Why knowing what you need isn’t always enough.
So many women I work with could probably write the book on self-care.
They understand why it matters. They know about sleep, exercise, boundaries, taking breaks, asking for help, making time for things they enjoy. If knowledge were the problem, they would be doing beautifully.
And yet, I hear some version of this all the time:
“I know what to do. I’m just failing spectacularly at actually doing it.”
That gap interests me.
Because when a smart, capable woman knows exactly what would help her and still can’t seem to make it happen, giving her another list of self-care strategies probably isn’t the answer.
The more useful question is:
What keeps getting in the way?
Sometimes You Really Can’t Afford to Stop
Often, underneath the struggle with self-care is some version of:
I’m already behind.
If I take time for myself, things will fall apart.
I feel selfish when I do something just for me.
And sometimes the woman sitting across from me isn’t imagining the demands on her.
She may be working, raising children, caring for aging parents, managing a household, worrying about money, or carrying responsibilities that genuinely leave very little margin.
Sometimes there isn’t enough time.
Sometimes there isn’t enough help.
Sometimes saying no has real consequences.
Self-care also always costs something—even if the only thing it costs is time.
Twenty minutes spent taking a walk is twenty minutes you aren’t answering email, doing laundry, helping a child, making dinner, finishing work, or doing one of the dozen other things waiting for you.
So “just make time for yourself” isn’t always particularly helpful advice.
The question isn’t simply whether you can find twenty minutes.
It’s what happens to everything else during those twenty minutes.
Permission Isn’t the Same as Making Room
Sometimes the people around us genuinely encourage self-care.
“Take the afternoon off.”
“Go get a massage.”
“You deserve a spa day.”
And they may absolutely mean it.
But there can be a strange contradiction underneath that encouragement: the expectation that everything you normally take care of will somehow continue to happen while you’re taking care of yourself.
Your partner tells you to take a spa day—and may not even realize that he also expects to have toothpaste on his toothbrush and clean laundry in the drawer.
The message becomes:
Please take care of yourself. Just don’t let your taking care of yourself inconvenience anyone else.
That’s a bind.
Making room for self-care isn’t only about getting permission. Something may actually have to give.
Dinner is simpler.
The laundry waits.
Someone else takes responsibility.
Someone is mildly inconvenienced.
And sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen.
Whose Expectation Is It?
Not all of those expectations come from other people.
Sometimes they do. Your family assumes you’ll remember the appointment. Your workplace rewards being available after hours. Everyone assumes you’ll organize the birthday because you always organize the birthday.
Those expectations may need to be discussed, delegated, or renegotiated.
But sometimes nobody is actually asking.
We are.
I should get the laundry done before I go.
I should answer that email first.
I can’t relax when the house looks like this.
It will be easier if I just do it myself.
And often there is some truth in there.
It might be easier to do it yourself. Someone else might not do it the way you would. The laundry might still be sitting there when you get back.
Taking care of yourself can require something much less Instagrammable than a spa day:
Tolerating that something isn’t done.
Tolerating someone else’s disappointment.
Allowing another capable person to figure something out without stepping in.
Noticing the urge to take responsibility—and occasionally choosing not to.
If taking responsibility has become almost automatic, I wrote more about why this pattern can be so difficult to change in Why It’s So Hard to Stop Overfunctioning — Even When You’re Exhausted.
One question I find useful is:
Does this actually have to be done by me, right now, and to this standard?
Self-Care Can’t Just Become Another Expectation
One woman I worked with put it perfectly:
“Self-care is just another expectation for my to-do list that I fail at. Thanks, society.”
When taking care of yourself becomes another measure of whether you’re doing life correctly, I think we’ve missed the point.
And women aren’t imagining all of the pressure they’re under. Women perform a disproportionate share of unpaid care work globally. Research on women’s self-care also points to caregiving expectations, mental and emotional labor, time pressure, and guilt as barriers to caring for ourselves.
In other words, self-care doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens inside the life you’re actually living.
So before adding another activity, I often want to know what someone is already carrying.
Not just the obvious responsibilities—work, children, appointments, laundry—but the less visible ones too.
Who remembers what needs to be bought?
Who notices that someone needs a dentist appointment?
Who checks in on the aging parent?
Who remembers the school deadline?
Who notices when everyone else is getting overwhelmed?
Then we can start asking:
What genuinely has to happen?
What could happen less often?
What could be done less well?
What could someone else do—even if they don’t do it exactly the way I would?
What am I doing because I believe I should?
And:
What do I imagine will happen if I don’t do it?
If you’re realizing that putting something down is considerably harder than identifying what you should put down, When You’re Tired of Carrying Everything: How to Stop Overfunctioning offers some practical ways to experiment with doing less.
Sometimes there is a real consequence.
Sometimes someone will be inconvenienced or disappointed.
And sometimes the consequence is simply that uncomfortable feeling inside that says:
You’re being irresponsible.
Those are different problems. They need different solutions.
There Is No Right Size for Self-Care
I often tell women I work with that there is no right size, length, or specific activity that makes something self-care.
It doesn’t have to be an hour.
It doesn’t have to involve yoga, meditation, journaling, exercise, a massage, or anything else we’re told is good for us.
One way to know whether something counted?
Do you feel better in some noticeable way afterward?
Maybe you’re calmer. Less depleted. More rested. Less resentful. Your body feels better. You can think more clearly. You have a little more capacity for whatever comes next.
Then it counted.
That doesn’t mean every act of caring for yourself has to feel good immediately. Some necessary forms of care are difficult. But when we’re talking about restoration, the effect matters more than whether the activity looks like “self-care.”
At its core, self-care begins with noticing:
What do I need right now?
That requires mindfulness—not necessarily sitting on a cushion and meditating, but paying enough attention to yourself to notice the signal.
I’m exhausted.
I need quiet.
I’ve been sitting all day and need to move.
I’m lonely.
I’m overstimulated.
I’m hungry.
I need five minutes when nobody is asking me a question.
And then, when possible, responding to what you’ve noticed.
Bigger Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Better
A spa day can be wonderful.
It can also completely backfire if you never actually get off the expectations-and-to-do-list train.
You can spend three hours at a spa thinking:
I really should have finished that first.
I need to remember to pick that up on the way home.
I wonder if they remembered to…
I’m going to be so behind tomorrow.
You technically took time for yourself.
But did you ever really disengage?
Meanwhile, an unexpected ten minutes drinking coffee on the back porch with the sun on your face can feel wonderful when you think back on it that night.
So can three minutes of doing absolutely nothing.
That’s why I don’t think we should measure self-care in minutes, dollars, or how impressive the activity sounds.
Sometimes what matters is that you noticed what you needed, responded, and—for a few minutes—let that be enough.
And if you’re having trouble figuring out what actually restores you versus what keeps depleting you, I explore that more in Burnout or Anxiety? What High-Functioning Women Often Miss.
Feeling Guilty Doesn’t Mean You’re Doing Something Wrong
Of course, you may finally sit down with your coffee and immediately think:
I shouldn’t be sitting here. I have so much to do.
When guilt shows up around self-care, I often talk with women about what guilt is actually for.
Guilt has a function.
It can push us toward repair when we’ve done—or believe we’ve done—something we shouldn’t have.
That’s useful when guilt is connected to our adult values.
If I hurt someone I love or behave in a way that doesn’t fit with the person I want to be, guilt can get my attention:
Something here needs repair.
But feeling guilty doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something wrong.
Sometimes guilt is attached to rules we learned a long time ago.
Good mothers put their children first.
Other people’s needs matter more.
Rest has to be earned.
Being productive means being responsible.
If someone is disappointed in me, I’ve done something wrong.
Some of those rules come from our families and earlier experiences. Some are reinforced by the culture around us. We’ve carried them for so long that they don’t necessarily feel like rules.
They just feel true.
So when guilt shows up, instead of immediately obeying it, we can start by noticing it.
There’s guilt.
Then get curious:
What does this guilt think I’ve done wrong?
Is that actually inconsistent with my adult values today—or have I bumped into an old rule?
If you’ve violated something that genuinely matters to you, maybe there’s something to address or repair.
But if the crime is sitting in the sun for ten minutes while there’s laundry in the dryer?
Maybe nothing needs repairing.
That doesn’t necessarily make the guilt disappear.
Over time, though, we can get stronger at allowing that uncomfortable feeling to be there without letting it make the decision for us. And compassion matters here.
The goal isn’t to tell yourself, I shouldn’t feel guilty about this. That’s just another judgment.
Instead, we can recognize:
Of course this is uncomfortable. I’ve had a lot of practice following this rule.
And then, when we can, choose based on what matters to us now rather than what the guilt is demanding.
This isn’t another thing to get right.
It’s a practice, not a to-do.
Maybe You Don’t Need to Get Better at Self-Care
Maybe you already know what to do.
Maybe the more useful questions are:
What do I need?
What is getting in the way of responding to that need?
Is there anything here that can change?
Sometimes something outside of you needs to change. Someone else needs to carry something. An expectation needs to be renegotiated. Something needs to be left undone.
Sometimes the work is inside. An old rule needs questioning. Guilt can be noticed and met with compassion rather than automatically obeyed.
If anxiety, guilt, perfectionism, or the pressure to keep functioning are making it difficult to care for yourself, you can learn more about my Anxiety Therapy for Women.
And sometimes nothing big needs to happen at all.
Maybe you notice that the sun came out.
You make yourself a cup of coffee.
You sit on the back porch for ten minutes.
The laundry is still there when you come back inside.
And you feel just a little better.
That counts.
Until we meet again — breathe gently, walk slowly, and treat yourself with kindness.
— Iris
If this article resonated with you and you’re considering therapy, you’re welcome to schedule a free consultation.
Examples in this article reflect common themes from clinical work and have been generalized or combined to protect confidentiality. This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized mental health or medical care.