Surface-Level Self-Care Won’t Save You: A Deeper Wellness Wake-Up Call

You can check every self-care box—face mask, mani-pedi, a solo Target run—and still feel like you’re drowning. Trust me, I’ve been there. And in this conversation with Brittany Frost, founder of The Self-Care Sisterhood, we called it out: surface-level self-care won’t save you.

So many of us are doing “all the right things,” yet we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering: Why isn’t this working?If that resonates, you’re not alone. This episode goes beneath the fluff to reveal what real self-care actually looks like—and why the superficial kind might be making things worse.

What is surface-level self-care, really?

When people ask, “How can I actually recover from burnout as a busy woman?” the answer is rarely what they expect. Burnout recovery doesn’t come from bubble baths. It starts with radical honesty, boundaries, and systems that support your mind, body, and spirit.

As Brittany puts it: “We think we’re caring for ourselves, but what we’re actually doing is escaping from lives we don’t even like.”

Surface-level self-care is often reactive. It’s what we do after we’re already burned out, and it usually focuses on aesthetic or indulgent fixes—things that look good on Instagram but don’t move the needle in real life.

Surface-Level Self-Care Won’t Save You: What Actually Will

In our episode, Brittany and I break down the difference between pampering and power. True, real self-care is about:

• Setting and honoring boundaries
• Managing your energy like a precious resource
• Creating systems (not just routines)
• Practicing mental hygiene as daily maintenance

Brittany introduced her “MEDS” framework:

• Meditation (or mental hygiene of any kind)
• Exercise
• Diet (as in: how you fuel your body)
• Sleep

These aren’t glamorous, but they’re foundational. You don’t need another spa day—you need discipline, margin, and aligned action.

“Self-care without boundaries is just self-abandonment.” — Brittany Frost

Why You Might Still Feel Drained

You could be stuck in what we jokingly call the “whack-a-mole” cycle: You focus on one area of your life, but others fall apart. Brittany uses a DJ mixer analogy to describe how we try to crank every area of life to level 10, and then wonder why we can’t hear ourselves think.

Instead, think of life as a blend—some areas turned up, others dialed down, depending on the season. That’s what true holistic wellness looks like.

Real Self-Care Requires Boundaries

One of the biggest mindset shifts from this episode was redefining boundaries. Not as walls to keep people out, but as tools to keep yourself in integrity.

“Most boundaries aren’t about other people. They’re about you honoring your own needs.”

We also talked about how integrity comes from the Latin root “integer”—meaning whole. The less fragmented you are across the different roles in your life, the more ease you feel.

What You’ll Learn

• Why “doing more” isn’t the answer to burnout
• How to stop performing wellness and start practicing it
• The mindset shift that transforms boundaries from scary to sacred
• Simple ways to build real self-care into your daily life
• The key signs that your self-care is surface-level

Final Takeaway

If your self-care isn’t giving you real results, it’s time to go deeper. The solution isn’t more scented candles or another productivity hack. It’s reclaiming your energy, rewriting your patterns, and getting honest about what actually supports your wellbeing.

Surface-level self-care won’t save you. But owning your needs just might.

Listen to the full episode of INHABIT featuring Brittany Frost on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This blog post was generated by AI. Want to learn how I do this in 5 minutes or less? I teach this and more in The Audio Authority Blueprint Podcast [Systems Only] program. Click here to learn more.