Audre Lorde’s Self-Care approach should be yours as well.

By: Alexis Shoats

Two people wearing face masks and vegetables as eye masks. Topicals eye patches, Fenty Skin products, and Audre Lorde's book "A Burst Of Light and Other Essays"

What would Audre Lorde say about your self-care approach?

Audre Lorde was a Black poet who dedicated her work to writing about intersectionality and her experience with cancer. When discussing intersectionality, she discussed her life as a cancer patient and survivor, a mother, a lesbian, and a Black woman. In A Burst of Light and Other Essays, Lorde covers all of these topics against the backdrop of the 80s and all of the political issues that came with the decade. She primarily appeals to Black women in her essays regarding the various topics, yet she is also very aware of the ways she must preserve herself while dealing with a new cancer diagnosis. 

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” At a time when self-care walks a tightrope line of being described as either self-indulgent or self-preservation, where does your routine fall into this? How can you align yours with Audre Lorde’s? Present-day self-care routines are wrapped up in skincare, buying gifts for oneself, and bingeing out on takeout. It has also developed into a commodity that brands have benefited from, but at its core, it isn’t inherently wrong. 

It seems to me that the only way we can get back to the core purpose of self-care is to dig into why Lorde described the act as political. In her November 13, 1986 journal entry, Lorde states, “Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time and the arena and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle wherever we are standing. It does not matter too much if it is in the radiation lab or a doctor’s office or the telephone company, the streets, the welfare department, or the classroom. The real blessing is to be able to use whoever I am and wherever I am, in concert with as many others as possible, or alone if needs be.” She’s right. When confronting injustice throughout one’s life or on a greater stage, you don’t get to decide where you are able to confront it. You can only control how you are able to use that moment. Throughout her writing, Audre Lorde explains the way the world at the time wished to silence cancer patients and she refuted that idea. She used her cancer diagnosis as a way to look at issues with a different lens, and as a call to action against injustice, whether it be race, health, gender, or sexual orientation. 

As a Black woman, Lorde inherently understood the tolls of this world as well as how overextending ourselves played a role in the decrease of our energy. If you are mentally and physically depleted, how will you be able to fight back against injustice? Self-care. Audre Lorde begins divulging her own routine prior to the epilogue. She begins to share ways she has learned to cope with cancer, especially as a Black woman in America. In her November 17th, 1986 journal entry, she lists actions such as spending time with friends and reducing her stress levels every day — these acts are consistent with the themes of self-care.

So again, at its core, modern-day self-care practices are not inherently wrong; however, if you’re seeking to go past the surface level of taking time to relax, I would encourage you to learn your why. To take a look around your life, the world, and understand what injustice you’re facing daily. We don’t get to choose what injustices we are confronted with, but we do control how we interact with them. Perhaps the key to unlocking Audre Lorde’s self-care approach is to understand what you are facing and then develop the way your self-care routine plays a role in combating this inequality.

Food for thought during your next self-care day.