Is Your "Self-Care" Just a Barrier to Connection?

The Surprising Paradox of Modern Mental Health & the Real Cost of Avoiding Discomfort

Aug 06, 2025

“Remain in your peace — Someone pays for it here, every day”.
- Ruba Khalid

Protect your peace. Protect your mental health. Protect your space. It seems we cannot talk about protecting ourselves more than we already are. I’m not sure if there is any other piece of advice being followed more closely than this one. So much so that the message itself, while being great advice for some scenarios, has inadvertently created a world where the results are the opposite of what we had hoped for.

Like a double-edged sword, in protecting our peace and mental health, we have created a world that is numb to the suffering of others, so much so that the good in humanity seems to have all but vanished.

Now, do I not advocate for a person protecting their peace? Not at all. I fiercely believe in creating and maintaining healthy boundaries. I have learned firsthand what it does to a person when we put everybody else before our own needs.

We are human. We come with limitations. When we have nobody pouring into us in a way that allows us to replenish our stores of compassion, it becomes extremely important to reclaim our energy and start pouring back into ourselves. Unless you want to contract some physical illness. Then by all means, keep going. But it wouldn’t be for long.

In his book, When the Body Says No1, Dr. Gabor Maté reminds us that when we fail to uphold healthy boundaries, our body steps in and says the no for us. And it does. I know because I have also experienced this firsthand.

Understanding the Nuances of Self-Protection

So what exactly is my issue with this advice? In order to understand my perspective, let’s break down this message. When we tell ourselves that we need to protect our peace, we often begin to view others as the problem. In essence, we shut out everyone who brings any level of chaos into our lives. We start perceiving our triggers as external factors rather than recognizing them as parts of ourselves that are wounded and in need of attention.

Have you heard those mental health coaches joke about how all you need to do is visit your parents and other early caregivers to realize how unhealed you are after 10 years of therapy? It’s because we are not addressing the core issues. Instead, we are merely removing the triggers.

Instead of expressing, we are suppressing. Instead of feeling, we are distracting. Instead of connecting, we are hiding - hiding our pain, our wounds, our traumas, our beauty, our wisdom, our lessons, our love and our soul. Our very essence. Consequently, we isolate the parts of ourselves that require the most nurturing.

The Pressure of Perpetual Happiness

Another issue with this approach is that we also begin to believe that if we are not happy and peaceful all the time, then there is something wrong with us.

Imagine a life where everything appears serene. You wake up to a pristine home, walk barefoot to the kitchen to make herbal tea while your pet cat purrs softly at you (I know you need to brush first, but I am trying to paint a picture here, so give me a break). There is soulful music playing in the background, and you sink into your oh-so-comfortable couch with a book. It looks perfect, doesn’t it? However, if internally you are yearning for a connection that does not exist in your life, then all of this is meaningless and performative.

In reality, you are struggling. And that’s because you are a human-being and we are wired for connection. Yes, you are. Stop fighting it! (Although, I hope you are fighting it instead of being completely numb to it, as that’s much better).

And no, hanging out with your friends every weekend while sipping on poison is not connection. True connection occurs when you can share your pain and suffering with one another. When you can hold each other’s pain during times of need and listen to each other’s worries without discomfort. This is how you establish a genuine connection. Do you have that, oh peaceful one?

Many of you know that you need to act happy in your vast circle of friends because that is the only way to fit-in and be welcomed into your good-vibes-only friend/family group. Your pain is not permitted to impact their peace because the moment you reveal you are a human with a wide range of emotions, they will shut you out as well and you cannot blame them for that. Peace comes first after all.

Consequences

Do you see how, in protecting our peace, we lose even more of it by:

Feeling the pressure to appear happy, peaceful and fulfilled when we are not.
Becoming uncomfortable sharing our fears and worries with others since we do not want to “burden them” which further isolates us.

Additionally, human beings tend to seek a purposeful life. The lack of connection has resulted in a society hyper-focused on hoarding wealth because we do not know any other definition of success. We also do not have a village to fall back on when we trip and fall in life — something we all inevitably experience. This leads to constant anxiety in many of us, and no matter what we do, it’s never enough. Before we know it, hoarding resources becomes our only purpose.

If these were the only issues, I would not be sitting here writing this; I would be writing stories instead. However, everything changed when I saw so many of us ignoring something significant that I am not sure I can fully articulate here. I am new here, if you can’t tell. But there is something big happening in our world right now. It starts with the letter "H" and relates to the “Never Again” sentiment. It involves a beautiful land of beautiful people represented by the colors red, black, white, and green. If you have no idea what I am talking about, this message is for you, my friend. I am glad it found you.

This is not the first time in the history of humanity that we have attacked each other with the intention of inflicting maximum pain and suffering. But this is the first time when our entire world knows that it’s happening. However, there is no army of warriors to fight against these atrocities. Forget about the army, most of us are still looking away because it is “too painful to witness”. And it is. It truly is. I am changed forever from witnessing what I have.

Buy Me Time to Write

Every day, I think of these beautiful children and innocent people, deeply wounded, being starved for months, lying on dirty hospital floors, waiting for some relief from their pain. A relief that never arrives because the leaders we chose are just as numb and just as mindless with their life’s purpose as we are.

And so the innocents continue to suffer at our hands. No anesthesia, no medication, no painkillers, no baby formula, no diapers, no food, no water—nothing. The word “painful” does not do justice to the depth of this suffering. However, there is a price to pay when we refuse to witness this in the name of protecting our peace. That price is peace itself.

When we fail to connect with others, it becomes impossible for us to find the strength to take action. Ignoring such suffering also numbs us to our role behind this suffering. And when we remain numb and weak, we quietly choose the side of the oppressor. Even the oppressor is astonished that they do not have work to expel these people from their land, and that we are, in fact, okay with these loving, generous people perishing away slowly, in front of our eyes.

One day we will have to face what we failed to witness and take action against. Our children will present us with the pictures and videos we chose not to engage with. They will ask us why we did not even attempt to protect their rights and freedoms when they were being stolen, once again. What will we tell them then? That in our efforts to protect our personal peace, we allowed our world to be destroyed?

This is not a plea for help. This is a call for you to awaken to your highest self. Protecting our peace has become increasingly costly and detrimental to both our souls and our world. It has stripped us of the very essence of our humanity. Now is the time for genuine healing — not by building walls around ourselves, but by extending a helping hand to others.

If we cannot do that, then we must at least become witnesses to the capacity of evil that we all carry within ourselves. To allow it to stir something deep within us that we have been trying to numb for far too long.

🌶️ Thank you for reading Sweet Chili Truths!

🌶️ Need an anchor in the chaos? I wrote a poem that offers a deep, immediate answer to the question: How do we truly find lasting peace? Read it below: