by Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, and Laura E. Escobar-Ratliff, DSW
World Social Work Day is the third Tuesday of March annually. This yr’s theme is Buen Vivir: Shared Future for Transformative Change, which is the 2024 Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development Theme 4. This essay articulates how expansive self-care is important to attain this agenda.
Buen Vivir Worldview
As described within the World Agenda Assertion (linked above), Buen Vivir is an Indigenous worldview rooted in Latin American beliefs that people are integrally related with pure and social environments. Core facets of Buen Vivir embrace:
- Relationality—Interconnection between all parts of the entire;
- Reciprocity—Reciprocal relationship between human beings and nature, i.e., co-participation;
- Correspondence—Components of actuality correspond to one another in a harmonious means;
- Complementarity—Opposites could be complementary; nothing is superfluous. (Para. 5)
Transformative Change Requires Expansive Frameworks
Seen via a dominant lens, the Buen Vivir worldview could initially appear counter to self-care. Nonetheless, via expansive framework views, they’re inextricably linked. Expansive frameworks counter the paradigms of dominance and exclusion. In addition they reject the equally problematic inclusion frameworks, which nonetheless retain the dominant facilities of energy. Expansive frameworks don’t conform to those problematic paradigms. As an alternative, they remodel!
Buen Vivir counters the dominant damaging paradigms of commodification, consumerism, colonization, casteism, and patriarchy. As such, it may be seen as an expansive framework. Likewise, expansive self-care debunks damaging myths perpetuated by these dominant paradigms about self-care. As certainly one of myriad examples: Expansive self-care counters the consumeristic delusion that self-care is a privilege. As an alternative, like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care emphasizes the human proper of all to wholesome flourishing.
Notably, worldviews that espouse “group, not self” can reinforce damaging messages for traditionally marginalized communities. For instance, Latinx communities can be harmed by this dangerous dissonance. Scripting this piece throughout girls’s her-story month, it’s notably pertinent to notice that, when focus is on “group, not self,” girls are sometimes disproportionately relegated to help roles. Who sometimes cooks, cleans, and nurtures in these communities/actions? Who sometimes assumes management roles? Even in management, girls often do double-duty of management and help roles, contributing to their burnout. Expansive self-care counters this dynamic.
Congruence of Buen Vivir and Expansive Self-Care
Right here, we join the core facets of Buen Vivir—i.e., relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity—with key parts of expansive self-care. As depicted via dotted traces and reciprocal arrows within the visible under, expansive self-care opens up and connects self-care in methods which might be integrally congruent with Buen Vivir. The next narrative explicates this congruence. Embedded hyperlinks additional clarify these parts.
Relationality and Reciprocity
Interconnection is a fundamental element of expansive self-care. Akin to Buen Vivir, the Ubuntu worldview—I am because we are—engages interdependence. Notably, the “we” is comprised of a bunch of “I”s! The standard of interconnection in “we” will depend on the well-being of the “I.” Thus, partaking in a single’s personal self-care is important for contributing to a wholesome, caring collective.
Equally, expansive self-care is wholistic. It engages all facets of being human—bodily, social, religious, emotional, and so forth. Expansive self-care is a human right. Like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care encompasses reciprocal connections between human beings and nature, as co-participants. Care of 1’s self as a human being is inextricably related with care of group and planet, reciprocally and relationally.
In dominant paradigms, hegemonic reification presents “hierarchy” as “actuality”—when, it’s merely constructed by exclusionists as a strategy to keep disproportionate energy. Like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care rejects that framework. Thus, by caring for myself, I don’t “put myself first,” in a hierarchy. Quite, I’m being ethically and lovingly accountable for my very own well-being, as a part of my dedication to the entire. I concurrently perceive my self-care is—in and of itself—helpful, and it’s wholistically related with the well-being of others.
Correspondence and Complementarity
Thus, self-care is not selfish, nor is it self-lessness—it is self-fullness! As such, expansive self-care totally accesses all forms of power—not simply hierarchical energy over—for synergistic empowerment. In a Buen Vivir means, this expansive perspective counters dominant paradigms that foster divisive dysfunction and, as an alternative, promotes empowering, harmonious relationships between parts of actuality.
The dominant body of both/or is one other important barrier. The false dichotomy of particular person versus group/organizational duty for human well-being perpetuates unproductive, dangerous dissonance. Expansive self-care reframes this both/or as AND! Expansive self-care conceptualizes community care, organizational wellness, and self-care as complementary.
Quite than expending power on the dominant framing of oppositional both/or, expansive self-care embraces the wholistic AND! Mirroring the complementarity of Buen Vivir, and utilizing a programs perspective, self-care is the entry level of change the place people can have interaction with a few of the most influence. Expansive self-care conceptualizes self-care as integral to and complementary with bigger programs change.
In abstract, expansive self-care is important for the transformative achievement of Buen Vivir. Self-care isn’t opposite to Buen Vivr—it’s important for it.
Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Associate in The Wellness Group, ETC. This LLC offers analysis, coaching, and session for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals. As a former college member and graduate program director, she and a small (however mighty!) group of colleagues applied an initiative to advertise self-care as a part of the social work schooling curriculum. Beforehand, she served in scientific and administrative roles. She has expertise with navigating toxicity and dysfunction, up-close and private! Likewise, as an educator, she noticed college students enter the sector and shortly burn out. As a devoted social employee, she believes the well-being of practitioners is a matter of social justice and human rights. Thus, she is on a mission to advertise self-care and wellness!
Laura E. Escobar-Ratliff, DSW, is Scientific Assistant Professor and Physician of Social Work (DSW) Program Director on the College of Kentucky School of Social Work. Dr. Escobar-Ratliff has greater than twenty years of direct care, scientific, and administrative expertise, in addition to greater than 10 years of expertise in social work schooling.
