Tips for Stewarding Your Talents and Energies in Non-Toxic Ways

Today the self-care industry has ballooned into an estimated $10 billion business, with a large portion coming from the beauty sector.

—“The Radical History of Self-Care” ^[1]

Somehow I suspect that wellness-as-an-industry—with its malignant consumerism, its enabling of over-indulgence, and its promotion of pernicious self-betterment—is not quite what Socrates had in mind 2400 years ago, when he advocated for “care of self” and to “know thyself.” ^[2]

Nor do I think the twentieth-century poet Audre Lorde would have approved. For her, self-care had little to do with anti-aging creams, bubble baths, and scented candles. Rather, it was a way to face and manage adversity full-on, within her mind and body, and under oppressive conditions over-all.

A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Lorde was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 44, and with liver cancer six years later. In A Burst of Light, she wrote:

I had to examine, in my dreams as well as in my immune-function tests, the devastating effects of overextension. Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessary for me as cutting down on sugar. Crucial. Physically. Psychically. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.^[3]

Lorde lost her 14-year battle with cancer in 1992, at the age of fifty-eight. To the end, her life and writings were dedicated to challenging racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, and even ableism. (Though she did not self-identify as disabled, she was legally blind.) Her legacy illustrates how self-preservation is vital to building and sustaining communities.

I think of Audre Lorde as an exemplar of the artist as warrior. While many of us who create various forms of art are managing personal challenges that are less than terminal, we are no less warriors who are waging peace. And we can benefit from Lorde’s radical view of self-care.

To distance the concept from its negative associations with the wellness industry, I propose that we think of self-care in a slightly different light: as self-stewardship.

Wikipedia defines stewardship as “an ethical value that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources,” while Merriam-Webster describes it as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” ^[4]

As a creator and curator of art, I like to apply this idea to myself: that my spirit, my mind, my body, my energies and innate talents are limited and precious resources, gifts from the original Creator and Source of all existence, gifts that I’ve been entrusted to develop and take care of—and to share with the world, as a way to help illuminate the human condition.

In other words, I feel a responsibility to manage those resources and my limited time on this planet in ways that are not only self-affirming and self-nurturing, but also—and just as important—help to nurture others collectively. And even though this involves a fair amount of hard work, I’m also having plenty of fun in the process!

Which brings me to my first tip for self-stewardship, a multi-purpose tip that serves as my lodestar.

1. Cultivate (and celebrate) crinkly eyes, by looking for laughter everywhere.

Thirty-some years ago, my best friend at the time, who was the mother of two adolescents and two teens, was being treated for lupus, a chronic disease in which her body’s immune system was attacking her tissues and organs. The inflammation from lupus can have wide-ranging effects on the body, including fatigue, joint and muscular pain, headaches, skin lesions, kidney impairment, and shortness of breath, just to name a few.

During flare-ups, the disease attacked different parts of her body from one week to the next, as I remember—yet my friend, whom I’ll call Sunny, remained relentlessly upbeat in spite of her fatigue and pain, and the side effects of medication. We worked closely together in the same office at a university in southern California so I saw her almost every day. Always smiling, her face was etched even at forty with lovely laugh lines and crow’s feet. Which I thought were just beautiful. In fact, I wished for wrinkles just like them.

Yet I had trouble understanding how my friend could be so sunny, day in and day out. As the single parent of an eight-year-old daughter then, I was working full-time while also taking a couple of courses each semester, slowly working toward my degree. And I was juggling everything along with the simmering fear of the next migraine episode that could incapacitate me.

Migraine is much more than a bad headache: it’s actually a genetic neurological disease which, I’m surprised to discover, ranks second among the world’s causes of disability.^[5]

A migraine attack may involve four stages encompassing roughly five days total, with the headache stage lasting up to 72 hours. In my experience, an episode can cause quite an array of distressing symptoms, including sensitivity to light and noise and odors, visual disturbances, auras and scotoma, heightened tinnitus, vertigo, numbness and tingling, difficulty speaking, irritability, an intense uni-lateral headache (i.e., excruciating pain on one side of the head), loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

In other words, not much fun at all.

All those years ago, though I enjoyed being silly and giggling with my daughter often, life otherwise was serious business and frequently overwhelming. And Sunny’s situation seemed more challenging than mine. After all, since lupus could cause serious kidney damage or even failure, it could be life-threatening, while migraine typically was not. So why was she always smiling and laughing?

