Life Requires Care: Embracing the Reality of Being Alive

Feb 23

We objectify ourselves in ways that are antithetical to life, in ways that seem strange when we step back to examine them:
any way we get annoyed that we have to take care of ourselves
when we act as though our bodies are an inconvenience
being confused by the basic maintenance of life *(what do you mean I have to drink more than 4 cups of water??)*

Proof of Life® is the ethos of my work, so I’ll be talking through these points through the lens of the elements of Chinese medicine, with the idea that there’s a patriarchal side to them and a matriarchal side to them.

This objectification reflects the Metal element of Proof of Life, where perfectionism distorts our ability to see our own humanity and leaves us disconnected from the wisdom and vitality embedded in our lived experiences.

Like a pet you got because it was cute but now you resent feeding and cleaning and walking it — why can’t it just be cute without me needing to take care of it — this is the energy we need to combat if we want to bring back life as the central theme of, um… living.

Why is this objectifying?

Because you’re trying to fit yourself into box where aliveness doesn’t exist. It’s along the lines of wanting to be perfect: this is quintessential patriarchal language and it’s meant to use your humanity to imprison you.

Once you’re on the hook, it’s so easy to flip being a person on its head to get you in a state of constant desire for more, without doing the actual work of taking care of yourself.

Don’t think that, in thinking about self-objectification, images of Instagram and Mar-a-Lago and Meta face don’t flash before my eyes — the *de-humaning* of a woman’s face, the erasure of life and wisdom, the objectification to the point that the pinnacle of patriarchal beauty is looking literally and actually plastic?

This is a whole thing. I think about it a lot.

Those feelings of wanting to take the easy way out when it comes to being human reflect Patriarchal Earth: Accumulation happens when we don’t do the work of maintenance (think about if you never vacuumed — dust and other gross things accumulate) and accumulation can feel heavy, so it then further diminishes our ability to maintain. (For anyone well versed in TCM: this is phlegm.)

TL;DR: we’re not in the practice of taking care of ourselves.

This speaks to a broader socialization of how we approach care in particular and space-holding in general: we are taught that taking care of ourselves and others is burdensome, versus what’s really happening: across the gender spectrum, we are socialized out of care (men still more than women, but women are not immune) and then we are left with the confusion that time and gravity ultimately bring to an untended human body, face included.

The result of the lack of care ultimately becomes the burden, but it’s framed as a way to pathologize aging, rather than examining the ways in which we are living. (This aligns with Patriarchal Metal within Proof of life, where perfection blinds us to human beauty, causing us to erase the wisdom and experience gained through time.)

The Proof of Life® ethos breaks it down by element:

Earth: Accumulation diminishes your ability to maintain, which means you’re not in the practice of taking care of yourself.
Metal: Patriarchal perfection blinds you to human beauty, which leaves you vulnerable to erasing your hard-earned wisdom.
Fire: Lack of internal connection means you’re constantly looking outward for your sense of self, which means you never have the chance to internally reference and learn about who you are.
Wood: Distancing language around your sense of internal knowing numbs you to your own intuition, which leaves you in an anxious state—you feel something, but you’re not connected enough to it to be able to translate it (my course Bitch to Witch goes through this).
Water: Fear isolates you and cuts you off from your ancestors, which leaves you distrustful of others and disconnected from the deepest part of yourself.

Because here’s the thing: no matter what society says and no matter what the current trends are, we cannot technologize ourselves out of humanity. You can biohack all you want, but at the end of the day, your body isn’t an accessory to life: it is life.

Let’s celebrate that.

**The Socialization of Care**
**(Or Lack there of)**

The way we are socialized to think about care runs deep. From a young age, women are taught to care: first for their parents and siblings and friends, and then continuing on for their partners and children. And let’s not forget how women are taught to be laser-focused on their bodies as objects, rather than learning to take care of them for health.

Enter the 6.3 trillion dollar wellness industry, marketed almost entirely towards women, reinforcing at every turn that they’re just… eww. Wrong.

