Self-Care

I don't know if I've approached the topic of self-care before in this blog. I've thought about it enough that I've probably written something about it. The truth is that self-care is one of the most important things for students to learn in seminary, and I have yet to meet one student who claims they are good at self-care. That's saying something. It's become an important topic following the New York Times' article about clergy burnout. If you haven't read it, let me sum up. Clergy aren't good at taking care of themselves and often burnout. 50% of all those ordained as Presbyterian ministers will burn out within 5 years. That's a scary thought.

So how do we prevent ourselves from getting burned out?

More vacation time? Weekly Sabbath time? Different job? 30 minutes a day for prayer/mediation? Attending a church different than your own on Sunday evenings? Coffee break with a novel once daily? All of the above?

Yesterday my mom and I went to the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" based on the best-selling book. There are three main settings of the story. The "Eat" part is in Italy where the author learns about the Sweetness of Doing Nothing, a decidedly Italian idea according to the locals. One character declares that Americans don't know how to have a good time or relax.

Is this failure for self-care simply a clergy phenomenon... or is it part of our society?

In our world of climbing unemployment are we afraid to insist on taking care of ourselves out of fear of losing our jobs or out of the idea that we don't know just how to be? Do we know how to be in the sweetness of doing nothing? No TV, no internet, no gameboy. Just be. It's a difficult idea. I know because I can't do it. I try. It reminds me of a prayer I read once. "Dear God, I am trying my best." Then I think of Yoda who said "Do or do not. There is no try." Mixed messages.

So I'm going to try. Or do. Or something. I'm going to try to find this sweetness in doing nothing in order to prevent burnout because this past year and a half has been hard. Non-stop and hard. So what's the harm in just trying some self-care? Or doing.