By Leanne Brown

After I had my daughter, Io, I struggled for months and months to find the balance between caring for her, caring for the other people in my life, and caring for myself. For the first many months of her life, balance for me meant complete focus on Io and absolutely nothing for myself or others. This is pretty standard new-parent behavior—that doesn’t make it right or good, but it’s standard. I told myself that I was caring for myself by caring for Io because I wanted nothing more fiercely than for her to thrive. Looking back, I realize I had serious parent guilt. I thought that if there was any moment when I wasn’t focusing on her, I was letting her down. I was putting so much pressure on myself and building up a lot of resentment that ended up being released into my other relationships. My mental state slowly improved as I began to come out of the fog of exhaustion and intensity of early parenthood. I started to notice what I needed: more help, more time to myself, and more time with friends to reconnect to who I was without Io.

One day my husband, Dan, asked me to describe my perfect day, no limits. I surprised myself by describing a day with a personal butler. Someone who knew just what I liked and lived for nothing more than to make me happy. Someone who would follow me around and silently clean up after me, set everything out without being asked, make sure there was mint and lemon in a cold pitcher of water in the fridge, carry me to bed and tuck me in when I fell asleep reading on the couch. You know, just treat me like a queen—and, in an important point for my particular psyche, this butler would be happy to do it! There would be no judgment or annoyance, just desire to give me the space and opportunity to be my best self. 

I decided to do an experiment: I would pretend to be my butler and do all the things I wished he would do for me. Yes, I am 100 percent about to tell you that playing make-believe helped me take better care of myself. I’m whimsical, okay?

I wanted my butler to seem like a real(ish) person so I could fully connect to him. Along came Antonio. My Antonio is an older Italian gentleman with wavy salt-and-pepper hair and twinkly, smiling eyes who wears beautiful suits, sings to himself, and has a gentle, fatherly nature. And, of course, he is paid handsomely and feels valued and adored in return. 

Antonio loves taking care of me. He is motivated by pure love, never judging my needs as too trite or silly to bother with—unlike what I often do to myself. By inhabiting this persona, I began to practice the art of self-distancing, a technique in which you step outside yourself and observe from a safe distance in order to see things more clearly. As Kristin Neff explains in her book Self-Compassion, when you focus on caring for yourself, it allows you distance from the pain you are experiencing. Instead of sitting paralyzed inside the pain, you spend time inhabiting the part of yourself capable of giving care, and that experience is deeply empowering and energizing.

From this safe distance, you see yourself as you truly are: a flawed and utterly lovable human being. As Antonio, I could love myself and find the energy to care for myself. I could care for myself as lovingly as I take care of my daughter and partner.

Antonio would gladly do all the chores I tended to avoid or felt annoyed or resentful about doing, like scrubbing the stovetop, washing and properly storing produce after I buy it, and, yes, putting mint and lemon in a big jar of water in the fridge. He always got my bills and other paperwork done quickly because he didn’t want me to worry about expenses and piles of paper. Being Antonio was a transformative experience. And the exciting part was that I could be my own Antonio simply by not judging myself for having needs and not avoiding taking care of them. 

We all need and deserve our own butlers, but being Antonio is not about taking on everything yourself. It is about creating the space in yourself to notice the self-care that you can take on, find the courage to ask for the help you need, and accept that some dirty dishes and undone tasks are a part of life.  

Adapted from Good Enough: A Cookbook by Leanne Brown, illustrations by Allison Gore. Workman Publishing © 2022. 

Leanne Brown is the author of Good Enough: A Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 2022) and the New York Times bestselling Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day (Workman Publishing, 2015). Find her at leannebrown.com.