Aug 12, 2026 · 25 min · 10 segments
Self-care isn't a spa day or a to-do list. In the HOCI model, it's one of the six core areas of healthy human functioning -- the ability to identify and tend to your own needs across four domains…
[gentle music] When most people hear the word self-care, they picture one of two things.
Either it's a luxury like a bubble bath or a spa day, a manicure, an expensive retreat that feels like something you haven't quite earned yet, or it feels like a to-do list.
Sleep eight hours, eat your vegetables, exercise, meditate, journal, drink more water.
Neither one is what we're actually talking about today because in our model what we work in, self-care isn't actually a treat and it actually isn't a checklist.
It's one of our six core areas of healthy human functioning, and for a lot of people, especially a lot of men, it's the one that gets skipped almost entirely.
"I should be taking care of everybody else, not me." And for men, it often feels foreign or soft or too feminine, like, "I don't need that kind of thing." And then for people of faith, it can feel a little spiritually suspect, like, "Isn't this just selfishness but in a nicer wrapping?" So today we're gonna reframe all of that because self-care in this sense, it's not optional, it's not gendered, and it's not selfish.
It's the practice of staying alive to yourself, and it actually has real consequences when it's missing.
So let's start with the Hawkeye Model or the Healing Our Core Issues Model, what it actually means by self-care, because it's broader and actually more serious than our cultural version.
So what is it actually? Self-care is the ability to identify and tend to your own needs.
We might have physical needs, right? So our need for sleep, our need for food, our need for movement, the need to go to the doctor, the need for rest.
We might have emotional needs, so processing our feelings, having your inner life witnessed by another human, not being alone with everything.
We're gonna have relational needs, right? Our need for connection and honest relationship and community.
And then we're gonna also have spiritual needs, so needs around our meaning, our purpose, something larger than yourself.
It's not self-care if we only tend to the body and ignore the rest of us, and it's not self-care if you only tend to the spirit and neglect the body.
It's a practice, and the ability to practice it depends on whether you believe your needs matter, which is an esteem question as much as it is a wellness question.
[gentle music] When most people hear the word self-care, they picture one of two things.
Either it's a luxury like a bubble bath or a spa day, a manicure, an expensive retreat that feels like something you haven't quite earned yet, or it feels like a to-do list.
Sleep eight hours, eat your vegetables, exercise, meditate, journal, drink more water.
Neither one is what we're actually talking about today because in our model what we work in, self-care isn't actually a treat and it actually isn't a checklist.
It's one of our six core areas of healthy human functioning, and for a lot of people, especially a lot of men, it's the one that gets skipped almost entirely.
"I should be taking care of everybody else, not me." And for men, it often feels foreign or soft or too feminine, like, "I don't need that kind of thing." And then for people of faith, it can feel a little spiritually suspect, like, "Isn't this just selfishness but in a nicer wrapping?" So today we're gonna reframe all of that because self-care in this sense, it's not optional, it's not gendered, and it's not selfish.
It's the practice of staying alive to yourself, and it actually has real consequences when it's missing.
So let's start with the Hawkeye Model or the Healing Our Core Issues Model, what it actually means by self-care, because it's broader and actually more serious than our cultural version.
So what is it actually? Self-care is the ability to identify and tend to your own needs.
We might have physical needs, right? So our need for sleep, our need for food, our need for movement, the need to go to the doctor, the need for rest.
We might have emotional needs, so processing our feelings, having your inner life witnessed by another human, not being alone with everything.
We're gonna have relational needs, right? Our need for connection and honest relationship and community.
And then we're gonna also have spiritual needs, so needs around our meaning, our purpose, something larger than yourself.
It's not self-care if we only tend to the body and ignore the rest of us, and it's not self-care if you only tend to the spirit and neglect the body.
It's a practice, and the ability to practice it depends on whether you believe your needs matter, which is an esteem question as much as it is a wellness question.
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