Self Care and Communal Flourishing

In this episode, Tiffany Bluhm returns to the Untidy Faith Podcast to help us reframe self-care as an essential component of both personal wholeness and communal flourishing. Moving beyond the commercialized wellness industry, Tiffany offers a powerful perspective on how caring for ourselves in a world that doesn't is both biblical and necessary for creating meaningful social change. Drawing from biblical women and historical examples, she challenges the glorification of burnout and self-sacrifice prevalent in American church culture.

In this episode we discuss:

* How the American church has often discouraged self-care by celebrating and congratulating women who spend themselves until there's nothing left

* The false dichotomy between self-care and self-sacrifice, and why they're actually "a tension to be managed, not solved"

* How biblical women like Miriam demonstrate that self-care isn't a luxury only for the privileged but a necessary component of liberation

* The powerful example of interned Japanese-American women during WWII who practiced communal self-care as resistance

* Practical steps for beginning a self-care journey, including identifying what's missing in your life and what you need to let go of

About Tiffany Bluhm

Tiffany Bluhm is a speaker and writer with more than fifteen years of experience in ministry and nonprofit leadership. She is the author of The Women We’ve Been Waiting For, Prey Tell, She Dreams, and Never Alone. Her work is at the intersection of faith and justice, and her writing has been featured in Publishers Weekly, Sojourners, the YouVersion Bible app, and more. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two sons.

Timestamps:

00:51 Challenges of Self Care in the American Church

01:33 Redefining Self Care

03:49 Historical Examples of Self Care

07:08 Communal Flourishing Through Self Care

12:52 Practical Steps for Self Care

27:48 Supporting Others in Their Self Care Journey

29:36 Where to Find Tiffany Online

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kateboyd.substack.com/subscribe