One day I asked her pointblank, “How can you be so happy?!”

Taken aback at my tone, she stared at me for a second, and then laughed again. “It’s my choice!” she said.

When we wake up every morning, she elaborated, we can either choose to be negative and dwell on our troubles—which will only make us feel worse—or we can choose to focus on the positive and look for the laughter the day can bring.

“And I choose to be happy,” she said, “because it makes me feel better!”

For a skeptic like me, that was a radical idea. One with implications that took time and effort to wrap my then-pessimistic mind around. Yet with practice, and lots of reading and research, and more practice—in particular, consciously challenging my negative self-talk—the choice to focus on the positive gradually became second nature for me as well.

Around the time I turned fifty, I was thrilled to see that my efforts were also paying off with a delightful perk: my own crinkly eyes!

“...your silken wrinkles signify your good fortune to have loved and laughed for half-a-century. You’re officially an antique and proud that your face finally proves it. Having yearned for them since your twenties, you celebrate your crow’s feet especially. Laugh lines are lovely on most any face.”

—Clare MacQueen, “The Fragrance of Levity,” Serving House Journal (Issue 4, Fall 2011)

Science has confirmed the wisdom and benefits of my friend Sunny’s upbeat philosophy. For instance, a Boston University study conducted analyses among 69,744 women from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), which began in 1976, and 1,429 men from the Veterans Affairs (VA) Normative Aging Study (NAS), which began in 1961. In 2019, the researchers published their conclusions that:

“optimism is specifically related to 11 to 15% longer life span, on average, and to greater odds of ... living to the age of 85 or beyond. ...independent of socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors (e.g., smoking, diet, and alcohol use).” ^[6]

But what does optimism have to do with laughter?

Basically, the two create a positive feedback loop. In my own experience, the more often I engage in mirthful laughter, one of my absolute favorite activities, the better I feel physically and mentally, which in turn helps me maintain a positive outlook. This translates into more confidence in my ability to cope, more effective problem-solving skills, more resilience, and greater persistence when pursuing goals.^[7]

As an editor considering thousands of poems and stories and artworks for publication every year, with the majority of them addressing serious themes, I feel it’s vital for me to remain open to experiencing a gamut of emotions, including sadness and grief. Yet even vicarious grief as I read submissions can trigger stress hormones in my body that can suppress immune function and damage my heart. Scary thought. But the quick and simple antidote is laughter.

E.R. Doctor: How are things with that kid who swallowed the roll of quarters?

Nurse: No change yet.

It’s no exaggeration to say: I’m always looking for something to tickle my funny bone. 😄 And I laugh as if my life depends on it.

During MacQ reading periods, I like to begin and end each day with ten minutes of humor, often followed by half an hour of whatever music I happen to be exploring. For belly laughs, I rely on YouTube collections of the funniest moments from, say, The Graham Norton Show, or babies laughing (which I adore!), and/or stand-up routines by comedians like Wanda Sykes, George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, Kevin Hart, Robin Williams, etc. Of course, my idea of hilarious might be someone else’s yawner, wink wink.

Hand in hand, laughter and optimism work synergistically to reduce harmful stress, to protect mind and body against adversity, and to promote well-being. Knowing that this synergy helps protect my heart and my circulatory system (conferring a 50% lower risk of cardiovascular disease) also helps me manage my anxieties about stroke, heart failure, and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which run in my family.

A good laugh shuts down the release of stress hormones like cortisol which damage the heart and blood vessels, and triggers the production of neurochemicals like endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin which can calm anxiety, ease pain, and help a person feel better.

Mirthful laughter also decreases levels of inflammation and increases the number and activity of T-cells in the immune system, which help fight off a range of diseases including COVID-19 and cancer.^[8]

Happily, my friend who helped me learn the restorative powers of big smiles and laughter is still going strong. She and her family still live in SoCal, and I’ve returned to North Carolina to live near my siblings. Sunny and I have kept in touch for 11 years now via Facebook. And her laugh lines have become even more pronounced and more beautiful to my eyes, her face the crinkly quintessence of joy.

 

[Part 2 of this essay will appear in a future issue of MacQ.]

 

---

Footnotes:

Links below were retrieved from 27-31 December 2022.

