Nobody becomes a single parent and thinks, I’ve got this self-care thing covered. It finds its way to the bottom of the list almost immediately, and for good reason. Not because you don’t want it, but because the gap between what you know you need and what the day actually allows can feel impossible to close.
This week’s conversation goes straight into that tension, not to hand you another checklist, but to help you figure out what actually refills you and how to make even a little of it possible.
Robert Beeson, Founder & CEO of Solo Parent, joins co-host Elizabeth Cole, a single parent, and contributor Amber Fuller, a counselor with a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy and single parent, for an honest, practical conversation about what self-care really means when you’re already carrying more than your share. Between the three of them, they’ve navigated full custody, shared parenting, the guilt spiral, the perfectionism trap, and the exhaustion of being the only adult on call, all the time. What they bring isn’t theory. It’s lived.
You might recognize yourself in some of this. The dream of what your self-care routine could look like bumping up against the reality of school drop-off, work, activities, dinner, and a kid who needs you even on their other parent’s week. The feeling that taking time for yourself is somehow selfish when the list hasn’t been touched yet. The sense that even when a free hour appears, you can’t quite figure out how to use it without the guilt catching up.
Key Insights from This Episode:
- Both relief and restoration have a place, and telling them apart is what makes self-care actually work
- Self-care is personal, and the best version of it is the one that actually works for your life
- Stillness is not passive, it is one of the most active and necessary things you can choose
Both Relief and Restoration Have a Place, and Telling Them Apart Is What Makes Self-Care Actually Work
The word self-care has been stretched so far that it can mean almost anything, and that’s part of the problem. A pedicure counts. So does a glass of wine. So does a two-hour scroll through your phone at midnight. But not all of it is actually filling you back up.
Relief and restoration feel similar in the moment but land differently afterward. Relief stops the noise. It gives you a break, a chance to check out, a temporary pause from the mental load that never fully powers down. There is nothing wrong with relief. Sometimes you just need the freight train in your head to slow down for a minute.
Restoration is something different. It requires an investment, a bit of energy, maybe some planning, but it pays you back. You come out the other side feeling like you have something to give again. For some people that’s a walk outside. For others it’s painting, or cooking, or sitting with a cup of coffee before anyone else wakes up. The common thread is that you feel more like yourself afterward, not just less exhausted.
Cooking is a good example of how unexpected restoration can look. Robert, who loves to cook, spent an entire weekend in the kitchen, practically nonstop, and didn’t fully understand why until this conversation surfaced what was happening. When your hands are occupied with something familiar and satisfying, your brain gets to breathe. The activity that puts your body on autopilot while your mind gets to roam may be closer to restoration than anything a wellness article has ever suggested.
So the place to start is a simple question: what do I need right now? Not what you should need, not what would look like self-care to someone else. Just what actually fills you back up.
Self-Care Is Personal, and the Best Version of It Is the One That Actually Works for Your Life
There is no universal prescription here. The list of things that might restore you is long, over 40 options long according to the resources from this conversation, and if your thing isn’t on the list, you’re allowed to add it.
For Elizabeth, running is her reset. It’s the thing that clears her head and fills her back up. And even with that clarity about what works for her, there are days when forcing a run would add to the stress rather than relieve it. When the schedule is packed and the window has closed, she’s learned that deciding not to run is sometimes the self-care. Releasing yourself from the expectation that you must do the thing you planned, even when the thing won’t fit, is its own form of taking care of yourself.
Perfectionism is another thing that quietly blocks the door. Every spare minute poured into performing, keeping the house exactly right, holding the standard that existed before everything changed. What shifted for Amber was permission. Permission to have the countertops clean and leave the vacuuming. Permission to say this is good enough for today, and to mean it.
The guilt is its own obstacle. Stepping away for 30 minutes, even when you know you need it, can feel like you’re letting your kid down. What helps isn’t eliminating the guilt but being straight with them about what you need. Negotiating a give and take. Kids, even young ones, can handle it when the adults around them are honest instead of just disappearing without explanation.
What cuts through most of this is giving yourself permission to define self-care on your own terms. Not what social media says it is, not what your neighbor or your best friend or your mom thinks you should be doing, but what you know, when you get quiet enough to hear yourself, actually makes a difference.
Stillness Is Not Passive, It Is One of the Most Active and Necessary Things You Can Choose
When every minute is spoken for, the idea of doing nothing can feel like the most irresponsible thing on the list. And yet the instinct to stay busy, to keep producing, to fill every gap with a task, is often what’s running the tank dry in the first place.
Stillness is not the same as stopping. The scripture Robert comes back to, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), puts real weight on that first word. “Be” still. It doesn’t just happen. You have to actively choose it, protect it, and sometimes fight for it against your own wiring.
What comes up in stillness can be surprising. Sitting quietly on the couch with no plan, no phone, no task, grief surfaced for Amber recently. Loss she hadn’t let herself face. She cried for a while without trying to fix it or move past it. That may not sound like self-care in the conventional sense, but it released something she had been carrying without realizing how heavy it had gotten. Getting still was the only way it could come up, and it needed to.
On the lighter end of the same idea, laughter belongs in this conversation too. A funny show, a podcast that makes you laugh out loud. It might look like relief, and it is, but there’s restoration in it as well. Filling your tank with something that makes you feel lighter is not a waste of time. It counts for more than we give it credit for.
The most honest version of stillness is whatever lets you stop performing for a minute. For some that’s quiet. For some it’s music or movement. For some it’s crying on the couch when no one is watching. What it isn’t is one more standard to meet. However stillness shows up for you, let it.
Finding Your Footing When the Cup Is Empty
You are not failing at self-care because you haven’t figured out the perfect routine. You are a single parent carrying a full life mostly on your own, and the gap between what you need and what you have access to is real. The goal of this conversation was never to add more to your list. It was to help you get honest about what actually refills you and to remind you that even small, imperfect attempts count.
You deserve to be cared for too. Not because it makes you more productive, not because your kids need a better version of you, although both of those things are true. But because you are a person, and people need care. The question to hold onto is simple: what is one thing, even an imperfect, five-minute thing, that actually fills you up? Start there.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
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