TRANSCRIPT
I’m going to talk about something now that I don’t talk about too often. I spend a lot of time talking about healing from childhood trauma, doing deep inner work, journaling, grieving, remembering my history, calling out my traumatizers, taking distance from my traumatizers, not using drugs and alcohol to cloud my mind so that I can heal more clearly on the inside. But now I’d like to talk about, well, some of the other things that I do to maintain my healthiness, to maintain my life, so that I can do this deep important inner work.
I’d like to talk about the foundational things in my life of self-care that allow me to have a platform from which to do this deeper work. So some of the things that I do, and it’s not that complicated, I think I’m going to talk about it not even in necessarily any linear order.
But going to the dentist, taking care of my teeth on a regular basis, brushing my teeth twice a day, flossing my teeth, rinsing my mouth with mouthwash so that my teeth remain, so that I can eat good food and digest it properly. Eating good food, making sure that I eat a healthy diet, making sure I get a well-rounded diet, keeping my body in shape, exercising every day in a healthy gentle way so that I don’t damage my body, but so that I keep all my body parts working. Walking, I love to walk, walking every day to clear my mind and to stretch my body.
Making sure that I get a good healthy night of sleep every night, even though it’s a lot of times very difficult when I do this deep inner processing. Also, when I come in front of the camera and talk to people on YouTube about my painful life history and the lessons I’ve learned and about getting away from my family, oh, it makes my sleep all messed up. But having a good bedtime every night, waking up early every morning, eating those three meals a day sounds kind of silly and cheesy to talk about such simple things, but these are the foundational things that allow me to do that bigger work.
Also, going to the doctor. Okay, not believing everything the doctor says because yes, I’ve gotten a lot of garbage from doctors in my life, and I realize the medical system is very screwed up in a lot of ways. But also realizing that there is a value in going to the doctor and talking with the doctor about any physical problems I might be having and at least getting a medical opinion. And realizing there really can be a value in going to the doctor sometimes to find out different things.
I’ve certainly known a lot of people who just wholesale avoided the doctor and then too late discovered that they had some terrible illness that if they’d just gone a couple of years earlier, they could have figured it out and lived a much longer, more productive, healthy life.
I think also about working, figuring out how to work in the world. Yes, I do this work of making YouTube videos and I get some donations. Thank you very much for people who donate, but this isn’t enough to sustain my life in New York City, to pay my rent and buy my food and allow me to have enough money to go to the doctor and go to the dentist and to be able to do some of the travel I do that enriches my life and keeps me mentally alive and interested. Yeah, it’s kind of expensive in a way to live my life.
So I work. I don’t always do work that I love or find the most interesting in order to make money. Sometimes I’ve had phases in my life where the ways in which I made money were very connected with my curiosity and my creativity and my growth, like being a therapist. Fantastic! I loved that for many, many years, and it was a way that I made money. But now sometimes it’s not always so interesting how I make my living, doing editing of writing, other people’s writing, or let’s say cleaning. Sometimes I’ve cleaned apartments for money, you know, not the most intellectually challenging work, but humble work, real work that brings in enough money for me to function and survive.
Also, editing video. I’ve learned some sophisticated video editing tools, and sometimes I can make money doing that. So working in the world, going out in the world and having bosses, having people who say, “I need you to do x, y, z,” and for me to say, “Okay, I humble myself, I shall do that,” and do the work and do it to the best of my ability, even though it’s not the most creative and I don’t love it the most, but enough to function and survive in the world, that’s been a big key backdrop in me taking care of myself.
Oh, also in terms of money, doing my taxes every year. In the United States of America, I am required before May 15th, before April 15th every year, I have to do my taxes, and I do it every year. It’s kind of like going to the dentist for me, it’s just a ritual. Do I love doing my taxes? Well, no, I certainly don’t like paying money to the government every year, especially when I see how they spend it on things often that I don’t believe in. As it happens, I like my accountant, actually. I like her a lot. Before I had her, I worked with her father as my accountant. Good people! So it’s nice that I go to people that I really like and respect, who are honest, honorable people. But it’s a chore in a way to do my taxes.
But I see people who don’t do their taxes, and usually that’s a sign of a life that’s not as functional. It’s a life that has more problems, it has things that need to be worked out. Also for me, I’ve been in debt before. When I went back to grad school to become a therapist, I went 40-some thousand dollars into debt, and I worked really hard to pay that off. It was like it wasn’t just a financial debt, it was a psychic debt. And so I lived very much below my means for many years in order to pay, pay, pay, pay.
I saw a lot of people around me who had a lot of things that I would have liked in my life, but I thought, you know, first before I get any of those fancier things that I might otherwise have wanted, I need to pay off my debts. That was a foundation I needed to ultimately live a healthier life in which I could do more internal work.
Hmm, some of the other things that I do to take care of myself? Well, doing my laundry all the time. I hate doing my laundry! I could send it out and spend more money, you know, having someone else do it, but I like to do it myself. It’s just a service. Also, while taking a shower all the time, that’s how annoying, how stupid! But having clean clothes, having a clean body, it’s sort of like the backdrop for me to have a cleaner, clearer mind to be able to do this deep inner work.
Also, I realized keeping up with my friendships. Sometimes friendships, you know, I can be away from people for a long time, but just putting effort into keeping those old special friendships alive, I feel in a way that keeps me connected not just to my history but to humanity at large. That’s been really important for me.
And also another one, although it isn’t exactly connected with this subject in a way, it’s sort of a backdrop of self-care. I journal every day, just about the daily things that I did the day before, what I might be doing in the coming days, some of my stresses. Not necessarily the most deep and psychological journaling. Sometimes I really do that very deeply, but for the last maybe seven, eight years, I just write every day about my life.
And one last thing I would like to share, yeah, this comes to my mind. It’s part of self-care. At the end of every year, in the last couple of days of December every year, I write a year in review. I just write what I did the whole year, an uncensored quick version, maybe five, ten pages long. I just sit for maybe an hour, hour and a half, and just write everything that I went through the whole year and just get some perspective on my life.
And that helps me prepare for my new year ahead, you.