Assessing your “feel good buckets” will help you feel better
By Ana Reyes, M.Ed.
Even before the pandemic, self-care was often talked about and touted as the answer to being your best self. Post-pandemic, self-care has become an even hotter topic. We are bombarded with images, almost always of women, excelling in their careers, having a fun night out with the girls, packing bento boxes with little notes for each of their children, exercising five times a week and in perfect love. and supportive marriages, with impeccably clean and organized homes. And the answer to how you too can achieve all of this and live a wonderfully happy and fulfilling life: make sure you take care of yourself. Every day, take care of yourself. I’m not here to argue with the idea that self-care is important, I completely agree with that statement. What I take issue with is the idea that a scented candle, or a new organizer (with colorful stickers!), or a juice cleanse will allow you to find the perfect work-life balance and achieve general well-being. Additionally, the bombardment of self-care products and services and the constant barrage of messages about the importance of self-care made me even more stressed. Now (on top of everything else) I have to somehow slip into a lavender-scented bubble bath…and enjoy it. Otherwise, I’m not taking care of myself and I only have myself to blame if my life feels out of balance and out of control. How could it be otherwise? I don’t take care of myself enough!
The idea of self-care and the products and services marketed to women have made me feel like self-care is one more thing to add to my rapidly growing to-do list. And if you have to put self-care on a to-do list, does that really count as self-care? I’m here to offer a different take on self-care.
The bombardment of self-care products and services and the constant barrage of messages about the importance of self-care only stresses me out more.
I read an article by Marcus Buckingham, researcher and New York Times best-selling author, in November 2022, and it changed the way I think about self-care and work/life balance. He wrote: “Have you ever been faced with the question: how to find work-life balance? ” (You have me, Mr. Buckingham.) He continues: “What we all need to understand once and for all is that this is the wrong question. Not only is balance nearly impossible to achieve, but even if you managed, one day next week, to find the perfect work-life balance, well, you’d be stuck, silently hoping that nothing and no one would move and thus upset. your perfect work/life balance… Balance stagnates… Health is movement. So the question each of us should strive to answer is not: How do I find a work-life balance? But rather: how can I evolve in each area of my life, my work, my parenting, my friendships, my hobbies, my community and draw the nourishment I need to continue moving forward. » Boom. I felt like I had been slapped in the face and finally realized that all this time I was striving for something unattainable. Of course, deep down I knew it was unattainable, but the blitz of images and products I saw every day continued to make me think otherwise.
I began to dig deeper into health and wellness, both for myself and for my role at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. What I’ve learned is that overall wellness isn’t just one thing. It’s not just about emotions or the ability to run a marathon. General well-being is made up of many different categories. The categories identified range from five to ten different “buckets”. I chose to use the eight recognized by the National Institutes of Health: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, professional, financial and environmental. The idea is that to be in a state of “overall positive well-being,” you need to be good in each of these areas. Each of these wellness spaces is a bucket, and each of these buckets must be filled.
If we combine this idea with Buckingham’s thoughts on considering different areas of life, a clear path to well-being can be seen. What we need to do is take stock of each of the areas of wellness that play a role in our overall well-being and address the specific areas where our buckets are empty. Doing this also redefines what self-care is and should be.
I felt like I had been slapped in the face and finally realized that all this time I was striving for something unattainable.
When I take stock of my buckets, I notice that most feel pretty full. But maybe my Professional and Financial buckets are empty or, at the very least, lower level than the other six buckets. By thinking specifically about the areas in which I am having difficulty, I can explicitly address those areas. Taking a bubble bath isn’t going to help fill my work bucket. Doing yoga isn’t going to raise the water level in my financial bucket. So even if I take care of myself, I won’t really feel better about my overall well-being because I haven’t clearly addressed what’s making me feel “bad.” However, if I revamp my resume and look for a job that more aligns with my values, or make an appointment with a financial advisor, two things most people wouldn’t say fall under “self-care,” I will feel actually better. My overall well-being will improve because I have taken concrete action to address the areas of my well-being that I am lacking.
My suggestion to everyone is to set aside time, at least monthly, if not weekly, to take stock of your wellness buckets. Which ones are full? Which ones need to be taken care of? And then create a plan that will help fill those bottom buckets. You may feel that your spiritual bucket needs attention and so you choose to meditate or do mindfulness – great! It could also be that your intellectual bucket needs filling, so you sign up for an online course – also, great! Expanding our idea of what self-care is means that anything we do to directly address the needs in our lives becomes self-care. And when you do that, self-care gets taken off your to-do list and is simply operationalized into your life.
Now I already know what you’re thinking. “And if all of my buckets are empty? Where should I start? Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are in this situation right now, and have been for a while. I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have some suggestions. First, you can try to tackle the most pressing area of your well-being. Where do you feel most empty? What causes you the most distress on a daily basis? Tackle that bucket first. Alternatively, you can look for fruits that are easiest to find. Which of the areas would be easiest for you to tackle and add water to? Getting some traction by tackling the simplest area might help you tackle the other areas.
And finally, I propose this: where can you get a two or even three for one? What can you do to manage multiple buckets? Go for a walk with friends in nature (social, physical, environmental, emotional). Take a course that will advance your career (professional, intellectual, financial). The point is, self-care needs to work for you. You must choose what and how to address areas of wellness in your life. It should work in your life and not be a burden. Taking care of yourself cannot be a burden, by definition.
There may come a day when all your buckets are full – enjoy it! Because, as Mr. Buckingham says, “health is a movement,” so tomorrow will bring change and some of your buckets will start to empty. But now you know that it’s normal, it’s life, it’s health. And better yet, now you know how to deal with it and fill those buckets again.
Ana Reyes, M.Ed., is the assistant director of human resources at the Santa Clara County Office of Education.
