Today, self-care is often framed as something we buy: a product, a ritual, a promise of improvement. But long before it became part of wellness culture, self-care emerged as a radical act rooted in survival, autonomy, and resistance.
To understand what self-care truly means, we have to look beyond modern marketing and return to the communities who shaped it as a practice of preservation rather than performance.
From Medical Term to Political Practice
The concept of self-care began in clinical settings, referring to patients participating in their own health maintenance. Over time, activists and marginalized communities expanded its meaning, reframing care as a necessary response to systems that failed to protect them.
During the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, self-care became inseparable from social justice work. Black feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde articulated self-care not as indulgence, but as survival, famously writing that caring for oneself was an act of self-preservation and political resistance.
In this context, rest and wellness were not luxuries. They were tools for sustaining long-term activism in a society structured by racism, sexism, and inequity.
Community Care and Embodied Resistance
One of the most tangible examples of radical self-care in action came from the Black Panther Party, which established free health clinics, nutrition programs, and preventive screenings in underserved communities. These initiatives reframed health as collective care rather than individual privilege.
Within civil rights movements, nervous-system practices were also deeply present. Activists understood intuitively that sustaining resistance required tending to the body as well as the cause. Many civil rights leaders integrated nervous-system practices into their daily lives. Historical records show that Rosa Parks maintained a personal yoga and stretching practice, sometimes teaching it within her community, viewing care for the body as part of sustaining long-term activism.
Historical accounts also describe figures such as Angela Davis and Ericka Huggins incorporating mindfulness, meditation, and movement into their routines, even during incarceration. These practices were not aesthetic trends — they were grounding tools that allowed activists to regulate stress and remain present in their work.
When Self-Care Became a Commodity
As wellness entered mainstream culture in the late 20th century, the meaning of self-care began to shift. What originated as preservation slowly transformed into performance.
Today, the global self-care and wellness industry is valued in the billions, often centered around beauty, productivity, and personal optimization rather than collective well-being.
While many rituals and treatments can absolutely support health, the cultural messaging surrounding them frequently relies on insecurity; suggesting that worth is something to achieve rather than something inherent. And to achieve it we must change.
This shift reflects broader patriarchal standards that prioritize youth, smoothness, and visual compliance. Aging becomes framed as something to correct rather than something to honor, and all of the purchases needed to achieve said standard.
The Pressure to Remain Palatable
Modern beauty culture often encourages us to maintain an appearance that feels closer to adolescence than adulthood. The normalization of invasive procedures and constant correction can create the illusion that intervention is required rather than optional, and that participation is needed to look beautiful and appealing.
This is not about judgment or denying personal choice. Every person deserves autonomy over their body. But it is worth questioning why so many of us feel pressure to change ourselves in the first place.
When self-care becomes synonymous with erasing signs of life lived, it shifts away from care and toward compliance, keeping the nervous system in a subtle state of vigilance rather than rest. Our focus on external fixes fueled by consumerism, rather than embracing and honoring our selves and our lives.
Naming the Difficulty
Unlearning these narratives is not easy. Cultural conditioning runs deep, and even with awareness, it can be difficult to separate self-trust from external expectation.
Self-care as activism does not require perfection. It asks only for awareness and a willingness to pause and ask where our choices are coming from. Activist spaces have long recognized that burnout, stress, and emotional fatigue are real barriers to change. Practices that restore the body are not distractions from meaningful work; they are what make sustainable engagement possible.
Returning to the Radical Roots of Rest
Today, many of us live in systems that reward urgency and constant output. Rest can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable when we’ve been taught that worth is tied to productivity.
But returning to the radical roots of self-care invites a different rhythm.
It asks us to see the beauty in aging as lived experience rather than failure. To approach skincare and wellness as relationship and healing rather than correction. To recognize that small, consistent acts of care can be quietly revolutionary.
Choosing gentler rituals, slower practices, or moments of stillness may seem small. Yet these choices push back against a culture that benefits from our exhaustion and insecurity. These acts of self-care can provide the rejuvenation to allow us to show up and participate fully where life needs us most.
Where This Philosophy Lives at Periidot
At Periidot, care is rooted in honoring the body’s natural rhythms rather than forcing it into someone else’s definition of beauty. Treatments are designed to support regulation, resilience, and long-term skin health rather than override the body’s intelligence.
Self-care is not about escaping who you are. It is about returning to yourself.
Because rest has always been radical. And choosing to care for the body with compassion — especially in a world that often asks us to change it — remains an act of quiet activism.
Sources
“Origins of Self-Care and Why Activists and Advocates Need to Practice It,” Community Solutions Staff, Community Solutions
“The Origins of Self-Care and Why Caring for Ourselves Is an Act of Defiance Against a System That Wants Us to Grind,” Climate Leadership Initiative, Climate Leadership Initiative
“Wellness and Radical Care Resource Guide,” SAIC Library Guides, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“Analyzing Radical Self-Care,” Community Psychology Contributors, CommunityPsychology.com
“PTSD Research and Trauma Exposure,” Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times
“The Radical History of Self-Care,” Brittney McNamara, Teen Vogue
“How Self-Care Went From Radical to Frou-Frou to Radical Once Again,” Aisha Harris, Slate
