Us-Care

Us-care is self-care for relationships; making space in an overfilled cup for more stress.

My wife has an expression: “My cup is too full to handle any more bullshit.” 

Well, ok. That’s not exactly it. She doesn’t say “bullshit.” That’s just a touch of my own self-mockery inserted into it. But the cup metaphor she’s invented is what we want to focus on anyway.

Often the “bullshit,” meaning stressors, is mine. Some problematic narrative that I’m carrying around and want to unload on her like a hyperlexic, therapy-addicted narcissist. For instance, the self-averted narrative that I am a narcissist.

For my part, I often say I don’t “have bandwidth” to deal with others’ issues. As if there is a limited amount of stimulation that I can handle and beyond that, the series of tubes that is me gets all clogged up.

Sometimes, there’s not that much stress in the cup. Sometimes my bandwidth is high because I’m on an energetic upswing. At times, getting some comfort from one another is easy, simple and a joy on both sides.

But to steal my wife’s metaphor, when my cup fills up, it spills over and—regretfully—I make my stress someone else’s problem. 

I’m not alone. My environment constantly lobs cannonballs of water into my cup. An uncomfortable interaction at work. A family member’s crisis. A friend who is struggling. All people who, very understandably, have cups that are too full. So full that they are spilling into mine. 

And, of course, there are always my own internal pressures. 

There are stories I project onto the world due to the karmic baggage I’ve accumulated simply by growing up and developing narratives about my misfortunes and traumas. My pessimistic narcissism. My social anxiety. My feelings of self-aversion. All of it gets cast onto others’ neutral behavior, turning it into something negative; something that adds a splash of stress to my cup. 

Hell. Being in an extractive, exploitative capitalist system creates a sort of constant flow of stress into every single one of our cups. 

Even the person screaming at people I can’t see at the gas station has a cup that society’s condemnation of him has filled so brutally full that he’s splashing a little bit at every twitchy person who just needs gas and is afraid to make eye contact.

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What can be done with a full cup?

How do any of us avoid piling our woes onto friends, family or even strangers at the bar? 

Well, obviously some people don’t. 

Some people’s cups are so chronically full, they can do nothing but complain. We all know people who can have literally any kind of day, and still find a way to kvetch. 

And again, lots of times, that’s totally ok. It’s good even. When you spill a little bit of water into my cup and I’m resourced to receive it gracefully, we both feel good about the social connection we’ve created. That vulnerability shared and accepted is the atomic unit of every kind of love there is, from fame to philia to bromance to romance.

But, knowing that the patience of those around me is finite, I can also take care of my own cup myself.

See where I’m going with this?

The term self-care seems to be gaining in popularity. Wellness influencers abound who instruct us to do something a little bit pleasant and nourishing when we’re overly stressed out. I guess, in these musings I’m only qualified to share through decades of therapy and self-help literature consumption, I am an example of yet another wellness nut.

Still. It evaporates some of the water to engage one or more of my senses in an activity that brings me pleasure. Taking a bath is good self-care because the warm water is physically soothing. Listening to music works because the sounds are enjoyable. Pick your own examples for the other senses. 

Like the Sims my daughter has recently started playing with, we each have a number of drives, or needs. When the social bar gets low, spending some time with your amigos is the best way to burn off some of the water from your cup.

Abdicating this responsibility can sometimes create serious problems.

When your cup runneth over—in a bad way.

We’ve covered the water bombs we’re each bombarded with from other, overflowing cups, but where does the water go when it sloughs off the side? It lands in the relational cup. Relationships themselves are a sort of “individual;” a cup that contains other cups.

Of course, when you break apart the word individual, its literal referent is something that can’t be divided further. When applied to humans, it’s ludicrous. You can obviously divide us into functional units that work together with the nervous system we consider “us,” for example gut flora and skin microbes.

A relationship—a marriage, say—is similar. It may appear that you can break it down into its constituent individual humans, but at a certain level of abstraction, it is an entity unto itself.

I can absolutely improve my relationships by ensuring I am doing The Great Work to manage my own water levels. Not only do I need to evaporate water through self-care, I need to have strong boundaries to prevent others’ undue water overwhelming me, I need to integrate the unacknowledged shadow whose projection creates additional stress and I need to solve the real world problems, aligning my life with growth, ease, and abundance.

But what happens when, in one of my relationships, my partner splashes a little too much water my way when I’m already at the breaking point? 

I snap.

This creates a kind of gunk in the cup that contains both my and my partners cup. We may retreat to work on self-care and solve our own problems, but that residue remains. 

It’s practically a cliché that over time, resentments build up from unresolved conflicts. There may be forgiveness. Even renewal: a second honeymoon phase or spurt of zealous, all-consuming New Relationship Energy. But still, what is left incomplete leaves evidence in the Relationship cup.

Different relationships are different shapes, but no matter how secure their edges or spacious their interiors, if enough water builds up, eventually it drowns the cup of one or both of the people inside. 

I believe that this is how abrupt break-ups can happen even in healthy relationships. 

I know that self-care reduces the water level of my own cup, but what reduces the water level of my relational cups? 

Us-Care

Some problems do not need to be resolved rationally. As much as I believe in therapy, I have begun to note there are frequently long standing issues, personally and in relationships, that don’t need to be dissected—logically picked apart and resolved with endless talking. 

After all, some couples are composed of skilled talkers, but still have problems. Perhaps instead of skillfully articulating their needs for the umpteenth time, using perfect Nonviolent Communication and flawless I-statements, they just need to rekindle intimacy through us-care.

What does that entail?

I’m still working on the theory, but my hunch is that us-care activities fall into the same basic categories as self-care. A relationship has senses and drives just as much as a person does. 

Many people seem to have only learned to express their intimacy through sweaty together time between the sheets. Or they toil under the weight of an increasingly full relational cup for ten months out of the year and then try to burn off the whole volume in a flash during the holidays.

But that’s like using binge drinking for self-care: it isn’t actually restorative. Over-indulgence doesn’t nourish the way consistent, relaxing, subtle pleasure does. Plus, at both zoom levels, it often results in some kind of hangover.

Does some more frequent canoodling satisfy the Relationship’s kinesthetic senses, an aggregate of the senses of the humans composing the couple? 

Does some low-key forest bathing somewhere with beautiful vistas please the Relationship’s visual senses? Can we lean into opportunities to each show joy and awe at the quirky trees and pretty rocks the other observes?

Does being in community with other couples sate the Relationship’s drive for socialization? Every relationship requires models of successful love to emulate and enjoy the company of.

Many of us don’t know a single successful marriage. Many of us have been left with nearly no friends post-pandemic.

We need to know that love is possible.

And I think it is. 

Provided you engage in us-care.