When the Bath Isn't Working: Finding Your Way Back to Rejuvenation

Moving beyond performative self-care to what actually restores us. (Plus an invitation...)

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Last night I lit a candle, drew a bath, sprinkled in fancy salts, and lowered myself into the water. I had all the right props — the book I'd been meaning to read, the face mask promising to detoxify my pores and possibly my life choices. I was doing self-care. I was nailing it.

Except I wasn't.

My breath stayed locked my chest. My jaw clenched as if in defiance to the lavender steam. My mind kept circling back to that email I should've sent, that comment I shouldn't have made, that deadline looming. The candle flickered. The water cooled. And I emerged — cleaner, but not noticeably restored.

Sound familiar?

Here's what I've been wondering lately: What if our carefully curated self-care routines are just another performance we're putting on? And who exactly is the audience: Instagram? Our future selves? The wellness industrial complex that's convinced us salvation comes in serum form?

Or maybe, most tragically, we're performing only for ourselves — trying to convince our own minds that yes, we're taking care, we're doing the thing, we're absolutely going to feel better now.

Sounds like self-care from the outside in.

But if you're anything like me, you've noticed a glitch in this system. Sometimes the bath works. Sometimes the meditation app actually helps. And sometimes (ahem, often) you're left feeling hollow, wondering what's wrong with you that you can't even relax properly. As if that's another thing to put on your list: Learn to fucking relax.

Which begs the question: What makes the difference?

The weight we carry.

Let's be real about what's happening in our bodies right now. We're carrying around the weight of unanswered texts, half-processed emotions from that thing your partner said last week, ambient anxiety about the state of literally everything, and the low-grade tension of perpetually trying to keep it all together while running on fumes.

"Just don't think about it. Just be present," they say, as if our nervous systems have an off switch we simply forgot to flip.

Maybe you've mastered the art of compartmentalization. Maybe you can tuck away the argument with your boss, the worry about your kid, the grinding anxiety about money, and the low-level dread about the future of the planet, and sit in your bubble bath in blissful ignorance of it all. If so, I both envy and worry for you.

But for the rest of us — the ones still learning, still feeling, still wrestling with the mess of being human — I want to ask: After your “self-care”, does your body feel relaxed? Has your breath deepened and slowed? Do you find it easy to fall asleep at night, or savor your food, or let your mind go peacefully blank?

Yeah, me neither.

And here's why: you can't receive when your hands are already full.

The relief of letting go.

There's this concept in psychology that humans need two kinds of relief: sometimes we need to release, to empty, to let go — and sometimes we need to receive, to fill, to take in. For too long, we've been sold only half the equation. We've been told self-care is about adding: more baths, more meditation, more green juice, more "me time." But nobody's talking about the emptying that often must come first.

In order to sink into the receptive state required for true restoration, we have to shake off our state of vigilance. Otherwise, it’s like trying to enjoy a sunset while running from a bear.

So what does it look like to unwind?

It’s different for different people, at different times, during different weather, seasons, news cycles, phases of the moon.

For me, it often looks like moving my body until sweat washes away the static in my head, like swaying and shaking until I am more sensation than thought, like hiding my phone and computer and writing writing writing until my brain slows its frantic spinning (and my hand hurts). And sometimes it looks like a scream-singalong in my car to songs I loved at sixteen. Like writing letters I'll never send. Like telling my closest friend the most unvarnished version of my truth and trusting her not to flinch.

It rarely pretty, fashionable, or scientifically proven. But it creates space.

And in that space, something interesting happens.

(Ana and I could talk about the power of release — and how to unwind our resistance to it — for AGES. If that’s a post you’re interested in, let us know in the comments.)

The body’s present-moment wisdom.

Once we've physically, mentally, emotionally, even energetically put down our conscious burdens, our subconscious has a chance to speak. We access these depths through our bodies because, as they say, the body keeps the score. Our body can't not feel, even if our mind has successfully repressed it all.

So we walk into our subconscious through the doorway of our body, to discover what we're truly needing. Often, we have no idea what we'll find there. Even skilled embodiment practitioners approach this territory with curiosity rather than certainty, knowing their bodies will ask for what they need in this moment — not what they needed yesterday, not what the wellness industrial complex says they should need, but what will bring them alive right now.

This is where prescribed self-care always, inevitably falls short. I'm not saying to stop take your vitamins, cancel your yoga membership, and toss that book your therapist recommended. What I'm saying is: also ask your body what it needs. Your body's wisdom is contextual, specific, and alive to the present moment in a way no wellness protocol can ever be.

So the question becomes:

What, in this precise constellation of physical sensation, emotional weather, and lived circumstance, will bring me home to myself?

Maybe today your body’s subtle knowing leads you outside to sit in the morning sun. You take a deep breath and something in you whispers: more. So you move to the grass, digging your fingers into the soil as you inhale the smell of earth and dew. Then you lie down, letting your eyes trace the edges of branches against sky, clouds shifting shape above you. Your ears tune into birdsong and distant lawn mowers, your skin registering each breeze and ray of sunlight peaking through leaves.

You feel something unfurl inside you. A deep sigh comes out of nowhere. Gratitude shimmers through you without a “be grateful!” reminder buzzing on your phone. You run out your meditation timer in quiet awe of this world, this life, this existence.

Or maybe when you listen, your body keeps circling back to that conversation you had with your partner last month. Your jaw clenches every time you think about it. So you give yourself permission to feel what you couldn't feel then. Maybe you speak out loud all the things you wished you had said. Maybe you write it all down and then burn the pages. Maybe you just stand in your kitchen and finally let yourself cry the tears you've been holding back since you were nine years old. Maybe after it all you send them a text that says, “I love you so much. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”

Or maybe, just maybe, your body asks for a goddamn bubble bath.

All of these scenarios — luxurious receiving, gentle communing, emotional releasing — are valid forms of self-care. All are pathways to rejuvenation. But none would have been revealed themselves if you'd forced yourself to follow someone else’s prescription for self-care.

Ok, I have to admit I LOVE bathes. They’re just a good butt of the joke.

The Revolution of Trusting Yourself

Prescribed self-care by its very definition does not come from our inner knowing. It comes from outside — from experts, from trends, from what worked for someone else. And it doesn't really seem to be working for most of us.

We're still tired. We're still disconnected. We're still searching for the next thing that might help us feel whole.

So here's my invitation: Let's try something new. Something that involves asking your body what it needs, and then having the courage to listen.

It's messy. It's unpredictable. It requires presence and patience and sometimes a willingness to face what hurts. But I've found that when I actually listen to what my body is asking for, I come away with the sense that I've actually been cared for, from the inside out.

Your body knows. It has been speaking all along, beneath the noise of should’s and supposed-to’s, beneath the chatter of productivity and optimization. It knows exactly what you need to come alive again.

Maybe it's time we learned how to listen.

P.S. Ana and I are running an online retreat on this exact idea, starting March 23rd!

It's called The Art of Rejuvenation, and we'll be using the energetics of spring and somatic techniques to reconnect with a feeling of bone-deep nourishment.

If you're interested in learning more, you can find all the info here.

And if you're ready to sign up, email us at TheBodyKnows@substack.com

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What has your experience been with prescribed self-care routines? Maybe you have one that actually works that you want to share with us?? Or perhaps you have found ways to tune into what your body is actually asking for? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

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