Suzanne Falter - The Extremely Busy Woman’s Guide to Self-Care: Do Less, Achieve More, and Live the Life You Want

Why We All Crave Self-Care

Presumably, you picked up this book because the cover spoke to you. The idea of indulging in a lovely warm bath of ideas and encouragement about self-care appealed to you. Or maybe a friend recommended ita friend with a little too much empathy in her eyes.

One way or another, you crave self-care because, on some level, its missing in your life.

But if youre like some of us, that fact could be hard to admit. You may think youre one of the few people out there who doesnt actually need self-care. You may tell yourself youre just too busy for self-care. Or you offer up your annual massage and your occasional weekend off as proof that youre just fine.

Secretly, part of you may believe youre just a little superhuman and dont need the same stuff the rest of us do. And yet, here you are, reading this book.

You may insist that youd get to self-care if only there werent so many other people and projects out there demanding your attention. Or maybe youre a procrastinator. You really are going to start taking better care of yourselfsoon!

Or it could be a major piece of your life has just fallen apart. Youve been left mildly stunned, knowing something must change and feeling utterly overwhelmed at the prospect.

Maybe you just flat out know you need self-care, and you need help with it. Now!

Whatever the case may be, your future as a self-caring individual can begin this minute, but only if you are willing. The fact is that I know what youre going through, because not too long ago, I was you.

I was busy. Lord, I was busy! Meanwhile, I hid from my own needs for decades. When they occurred to me, I simply suppressed them. The voices around me drowned out my own, even when it came to my sexuality. In a telling example, I avoided the fact that I was a lesbian for thirty-three years because it would be so horribly inconvenient to my homophobic parents.

I also buried myself in work, which turned out to be a really good place to hide from my general state of dissatisfaction.

I simply didnt know that I mattered. I thought I was supposed to become a stressed-out, wired, unconscious doormat to the world. I thought I was supposed to work ever harder in some skewed attempt to become the most brilliant, the most perfect, the most whatever .

It wasnt until life finally stopped me in my tracks that I began to regroup. Only then did I learn how critical self-care is to a life well lived. And only then did I realize that this seemingly self-indulgent activity was actually the truest path back to happiness.

What happened was that my twenty-two-year-old daughter, Teal, suddenly died from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest.

One minute, we were sitting in a caf in San Francisco, enjoying a lovely dinner. Two hours later, she was in a coma. Six days later, she was dead. That was the moment I went from being a stressed-out, overworked, self-involved internet marketing consultant to being an incoherent lump on a bed.

As the months passed and I grieved Teals death, I began to see everything I had been doing as meaningless. Slowly, over time, it dawned on me that I felt lost and empty because I didnt want this life Id cobbled together

By this point in my life, Id managed to embrace my lesbianism and leave my marriage, but that was about it. I was pursuing a career that was inauthentic, and my first lesbian relationship was an unmitigated disaster that had just ended.

Finally, I was being forced to tell the truth Id run from for far too long. But once I admitted that I didnt actually want the relationship or the career, an even more frightening realization surfaced.

I had no idea what I did want.

Suitcase in hand, I left the home Id shared with my former partner. I put my things in storage, packed up my car, and began to wander.

When youre used to being completely harried, uncertainty is downright scary. Twice in the year that followed, I tried to return to my former work, and twice, I fell flat on my face. My website got hacked repeatedly. A relaunch of a product that had once done well failed miserably. No matter how I tried to avoid the empty space, I couldnt. The universe kept telling me to go back to bed.

My only job was to relax, grieve, and not know what to do next. I had enough savings to live on for a year or two if I was very, very frugal, so I stopped. Completely.

In that big, long stretch of not workingand not doing much of anything, really, besides grievingI discovered the cure to my aggravation, my sleeplessness, and my pain. In that quiet stillness, I began to listen to myself.

Slowly, I admitted the things that werent working.

I took responsibility for the suffering Id caused others. I forgave myself and everyone else as well. And I started trying on new activities, like consciously listening to people and keeping quiet for a change. And I learned to ask for help. Instead of second-guessing and doubting those around me, I began to actually trust them.

Gradually, a bit of light began to dawn. I became aware of things I cared about, like singing, something I hadnt even thought about for nearly a decade. And writing fiction, which I hadnt done in years.