We’re revisiting a powerful conversation with board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times contributor, and bestselling author Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. We dive into the stark difference between “faux self-care” and “real self-care,” an internal process rooted in active decision-making, boundaries, and self-compassion.

Whether you’re feeling like you’re drowning under the mental load of parenting or trying to navigate broken structural support systems, this rerun offers a much-needed dose of clarity and empowerment. It’s a honest, eye-opening reminder that true well-being isn’t about buying another product or adding to your to-do list…it’s about making choices aligned with your deepest values.

• Why the modern wellness industry sells “faux self-care” as a commodified to-do list instead of addressing systemic issues.

• The crucial difference between self-care methods (temporary activities) and self-care principles (mindset and decision-making).

• How internalizing unrealistic expectations leads to self-shame and constant comparison among parents.

• The foundational role of setting firm boundaries and silencing your harsh internal critic.

• How using the “Real Self-Care Compass” helps identify personal values to guide life decisions.

• Why practicing real self-care can lead to broader, systemic changes that benefit entire communities.

Want more? Listen to the full, ⁠original episode⁠.

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00;00;00;03 – 00;00;19;27

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the follow up. It’s Doctor Mona, and this is a series on the PedsDocTalk podcast, where we revisit a past episode in less time than it takes you to think of what you can do for yourself with the 15 minutes of free time you miraculously just got. Hint. Listen to this episode. I’m rerunning this one for a couple of reasons.

 

00;00;19;27 – 00;00;37;20

Dr. Mona

First, my friend Pooja Lakshman is deep in writing her new book, Quantum Shifts. So consider this me sending her some good energy while she’s in the trenches. Second, I genuinely love this conversation and it feels like the right time to bring it back up. If you’re listening to this and you’re feeling like you’re drowning, I’ve been there too.

 

00;00;37;21 – 00;01;00;28

Dr. Mona

Heck, I’m kind of there right now with figuring out business stuff. And I want to be clear, this is not the everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. So just take care of yourself. Conversation. No, that’s not what this is. We’re revisiting real self-care. I sat down with Doctor Pooja Lakshman, psychiatrist, New York Times contributor and author of the book real Self-care A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness.

 

00;01;01;05 – 00;01;38;01

Dr. Mona

Crystals, cleansers and bubble baths are not included. We get into the difference between faux self-care and real self-care. What the wellness industry keeps missing. How to actually make self-care transformative instead of just another task, and the very real systemic barriers that get in the way. So go download the full episode wherever you get your podcast reminder it’s in the show notes, and make sure to share this on social and tag PedsDocTalk, the PedsDocTalk podcast and at Pooja Lakshman, when you do, let’s get into talking about what self-care really is.

 

00;01;38;03 – 00;01;45;03

Dr. Mona

What do you think the wellness industry has gotten wrong about self-care, especially when it comes to moms and parents?

 

00;01;45;06 – 00;02;10;20

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Yeah, so right now, wellness and self-care is completely commodified. It’s something that you buy or it’s something that you do. So in the book, I talk a little bit about this concept of like the quantified self and self-care, as it’s been sold to us right now, is very much kind of within that framework. It’s something that you have to check off the list.

 

00;02;10;21 – 00;02;34;08

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

You know, I went to yoga, I did my bullet journal, I made my gratitude list. And especially for moms, when you talk about this all the time, like we know how heavy that mental load is. We have so many tasks over the course of the day, like there’s lots of research on this, but like, you know, by the time you even get to work in the morning, you’ve already done like hundreds of tasks, right?

 

00;02;34;10 – 00;03;03;12

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Yeah. So, like to add something else to the list. It’s just like, what? How? Why? So the problem, as we all know, as your listeners, as the stock talk audience, like, very much knows intimately. The problem isn’t that we aren’t doing enough. The problem is that the sources of support externally are not there. The problem is that, yeah, so hard to find a summer camp for your kid because you have to, like, be on a waiting list in January, up at midnight because it’s going to close.