Men, on the other hand, grow up without being taught how to listen to their bodies in ways that center care. In TCM, we see this through the lens of Patriarchal Water, I talk about how fear of others and detachment from lineage create a rift in self-trust, leading to neglect of the body’s fundamental needs. Men don’t know how to engage in consistent maintenance as it relates to themselves and others, and they do not often see care as necessary — it’s optional because society at its core caters to them. It’s not that they don’t want to care for themselves; it’s that they’ve never been expected to. Men have been socialized to push through, to ignore pain, to assume that their bodies will simply keep working.

Until they don’t.

The bigger issue here is the lack of community care, with all community members being responsible for self and other. Under patriarchy, the collective space isn’t held, and the space-holders are almost exclusively female-gendered. Women engage in community care with each other far more than men, but it’s still largely sold off for parts so that private equity can profit off what sustains human life.

When we commodify what it means to be well, it makes sense that people aren’t exactly encouraged to take care of themselves. This reflects Patriarchal Earth — when maintenance is deprioritized in favor of accumulation, true well-being is lost, and care itself becomes an afterthought.

This is why so many men reach middle age and suddenly feel blindsided by their own bodies, and why so many women are perceived as hypochondriacs as they enter middle age. Men go to the doctor with real issues: their arteries are clogged, their cholesterol is up. Women go to the doctor after a lifetime of being gaslit by medical professionals, continuing to listen to their bodies as best as possible, and are told they’re not sick enough. It’s just aging, suck it up, stop complaining.

For those who take care and notice differences, those changes are minimized, and age becomes an implicit pathology. Rather than encourage care for self and others, the medical community and society at large blame the fact that time marches on — how dare your body succumb to that?

In patriarchy, it’s a moral failing to show signs of aging.

Even knowing that the precipitous drop in estrogen that is post-menopause puts a woman at a six-fold risk of having a heart attack, we still don’t take seriously enough the fact that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in menopausal women. (For pregnant women, it’s homicide and suicide…).

Men in particular become shocked that they are “falling apart.” They don’t understand why they feel stiff, why their health is deteriorating, why their energy isn’t what it used to be. Again, this reflects Patriarchal Water: Fear isolates and disconnects us from the wisdom of our ancestors, leaving many without the foundational knowledge of care passed through generations. And yet, when you look at the reality, it’s not shocking at all. NPR recently posed the question why men die younger than women and why their health outcomes are worse, proposing that we should focus more on men's health — which is actually hilarious (as are the comments on threads).

Women weren’t included in empirical research until 1993.

The focus of the western medical model has literally, for hundreds of years, always been male-focused. People suffering from diffuse syndromes and autoimmune disorders aren’t studied at length — because the people suffering from those things are women.

Men just often don’t seek medical attention until it’s too late. We don’t need studies to know that, NPR. This is a care issue, not an issue about a lack of focus on men’s health.

Because the answer is right in front of us: men were never taught to take care. And without care, there is no continuation of life.

If you’re reading this and feeling frustrated that you have to take care of yourself, let this be a reframe:

Care isn’t an obligation. It isn’t a burden. It’s the price of staying alive.

And staying alive is the point.

We have to start seeing care as a fundamental, necessary, and normal part of life. Don’t waste your hard-earned energy resenting needing to take care! It’s not something to avoid. We cannot continue to slap a price tag on care and sell it as an optional luxury. It is not something to outsource to AI. It is not something to lament. It is not something to see as a task.

Care is the fabric of existence. In Proof of Life, Matriarchal Fire represents internal connection. When we are truly attuned to ourselves, care is no longer seen as a burden but as a birthright. It is through this self-relationship that we reclaim our ability to thrive, rather than merely survive. This is the heart of Proof of Life and why it’s the ethos of my work: because it’s about reclaiming care as a necessary and natural part of human vitality, rather than something to commodify or outsource.

It’s how life continues, from the smallest biological process to the deepest human relationships. It’s what allows us to thrive.

The next time you feel annoyed that you have to stretch, or drink water, or get extra rest, or go to a doctor’s appointment, remind yourself: You’re not failing. You’re alive. And this is what it means to be alive. Move your body, practice mental flexibility, and connect to others through the fabric of care.

Let care be an act of presence, not an act of punishment.

Let it be a radical reclamation of what it means to exist in a body that deserves tending.

Because without care, there is no continuation of life. And you’re here to live.