The Politics Of Rest
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
Audre Lorde wrote this in A Burst of Light, published while she was living with the liver cancer that would eventually take her life, years after her earlier battle with breast cancer. She was still teaching, writing, and organizing, and she noticed how easily activists and caretakers are taught to see their own needs as a distraction from the real work. Instead of apologizing for rest or treatment or slowing down, she named her own survival as part of the fight itself. For anyone taught that tending to their own body or mind is selfish, this line offers a different way to see it.
Reflection
Lorde treated caring for her own body as a political act rather than an indulgence. What is one way I can care for myself today without guilt?