Self-Care Is For UX
Why We Need to Talk About Spiritual Self-Care in UX
Nurturing our own values and needs will help us understand and serve our users
This story is from the Founder of HmntyCntrd and is part of Self-Care Is for UX, a series on the personal risks of working in design.
I was 22 years old when the doctor told me I was dying and might only have the next 15 years to live.
I was told that a rare, incurable kidney disease was what had kicked me from normal kidney function to kidney failure within a matter of days. My partner at the time and I briefly wept together in the hospital room, then spent the next six days in silence watching Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows over and over and over again. The only way I could reconcile with the grim news I had just received, that I was actually going to die sooner rather than later, was complete and utter avoidance.
Around day six, I finally began to process through some questions that I imagined myself pondering much later in life:
What matters to me the most, and does the way I live my life currently reflect that?
How, if at all, do my spiritual beliefs and values help me make sense of this pain?
