Why Your Self-Care Practices Aren't Working (And What to Do Instead)

Your meditation isn't hitting the same. Your morning run feels hollow. The journaling that used to center you now feels like going through the motions. What's happening?

In this raw, unfiltered conversation, Tyler Lewke and Ally Gregory explore why our coping mechanisms are failing us right now—and it's not what you think. The problem isn't the practices themselves; it's our expectation that they should work the way they always have.

Drawing on the metaphor of interconnected root systems in a forest, Tyler explains why individual self-care can never be enough when the community around us is suffering. When the tree down the street is struggling, we feel it too—whether we realize it or not.

In this episode:

• Why self-care without community care is incomplete
• The radical act of curiosity over fear in uncertain times
• How to recognize when YOU are "they"
• Why we need to rotate our practices instead of letting them become habits
• The difference between people in a room and actual community
• Tyler's 4am running revelation that changed how he sees strangers
• Why the benefits of your practices show up when you need them, not when you want them

This conversation doesn't offer easy answers or quick fixes. Instead, it offers something better: permission to feel uncertain, tools to stay open-hearted, and a reminder that practicing humanity might be the most important self-care of all.