in a photograph. When we talk with people about therapeutic self-care, we are talking about the practices that keep you connected to your own life while you are living through something hard.

Welcome to the F Perfection Podcast with The Connection Docs, Dr. Matthew Lederman and Dr. Alona Pulde.