Understanding Indulgence: How To Care For Yourself

Self-care is a word that has entered our vocabulary but doesn’t get interrogated too often. It’s often bandied about by self-improvement vloggers and journalists working on anxiety as if we all understand the nuances of the term – or as if by buying something, perhaps a scented candle or a book filled with your perspective, we can enact the one model of self care. My conception of self-care is of two poles, servicing more of our emotions than frivolity or luxury by itself. The two forms of self-care are indulgence and moderation. These two are polar opposites, which may seem contradictory when applied to the same incentive but which, to my mind, answer the cravings our body have at different times. In order to truly care for ourselves, we need to understand the role of indulgence and its effects on us, not blindly indulge.

Sometimes you need to gain weight to be in a better place.

Indulgence itself is not one dimensional. Often, self-care is equated with selfishness or a lack of self-awareness because of the misapplication of indulgence – you cannot simply buy, consume, or watch and expect the way you feel to change. This kind of indulgence is hollow, rather than sustaining, and does not help you to grow. Instead, we should think about how something affects us.

Why are you reaching for indulgence, and what does it look like for you? Although many self-care experts (*cough* Gwyneth) will tell you it’s some expensive tchotchke, or that you don’t need it if you take the right vitamins, self-care is a zeitgeist-y idea that has stuck around as we have all realised – once again – that the unexamined life is not worth living, or that old clichés about smelling roses ring true.

So why gain weight? For two reasons: to luxuriate in the joy it takes to gain weight, reject stress-eating of grabbed snacks or boxed sandwiches and take time out of your day to grab dessert or grill yourself a steak, to share drinks with friends. Alongside that, though, are the psychological benefits of being bigger: realising it’s healthy to have a bit of meat on you or to fluctuate, but also reject shallow ideals that suggest you need to look a certain way, whether you’re masculine or feminine. Gaining the weight is the best way to understand it doesn’t matter what size you are, because it comes viscerally from the love you feel when you look at your body filling out your clothes and think ‘damn’. Sometimes you need to add a little of that mindset, to remember that sweating the stuff that other people tell you to care about is not what you need in this moment.

The power of indulgence is that it breeds both enjoyment in your surroundings and a lack of fucks in the opinion of others, both of which we need more of in our hectic lives. There’s a reason why people often gain weight after getting married or being bereaved, and that’s because it’s a reset in which our emotional needs are, for once, put at the forefront. Ordering a pizza or eating a doughnut might feel basic, and like it’s not going to solve your problems, but it might just be the ‘fuck it, I want to enjoy life’ moment you need to remind you that you are, to a certain extent, in control of your life.

Sometimes you need to work, bitch, and that can be self-care too.

So when is indulgence too far? The key to self-care is to pay attention to the emotions it engenders in you. Is the pizza feeling luscious and decadent, or making you feel greasy? Will spending money on yourself feel like a little treat for working hard, or like an impulsive act of mild self-destruction? Only you can answer how you will react to difficult times emotionally, and you might need to evaluate afresh every day if it’s a ‘treat yourself’ mood or a ‘motivate me’ mood – but it’s harder to spot the moments when you need moderation. For me, it’s often when I hate myself that I need a treat, and when I hate my situation that pushing myself works better at happiness. Applying for a dream job I might not get alleviates ‘I hate my life’ more than any doughnut could in that moment.

When you find yourself wallowing in indulgence, moderation is the self-care you need. Finding a kind of exercise you enjoy – whether it’s swimming to clear your head, cycling to keep the weight off your feet, or boxercise for the catharsis – might feel like absolutely the last thing you want, but the self-care in this case comes from pushing through for that powerful feeling. Go through your favourite restaurant on Deliveroo and indulge your imagination by adding a feast to the basket, then close the app and walk to the kitchen.

The ‘moderate’ model can be employed especially effectively when we have even the tiniest amount of power over something. Getting what we want in life is often an uphill struggle, and involves many states we might need to self-care our way out of, like rejection, burnout, or even realising we don’t want what we thought we did after all. The best thing for these moods is routine and perspective change to reinvigorate your worried mind and remind yourself that you’re working on an achievable goal you want. Split your time up into blocks and work out how you want to spend that time. Sure, you hate your job, but you love the money it pays you. Ok, your roommate is a drain – don’t order takeout to hide from them, grow as a person and have the difficult conversation about how you’re doing all the dishes. This is a situation where wallowing might help temporarily, but if you turn to quick releases repeatedly (maybe by moaning to friends over drinks or eating out to avoid a communal kitchen) it is going to make you feel worse – even if the situation improves.

I believe in taking supplements – it’s such a little thing to take a vitamin D or a multivitamin every day, but if it helps you feel just a little less tired and gets you in the routine of eating breakfast so you don’t take it on an empty stomach, you’ve won – even if it’s with the power of placebo. Consider these routine and attitude changes akin to that: it might not do anything to help, but if you feel better and it has the knock-on effect of any positive behaviour or effect, well that’s a win. The best thing about seeing self-care this way is that you have two bites at the cherry: if chocolate makes you feel worse, make a spreadsheet planning some way to improve yourself. If exercise makes you even more tired and lonely, swing by the grocery store on the way home from your run and get a food that only you like.

Self-care is the balance between the poles of moderating your behaviour and doing what you want. Sometimes, you need more of one than the other – if you’re stressed and need to clear your head, that won’t come with the quick release of dopamine from indulgence; if you’re sad and need to revive your joie de vivre, then pushing into moderation will only push those emotions to the future and make your self-worth dependent on abstaining. Both of these mindsets are powerful, but they need to be employed with care to not exacerbate our worst sides with vices. The trick is to see MODERATION and INDULGENCE as tools in an arsenal, rather than the answer. And if both of them fail? Well, you can always buy the book. Maybe it’ll change your life.

To-Do:

• My nails – whilst the doing of my nails doesn’t really chill me out, having chipped nails stresses me a great deal.
• Pre-order albums: We Are Scientists, The Killers, Taylor Swift, Lorde. There’s an infinite number of CDs I could buy, but I will be cross if I don’t get these new.
• Write to Serena about Dandelion.

Today’s Culture:

• Luisa Omielan, a self-help comedy queen. If you liked this post, you might like her.
• The concept of the mean reds vs the blues. Literature helps.
• When all else fails, lie on the floor and listen to music. Do you want to wallow or to get up and go?