Self-Help
books, support groups, and
more. “She also takes time,”
PW’s review said, “to explain
the recent history of the term
self-care, its limits as a cure,
and the potential for self-care to
be used as an excuse for fur-
thering consumerism.”
Borges eschews boutique fit-
ness classes and pricey rose
quartz water bottles in favor of
free mood-boosting activities and attitude-changing precepts,
but she doesn’t oversell their promise. “Self-care has its purpose
and can be life-changing for many,” she writes, “but in advocating
for it, we can’t forget that the onus to protect our mental health
isn’t only on self-care—it’s on the system that makes practicing
self-care necessary in the first place.”
At its most basic level, self-care is practiced by all living
creatures as a means of survival, Rani Shah writes in Wisdom from
a Humble Jellyfish (Dey Street, May, 2020). But modern stressors,
she continues, have distanced many people from the natural
rhythms of their bodies. As an antidote, Shah leads readers on
a tour through the natural world, seeking inspiration from
dragonflies, sunflowers, and yes, the humble jellyfish, which,
she points out, is only propelled after contracting its body and
then surrendering to the ocean currents. Likewise, moments of
rest are critical to the functioning of the human brain.
Those who need help surrendering can turn to Finding Your
Higher Self by Sophie Saint Thomas, a cannabis self-care guide
that Adams Media is releasing in December. Adams editor-in-
chief Brendan O’Neill says that after market research showed
more people talking openly about adding marijuana and CBD
oil to their self-care routines, the publisher approached Thomas,
who writes about sex, drugs, and the occult for a variety of pub-
lications, about doing a book. Yoga and meditation are among
the hundred or so activities Saint Thomas suggests enhancing
with CBD or THC; she also recommends adding CBD oil to a
face mask or drawing a cannabis bath.
Attorney and activist Melody Moezzi
turned to a different form of self-medica-
tion—poetry—after suffering a manic
episode, a process she recounts in The
Rumi Prescription (TarcherPerigee, Mar.
2020). Moezzi, an Iranian-American who
has written on such topics as being
bipolar and the bigotry Muslims faced
after 9/11, here describes her descent into
what she calls “madness” as unwittingly
stumbling into “the land of mystics.”
After her hospitalization, Moezzi and
her father, who had recited Sufi verses to
her when she was a child and again while
she was in the hospital, together trans-
lated the work of 13th-century poet
Rumi into English. She found particular
inspiration in his notion of “the Beloved”
which, she believes, anyone can tap in a
time of need. “The Beloved is not a pas-
sion we ought to pursue,” she writes,
“but a sacred inheritance that lives
within each of us, that connects us, and
that—if we let it—wakes us up.” ■Jasmina Kelemen is a former breaking news edi-
tor who lives in Houston and writes about books,
food, and travel.continued from p. 31