By Riane Eisler — 2012
A recent poll found that the biggest issue for voters as the 2008 election approaches is not the Iraq war. It's an issue that leaders have not been focusing on: the well-being of America's children.
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CLEAR ALL
Embodied practice creates the potential for a unifying perspective and it can inspire new ways for activists to participate in community outreach, sisterhood, and self-care.
I learned very early that to survive in this broken world there is a never-ending need to “support, nurture, and protect what we hold dear” to keep it from being damaged, hurt, or destroyed ……which also includes myself.
To understand how the term “self-care” has evolved, I dug into the history of the phrase. The term has origins in medical research, but its leap from academia to public awareness can be traced back to the Black Panther Party and Black feminist writers.
New research demonstrates parental burnout has serious consequences. As defined by the study, burnout is an exhaustion syndrome, characterized by feeling overwhelmed, physical and emotional exhaustion, emotional distancing from one’s children, and a sense of being an ineffective parent.
Between taking children to school and managing other to-dos, some days it may feel like you don’t get a minute to yourself. And even when you hear about, self-care, you may dismiss it as frivolous, unnecessary, or even selfish.
When your child is sick in the hospital, it can feel like you’ve entered an alternative universe. That heartache hit me like a tidal wave while caring for my desperately ill son in two children’s hospitals for eight months straight in 2015.