May’s Sensemaking: Let’s talk about care

In May we met and focused on one theme: The space for care of ourselves and others. This is something that we intend to address in every monthly meeting but we also felt the need to dig deeper into this question of care.

Something that often comes up in meetings is how liberating it feels to acknowledge all the care-giving that we are doing in our lives in this somewhat professional setting. We are a mix of women at different points in our lives and different family/relationship contexts. Some of us are spending large amounts of time caring for parents and grandparents, others have multiple kids to look after, some of us are focused on caring for the planet, or those in challenging social situations and we all work on multiple different projects.

The Point People are inherently plural in the way we work, but we are very singular and united in the statement ‘we care’.

But somehow in most of our working life, caring for family and those in our community goes unseen, it’s a hidden service that keeps our communities functioning. We acknowledged that we often feel that this type of caring must not be brought to the workplace where the ‘real’ work — work that contributes to GDP — is done. It was very clear that shining a light on and celebrating, or even just acknowledging care, is incredibly important and something we don’t do enough!

Key themes

Caregiver — care-receiver dynamics

The Caregiver — care receiver relationship can be very difficult, for example: sometimes the receiver has all the power because they lay down the parameters for receiving the care. This leads to a very complicated dynamic because there is guilt, love and fear of loss that drives the relationship and in particular the care-giver.

A number of TPP also acknowledged that we find it hard to be a care receiver. In so many parts of our lives we are care-givers but being the care receiver feels incredibly vulnerable, and there is a perceived power dynamic that as a care receiver you are showing weakness.

• How can we build healthier relationships between care-givers and care-receivers?
• Can we build care relationships that are more mutualistic?

Ella talked about Relationships Making a Difference, a recent event she was part of at Camden Council organised by social workers. It was co-produced by citizens and professionals that have worked together. Ella talked about how moving it was to see the mutuality of these relationships explored, with social workers talking about the different ways the people they work with contribute to their lives. Ella recounted that on the wall of the event was a big sign saying ‘To Love is to Act’… read more in this post on relational activism from the organisers of the event.

In certain situations caring can also be a defence against our own vulnerability. We all know people who give so much but suffer themselves as a result. When you are caring for others it can be convenient that you don’t have to deal with your own stuff. How can we better navigate this relationship so it’s working better for both sides? Jenny and Sneh introduced the power of YES…AND to have a powerful conversation in this context: Yes I care and…I am using it as a way as not looking after myself.

Caring and being cared for is often done from a place of great responsibility or love, and it became clear that this can lead to very complicated dynamics building up.

• Is there an opportunity for a care contract to empower both the carer and care-receiver?
• How can we better support both caregivers and care receivers as a society?

Caring and not caring gracefully

You can’t care for everyone, so how can you ‘choose’ who to care for? This question feels deeply uncomfortable yet it is something we all consider on some level — for example many of us effectively choose every day not to care for homeless people on the street, and if we did choose to care for each person we passed that would become the main purpose of our lives. However, many of us still recognised that we can’t just walk by people in need, we do want to acknowledge them and care for them on some level — whether that is giving money, food or saying hello. We talked about the inner justification for why we chose not to care for them. Some people took a more reasoned approach, calculating where they could have the most impact using their skill set and then staying focused on that. Whilst others felt care is much more instinctive and unreasoned, an act of kindness navigated on a more ad-hoc basis.

We asked is there a hierarchy of care — are you at the top of that, is that what prioritising self-care is? And if we definitely can’t care for everyone, then is there a graceful way of letting people know you are not able to care for them right now?

Redefining Self-care

Self-care has oddly become something to add to the to-do list — something you often have to purchase and/or ‘do’. But maybe we need to redefine self-care, maybe it’s not all about the capitalist individualistic version of self-care as we have come to define it in the western world.

Hannah shared about the idea of the ecological self, this is moving away from the concept of the skin-bound self that we all know well, moving our sense of self to a wider scope including other humans and non-humans around us.

This can be a difficult concept initially, we are so conditioned to think of the ‘self’ as contained within our bodies. However, it’s something that many indigenous communities have always understood. At the recent Fixing the Future conference, organised by Cathy and her team, a 22-year old indigenous person called Elisa, from the Amazon closed the event with the words (translated)

“I am the Amazon — care for me like another being”.

She said it with great humility and conviction, this was not a bold statement, but an obvious statement, she is the Amazon. In this sense ‘self-care’ takes on a whole new meaning, as the self is one with all beings around, she truly is the river and the trees and the sky and the oceans.

• What would self-care look like if we understood ourselves in this wider sense?
• I am the Thames, I am Epping Forest, I am the cherry blossoms, I am Hyde Park — what does self-care now look like?

This kind of re-framing and understanding the self in the widest sense can be very powerful. Cassie pointed to some work that shows evidence that community-care can often be a better starting point for self-care. When people act to care for a community, the individuals actually were better off than when care was directed on an individual basis.

In a way this is also another way of defining the caregiver care-receiver relationship, in that you are one. However, a key difference is that in this framing it is nonsensical to care for others at the expense of your body and life because by doing that you are harming the very self you are caring for.

I left the session feeling grateful to have focused on this question of care. It’s something I have certainly not had much opportunity to discuss with others, especially those in my professional life and it felt hugely empowering and important to share our thoughts on these topics in some depth. The session closed with one Point Person sharing that she had told her dad it was ok to go. She explained they had had a wonderful 18 months saying goodbye to him but he was in those very final stages of life for many weeks — It was as if he couldn’t let go, didn’t want to leave his family. She was completely burnt out, exhausted and unable to care for her children. They all were exhausted. It was as if he needed something to help him let go. He died a few days later peacefully.

She acknowledged she had never told that to anyone.

We need to talk about care. It’s clear that care is everywhere and is the glue of our society, so it only makes sense to speak about, celebrate and value care, we wouldn’t be here without it.