Toxic self care

Wonderful points wow yes the Self-Help movement, the positivity movement, these all scream narcissism epidemic from the 60s and now look at where we are

Here's the topic that needs to be discussed much more. Nowadays people are bombarded with all the self-care advices and self-help books and videos that it's so easy to get lost into this "imagination" of what our lives should look like, and even worse it's so easy to become obsessed about whether or not we are living the right way, forgetting that there is not a simple formula for living a happy and fulfilled life as influencers are trying to present, just like you mentioned. Nearly a friend of mine shared with me that she got so obsessed with all the advices about how to breathe properly so she started having panic attacks because of the thought that "she was not breathing the right way and she might get our of breath".. We need to be aware that we are all different and what might works for someone might not be the best solution for someone else.

Fantastic points all.

It's something that I've become aware of a growing trend that I would argue seriously inhibits personal development. The whole concept of self-love is something I find really disturbing when it's taken to extremes.

If we spend all our time telling ourselves we are great then what provides the impetus for change and personal growth.

I think influencers are popular because they preach this message uncritically and people are very receptive to a message that validates a lack of self-growth.

A balance needs to be achieved I think, where we're not constantly berating ourselves but can acknowledge our shortcomings with honesty and use this information to grow. Isn't this true self-care? The ability to grow and develop. But we do this not merely for egocentric purposes but to fulfill our broader sociological obligation.

Caring for ourselves should enable the caring of others, but influencers and this concept of extreme 'self-love' seem to be a very egocentric 'philosophy'.

Eve makes some fascinating points about how this can also inhibit gender inequality.

right? It can come across as sort of self indulgent....obsession with self. Positive brain boosts and self esteem boosts before taking a test was a control group studies showing that the students who got the self esteem boost did worse than the students who did not get a positive affirmation or self esteem boost before the test. This is because the praising of self esteem boost needs to come after the hard work of studying for the test and then getting an A, not before the test. So the students who got a self esteem boost did poorly. This tells me that there is something wrong with the positivity movement that we saw in the 1960's

women's rights were also affected because a lot of beauty marketing plans targeting women's self image had them "invest" in themselves... all this just distracting them from the real equality they were seeking. Twenges book the Narcissistic epidemic quotes bodyworks as one of the companies that exploited the more vulnerable side of women: self-care and beauty. They knew these women were stressed going back to work, they knew people might see them as "acting like men" for standing up for equality, and the beauty industry knew how to market that for women as women started going to work and so that they could be integrated and accepted back into the working world and feel good about themselves about it....but was it really to make them feel good about themselves or was it to please societies view of what they should look like. I quote the website you posted above "While self-care influencers and their pages often promote physical health as a primary part of self-care, content may focus simply on the benefits of looking better, without actually helping to improve our body image or mental health". This was a key factor during the women's rights movement because it sort of denies women as more than a look, a mannequin, a doll to dress up, but not as a woman to be taken seriously in the job market, no, not as a woman who owns her big bones and stretch marks from having children, and not for her empathy in the workplace, improving workplace communication. I feel this self indulgence actually broke up the women's movement. It individualized a movement that was supposed to be collaborative. It made women compete with one another instead of collaborate with one another. Narcissistic women "acting like men" is the result.