 

00;03;03;12 – 00;03;25;07

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

It’s going to fill up by 1230. That’s the problem. That’s a structural problem. But wellness is so slick. The marketing is so good. Like the branding the beige colors. So like when you see that stuff pop up on your feed, when you see like those pretty vitamins that are like branded. So well and say that they’re going to help your anxiety.

 

00;03;25;10 – 00;03;55;07

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Of course, it’s so much easier to click buy on that than it is to have to like, sit on hold with your insurance company to try and fight to get your therapy visits paid for. Like of course. Right? Yes. And I do think a lot more people are speaking up about wellness now. But I would say what’s missing from that conversation is compassion, because I think there’s like a lot of snark and eye rolls about, like the goop’s and the all the nonsense that’s out there which like to be thorough, like, yes, absolutely, 100%.

 

00;03;55;07 – 00;04;04;08

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

It’s nonsense. But the reason that it’s there is because we aren’t treating women well. Right. Like that’s why it’s.

 

00;04;04;10 – 00;04;12;04

Dr. Mona

When we’re getting that information from influencers or other moms. Their reality is different than you. I mean, I don’t have the same resources. I cannot wake.

 

00;04;12;04 – 00;04;13;00

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Up before my son.

 

00;04;13;01 – 00;04;29;26

Dr. Mona

I’m so tired because I parented without any help the whole day before. So there’s so much comparison and self-care. There’s so much self shame. I think too, right? Do you feel like, look at that person. They have four kids and they are able to get up at 5 a.m. and work out, but they also probably have some help there.

 

00;04;29;26 – 00;04;46;00

Dr. Mona

They also probably have looked at ways in their life to create a reality that that was a priority for them, but that doesn’t mean you’re not doing that. And it’s not you’re not good enough or anything like that. And that self-judgment can be really hard. In your book, you distinguish between both self-care. So like you know that and real self-care.

 

00;04;46;05 – 00;04;48;12

Dr. Mona

Why do you make that distinction?

 

00;04;48;14 – 00;05;11;00

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Yeah. So I distinguish between so self-care and real self-care. The metaphor that I use is methods versus principles. So I’ll give you an example. So I have a patient who her kind of self-care method is. She really enjoys swimming. So swimming at the why. It’s like her way of working out. It’s her me time going a couple times a week.

 

00;05;11;07 – 00;05;33;14

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

It just feels really good in her body. It’s good for her mental health. So she has been able because of the way her resources are set up, she’s been able to work her schedule so that she can go for a swim at the Y twice a week, and she’s arranged childcare and she’s kind of got everything coordinated. So in this context, the method of self-care is swimming.

 

00;05;33;21 – 00;05;59;28

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

But the principle are all of the decisions that she had to make. All of the hard conversations, all of the self-compassion that she had to give herself, the boundaries and the understanding that even though she’s in a system that is 100% in so many ways stacked against her, she could exert the small onus of agency right to make small choices to make this possible.

 

00;05;59;29 – 00;06;27;04

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

So when I say full self-care, what I really mean is these are methods, right? It could be swimming one person, swimming another person’s peloton, another person’s sitting alone at a coffee shop and drinking the bobo and staring into space. Right? Yeah, but I think the reason that we need to focus on the principles is because in all these different phases of your life, the methods are going to be different, especially on your parenting journey or motherhood journey.

 

00;06;27;04 – 00;06;45;17

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

I have so many patients who are like, well, I used to be able to workout in this way, and that was my self-care. And now I’m a mom and I don’t have time. Or even when I do have time, it doesn’t feel the same. Like it’s not that you’re doing something wrong or bad, it’s just that you need a different method and nobody can give you that method from the outside.

 

00;06;45;18 – 00;07;13;02

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

You have to work through the principles of real self-care, which I’ll just say, like, you know, our boundaries, self-compassion, really identifying your values. And in real self-care, it’s actually a very hands on book. I have lots of exercises and different sort of reflective tools that you can use. I’ve designed an exercise or a resource that’s called the real Self-care compass, which helps you identify your values, but that’s what has to guide your decision making.

