Self-care has to do with the relationship between the individual and the environment around them that creates stress. It describes activities that promote well-being, involving the practice of setting aside time to develop a better awareness of the self.

Even prior to COVID, self-care had been commodified into a billion-dollar industry by US capitalism. The creation of a “wellness industry” inherently prioritizes the creation and transfer of capital over human welfare. This wellness industry has convinced US consumers that a good relationship with the self can be bought, leaving low-income individuals to brush it aside as a trend for the privileged.

As the virus takes an emotional toll on people these effects have been magnified, with self-care having been identified as a way to combat emotional and mental health issues. This focus on the self within the capitalist industry is used as a justification for acts of self-sabotage or self-indulgence; it seeks to move further away from personal awareness and toward leisure time, ultimately benefiting global capitalism. The affluence required to afford capitalism’s version of self-care is purposefully exclusionary and it rests on the belief that if you put enough money toward wellness, you can find pleasure in being alive.

The one-size-fits-all, buy-your-way-to-happiness approach overlooks the context-sensitive intricacies of mental health in favor of an easy bandaid. But self-care is for all - especially for the marginalized. We must not forget that the origins of self-care stem from anti-capitalist roots of the Black Power movement in the 1960/70s, where mindfulness techniques were utilized as means of survival and political warfare. This self-care eventually became community care, an entity separate from today’s wellness culture.

This is why the development of an anti-capitalist community caring system is so important. The needs of a community go beyond the capacity of simple government or charity models. Community caring creates workarounds for systems like capitalism that do not inherently support care. Instead, it creates a sustainable system of support and self-determination. I encourage you to be a part of the self-care revolution: to help build a system of care in your community that prioritizes health, safety, and well-being over productivity and global capitalism.