1. From “The Radical History of Self-Care (The fullness of the Black Panther Party’s legacy [...] can be seen everywhere in the wellness space)” by Lenora E. Houseworth in Teen Vogue (14 January 2021):
   https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-radical-history-of-self-care
   
   See also “The $10-billion business of self-care” by Jennifer Conlin in the Los Angeles Times (10 May 2019): https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-business-of-self-care-20190508-story.html
   
   
2. Socrates (c. 470 BCE–399 BCE) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy. One of his students, Plato (c. 427 BCE–c. 347 BCE), explores the ancient Delphic maxim of “Know thyself” via the character of Socrates in six of Plato’s Dialogues. Wikipedia:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself
   
   
3. Quotation from A Burst of Light: and Other Essays (1988; republished, 2017) by Audre Lorde (1934-1992), Caribbean-American writer, radical feminist, civil rights activist, and New York poet laureate.
   
   See also the feature by Maria Popova, A Burst of Light: Audre Lorde on Turning Fear Into Fire, in The Marginalian (1 March 2018), which includes this quotation among others by Audre Lorde:
   
   “I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”
   
   
4. Definitions of “stewardship” at Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewardship and
   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stewardship
   
   
5. T. J. Steiner et al. “Migraine remains second among the world’s causes of disability, and first among young women: findings from GBD2019 [Global Burden of Disease study 2019]” in The Journal of Headache and Pain 21 (Article number 137, December 2020):
   https://thejournalofheadacheandpain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10194-020-01208-0
   
   And in 2016: “Globally, low back pain, migraine, age-related and other hearing loss, iron-deficiency anaemia, and major depressive disorder were the five leading causes of YLDs [years lived with disability]...”
   
   From “Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 328 diseases and injuries for 195 countries, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016” by Theo Vos et al in The Lancet (Volume 390, Issue 10100, 16 September 2017):
   https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32154-2/fulltext
   
   
6. Lewina O. Lee et al, “Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women” in PNAS USA (10 September 2019; Volume 116, No. 37:18357-18362):
   https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1900712116
   
   
7. “What Is Optimism? (How Optimism Affects Your Physical and Mental Health)” by Elizabeth Scott in Verywell Mind (updated 14 November 2022):
   https://www.verywellmind.com/the-benefits-of-optimism-3144811
   
   
8. “The Benefits of Humor When Confronted with Cancer” by Lillie D. Shockney, RN in JONS (Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship), Volume 9, No. 8 (August 2018):
   https://www.jons-online.com/issues/2018/august-2018-vol-9-no-8/1923-the-benefits-of-humor-when-confronted-with-cancer

Clare MacQueen

is founding editor and publisher of MacQueen’s Quinterly and its predecessor literary and arts journal, KYSO Flash. And she served as webmaster and associate editor for Serving House Journal from its inception in January 2010 through its retirement in May 2018, after publishing 18 issues. She is among the co-editors of Steve Kowit: This Unspeakably Marvelous Life (Serving House Books, 2015), and the editor, designer, and publisher of 20 books for her KYSO Flash micro-press (retired since March 2020).

Ms. MacQueen was honored to serve as one of two judges for the 2017 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, and one of three finalist judges for the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize in 2021 (Contest Results at Cultural Daily).

For several years, she’s been a member of the Senior General Advisory Board for The Best Small Fictions, published by Sonder Press since 2019 (and by Braddock Avenue Books in 2018 and 2017). For the 2016 edition, published by Queen’s Ferry Press, she served as Assistant Editor, Domestic.

Ms. MacQueen’s reviews appear in KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Serving House Journal; her short fiction, essays, and poetry have been published in Firstdraft, Bricolage, New Flash Fiction Review, Serving House Journal, and Skylark, among others; and her essays, anthologized in Best New Writing 2007 and Winter Tales II: Women on the Art of Aging (Serving House Books, 2012).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “No Succinct Summary Will Do Them Justice” by Clare MacQueen, reviewing A Cast-Iron Aeroplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries From 80 American Poets on Their Prose Poetry (edited by Peter Johnson); here in MacQ (Issue 2, March 2020)

(Although her review is 99% positive, MacQueen points out that the book seems to under-represent women prose poets. And she names four additional women whose works she believes also belong in a definitive collection like this one: Jane Hirshfield, Linda Nemec Foster, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, and Lorette C. Luzajic.)

⚡ The Fortune You Seek Lies in a Different Cookie by Clare MacQueen in New Flash Fiction Review (Issue 10, January 2018)

⚡ Tasting the New, a favorite small fiction from MacQueen’s writings, in Serving House Journal (Issue 1, Spring 2010)