 

00;07;13;02 – 00;07;38;05

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

And then from there, that’s how you understand that you do have some power. Yes, everybody has different levels of power based on the color of your skin, based on how much money you make based on the type of family support that you have and the level of education that you have. Yes, all of that is true. And we can all make small micro changes to help us feel closer to ourselves.

 

00;07;38;07 – 00;07;56;26

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

So when I’m talking about real self-care, I’m not talking about a task or a thing to do or thing to buy. It’s really about a way of decision making. Real self-care is a verb. It’s not a noun. It’s something that you actively participate in. And you have to find your own answers, right? Like it can’t come from a guru.

 

00;07;56;26 – 00;08;17;22

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

I can’t come from just picking up somebody else’s solution. But the good news is that once you start to do that work, it stays with you. And then with each transition in your life, whether it’s motherhood, you know, your kids getting older, becoming more independent, whether it’s taking care of your aging parents, there’s always going to be like a new method.

 

00;08;17;22 – 00;08;32;08

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

There’s always going to be a new thing that you have to learn, but you build those skills. So I find that to be actually a really hopeful message, an empowering message that we get to do it for ourselves because that’s the work that actually lasts, you know?

 

00;08;32;09 – 00;08;41;15

Dr. Mona

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And you mentioned already some steps of real self-care, but you talked about boundaries, self-compassion. Are those the steps that you talked about?

 

00;08;41;17 – 00;08;59;01

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

So it’s not steps but it’s more like principles. So it’s kind of like you need to be able to set boundaries. Of course, that’s always the first sort of skill that you need to learn to be able to do any of the other things. And then self-compassion. So understanding how you talk to yourself and you know, that’s one for me.

 

00;08;59;01 – 00;09;19;10

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

That’s the place where I really struggle. Yeah. You know, kind of traditionally I always sort of rolled my eyes at self-compassion because it always felt sort of blue and like, oh God, you’re just going easy on yourself. But this is like self-compassion. More from a psychological standpoint, like learning how to work with the thoughts in your mind. And then sort of the crux of getting clear on what are my values.

 

00;09;19;10 – 00;09;46;26

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

So I’ll give you another example from the book. So with a patient of mine who had a story that’s very familiar to all of us, she’s like a mom of three kids. She works full time, she is burnt out and working through this process in therapy with me. The thing that we came to recognize after she, you know, learned how to set boundaries, understood that that self-critical voice was actually the voice of her mom that she had internalized.

 

00;09;46;28 – 00;10;08;17

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

She realized that she was actually holding a lot of resentment at her partner, because her husband had actually never taken a paternity leave. He had are not asked for paternity leave. And so for her, the real self-care process led her to having some really honest and tough conversations with him so that when they had another baby, he actually went up to his.

 

00;10;08;17 – 00;10;18;15

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

He worked in a small startup and asked for leave, and his company actually offered to give him paid leave and they changed their policy.

 

00;10;18;20 – 00;10;19;22

Dr. Mona

Oh, amazing.

 

00;10;19;22 – 00;10;42;18

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Wow. So that impacted all of the other parents that came after. And it was only because my patient took this whole real self-care process and applied it to herself. And that started with boundaries and compassion and led to changes that impact all of the other parents that are working at that company. So it’s now kind of thing like, who are we?

 

00;10;42;18 – 00;11;09;00

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

Like, we can’t do anything. I’m not an advocate. I don’t know what I’m doing. You know? But no, you do like, you have power, right? And starts with actually in your own life and in your own relationships. So I think, yes, this is very much a prescriptive of self-help book, but it’s not another self-help book. It’s really about how do we actually get to this place of systems change.

 

00;11;09;02 – 00;11;30;11

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up, just a small dose of the real relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;11;30;19 – 00;11;46;01

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.