If you are here, it means that you likely identify as a BIPOC or LGBTQ+ healer or caretaker, and are moving along the journey of self care!

How did Cuidate Co. get its start? Well, first it was for an event that I had to come up with a name so that I could vend with another person! However the products that we sold all had to do with self care, and “Cuidate” in Spanish stands for “take care!”, especially when you are saying goodbye to a loved one The first time it was used was when I created the name to sell soap, soap holders, oils, full moon boxes and more self care items.

Cuidate Collective is about caring for the collective, and it is an ebbing and flowing grouping of people who all have been professional helpers, who have their own businesses, who are BIPOC, and most who are LGBTQ. They are all people who are passionate about sharing their healing gifts, and self care practices with the collective.

I started this collective because when many of us started working in social work, self care was a one off professional development, not part of a culture for the organization or the individuals. If you felt burnt out, someone might say – well, maybe you should stop working here – rather than inquiring about what could be leading to burnout on a systemic level, or recommending self care strategies. The truth is that person had no self care strategies themselves. Why? Because the generation before that was even less encouraged to be in touch with their body and feelings, and much more in touch with grind and work culture, as well as anti oppression elitism.

So many healers and activists come with their own histories of trauma, generational, interpersonal, and historical – these traumas led us to our work. Unfortunately no one in those fields was consciously practicing self care or community care, and many other folks had similar histories. Sharing information or asking for help as trauma survivors who are usually hyper independent was not a common practice.

Cuidate Collective was born officially during the pandemic, a time where so many of us had no choice but to be alone, to the point where i think some of us began to reach out more than we ever had.

I share because no one shared with me, I share because sharing with our community and our upcoming helpers is so important to decrease the impact of work on our beings, and even decrease the need to access medical and mental health support because we are more in touch with our needs, and also in touch with the roots of why it was hard to honor our needs in the first place. We also believe very much in being in touch with not just our generational traumas, but also our generational gifts.

Sometimes self care means coming up with a routine, attending a group event, and sometimes this does mean leaving your work, but most importantly self care with Cuidate Collective is rooted in community, and honoring our healing gifts of being with one another, and authentically honoring our needs in order to support the communities we serve, and mitigate burnout.