When you think of self-care, what comes to your mind?

Bubble baths? 
Massages? 
Days for yourself where you get to do whatever it is you want? 

Vacations from your life? 

Sure, that's awesome, that's all forms of doing something nice for yourself and making you feel good, but why have we relegated self-care to something separate from the rest of our life? From our everyday activities? 

Self-care is not something to be saved for nights and weekends, something we only get to after everything else in our lives. While it might be caring to yourself to do those things, that is not what practicing  self-care really means....

True self-care is a way of living, a mindset, an attitude and approach to life that is present and relevant 24/7. It's not something separate or apart from the rest of your life. It means caring for yourself in everything you do, in every choice you make, it means including you in the equation of your life. Anything else is a form of self-neglect and ultimately self-abuse. 

What does living a life that embodies true care for yourself really entail? What does it actually look like?

Five Keys to Practicing True Self-Care:

  1. True self-care requires being in touch with yourself:
    Taking true care of yourself requires knowing who you are, what you like or don't like, your desires, preferences and needs. How can you make choices that are caring for yourself if you don't even know what that means?  Most of us have been trained out of knowing what we desire, how we truly feel. We have been taught that our feelings are unjustified or wrong. The first act of self care therefor must be to reconnect with the self, to know yourself and what is true for you. 

  2. Respect Yourself by honoring your desires and your feelings: 
    Once you have a clue about what's true for you, what you do or don't like, what feels good to you and what does't, the next task becomes to care about yourself enough to respect your feelings, desires and wishes (and not just override them, downplay them or make them wrong). When you care about yourself, you care about how you feel, you care about your preferences, your desires and your needs and you engage in life in ways that reflect that. You have empathy and compassion for yourself. (Think about how you'd be caring of a friend.) 

  3. Consider you and your needs as much as anyone else's:
    Honoring your own feelings and needs, however is not at the exclusion of the needs of or considerations for others. So many people I have worked with think that if they consider themselves and their own needs, they are somehow being selfish. No... you are just considering yourself as much as anyone else. If you were in a group of friends, would you take your friends' needs and feelings into account? You are a part of that group... or wherever you are in life and your needs, desires, preferences etc, count just as much as anyone else's. Taking yourself out of the equation and deciding you and your needs are less important and don't matter is just a way of making yourself the martyr. 

  4. Make choices and decisions that truly work for you
    True self-care becomes reflective of your everyday choices and actions. When you truly know yourself, your desires, needs and preferences you can make decisions and choices that honor you and truly work for you. When you don't, you stop taking care of yourself, you stop practicing self-care, simple as that. It's not that you spend all day or all week denying yourself or your own needs, putting yourself last, overriding your feelings, and then on the weekend or some special occasions  consider you and take care of you again.  That is not self care. That is an abusive relationship. Abusers use those exact same patterns to create dependency and control in relationships. Don't keep abusing yourself. Say yes only when you mean yes (not when you have a ton of inner conflict or turmoil about doing so or would rather just say no)  and no when you mean no. (Okay, yes, this takes a lot of practices, and sometime courage, but honoring and respecting yourself and thus practising true self-care is something you can learn. 

  5. Design a life that is truly caring for you and your well being.
    When self-care becomes a way of life, (and not just something you get to when you have time for it or practice on special occasions- which in my view isn't really self care at all) it also requires designing and creating your life in a way that work for you, is caring for you and meets your needs. If a demanding job is running you ragged, you will find a way to adjust and take care of yourself, or you will find another job. If certain relationships feel unkind to you or affect your mental health or happiness, you will adjust those relationships to a place where they work for you or you will leave them altogether. Sometimes situations in our lives support us in some ways and not others,  and it may take time to make necessary changes to life circumstances, but true self-care means we don't discount the impact these things have on us we work within any given situation to make necessary adjustments to support our happiness and our well being. 

If you're ready to stop sacrificing yourself to everyone else and reclaim your life for you, I might be able to help you.

Let's set up a time to chat. 

I'll ask you a few questions to bring clarity and focus to what your greatest struggles with this level of self-care are and what it will take to truly change them and to start creating a life that works for you and that you don't feel the need to escape from. 

Schedule your FREE call

"I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul..."

Oriah Mountain Dreamer