Photos Courtesy of United Nations
WHY 2020 IS PROOF THAT WE DON’T NEED SELF-CARE, WE NEED COMMUNITY CARE Written by Libby Pecheur
WELLBEING. Over the past nine months, our nation and the world have been battered with one crippling blow after the next, from the spread and devastation of coronavirus to the murder of George Floyd to the deaths of beloved leaders and icons including Kobe and Gianna Bryant, John Lewis, Naya Rivera, Chadwick Boseman, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, all in conjunction with a looming presidential election that is sure to shake us to our core regardless of who is sworn in on January 20, 2021. What do we do when the stakes continue to stack higher and higher to a point when we can’t glimpse whether or not there is even the hope of a win on the other side? How do we begin to process one trauma when another one strikes before we have time to catch our breath? At a time when the
need for self-care seems to be at an all-time peak, particularly for those communities most impacted by 2020’s mounting heartaches - Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), in particular – is there room in our process for healing and protection to look outward and perhaps to be even more attentive to the needs and trauma of others? Prior to 2020, we were already existing in a “me first” culture, perhaps even a “me above all” culture. We see entire industries centered on self-care and “treat yo-self” messaging. We are told and tell ourselves that we alone are in control of our destiny. And yet, all other devastations of 2020 aside, what COVID-19 alone has revealed is that we are a society completely at the mercy of one another, and we have far less control than we may want to believe. While self-love is absolutely critical in the formula for a
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