The fizzy bottle: how safe does it feel to lift the lid on ‘fizzy’ emotions and sticky subjects?
For leaders sitting on something their team hasn't said out loud yet.
Bottling up emotions and unsayable words can risk a build up of stress that leads to explosive conflicts, burnout, health problems and more. I’m interested in how we can take the same approach we would use with a shaken up fizzy bottle – unscrewing the lid slowly, carefully, and a little at a time.
How we care for ourselves is political
For anyone who's tired of being told to fix their burnout with bubble baths and good vibes.
The concept of self-care tends to bring to mind a familiar set of images: inspirational quotes typed in a looping script, aimed at over-stretched, exhausted working mothers who're told to wash their troubles away in a fragrant bubble bath, followed by a green smoothie or a cheeky glass of wine.
I'll admit to a bit of cynicism here. I'm a fan of hot baths, smoothies, and any relief from the heavily gendered labour of caring for others. It isn't about shaming anyone's evening routine. But there's an urgent need to unpack the industry built around wellness, the products we're sold, and whose voices get centred or silenced in the process. As Skunk Anansie proclaimed in the nineties: 'Yes, it's f***ing political, everything's political!'
When we reduce self-care to a consumer habit, we strip away its history and its teeth. We treat chronic exhaustion as a private hygiene problem to be solved with scented candles, rather than asking why so many of us are running on empty in the first place.