Self-care: What it is and why your survival depends on it
Self-care:
What it is and why your survival depends on it
I have been thinking so much about self-care lately. I am coaching my patients on its importance and commenting on how crucial it is to friends who are burning the candle at both ends. Fancy self-care is super trendy right now. When advertised it looks like beautiful bathtubs with flower petals a relaxed perfectly made up model resting in it. Or a hot stone massage with another incredibly relaxed model who looks as though she never needed the massage in the first place. Or perhaps it looks like a group of toweled and robed women laughing together in a spa as if someone told a hilarious joke and they don’t have money issues, work issues or kids to worry about. Well, I’m here to say none of these are what self-care actually looks like IRL (that’s In Real Life if you don’t speak “text”).
This article that was all over Facebook was a good reminder of that.
As is this quote from Twitter by Roshni Singh:
Self care isn't always lush bath bombs and $20 face masks.
Sometimes it's going to bed at 8 PM and letting go of a bad friend.
It's forgiving yourself for not meeting your impossible standards and understanding
you're worth it. Self-care isn't always luxury but a mean for survival.
Real talk? Self-care is the most unglamorous, most righteous, and selfish thing you can do. And that, my friend, is a good kind of selfish. For me, I get up 1 hour before my whole family simply to have the quiet to meditate, write, and sip my coffee without 50 thousand toddler questions/statements being fired at me in a 5 minute time frame (why do they talk SO MUCH????). MY self care means taking care of the basics: regular showers, washing my face twice a day, sitting down to eat, going to bed early. It’s making sure my home is tidy and clean, planning and prepping our meals so I never am hungry-shopping or hungry-cooking. It’s having talks about money or taxes or schedules. It’s having a Netflix date with my main squeeze because finding a sitter sounded like too much work and I was already in my pjs.
Self care is also allowing my kid to binge watch TV while the baby naps so I can work or heaven forbid – NAP as well. It’s regular exercise even if it means pushing a double stroller with 65lbs of whining, snacking children and two dogs tied to the handle. Because without my regular runs and classes at Backbody Project it’s possible I could lose my mind. Like, really it could happen. Self-care is essential amidst baby, toddler, home ownership, marriage, owning a business, being that business. Caring for my needs is the only way to remember my mission, stay grounded, remain focused, and be calm. It’s the only way I can answer those 50-thousand-toddler-questions-in-five-minutes all day long. Self-care IS truly a means for survival. And it’s not fancy.
Self-care is putting your mask on FIRST so you have the bandwidth (oxygen) to help others. Self-care is whatever you do for YOU that puts your needs in front of everyone else. After all, you are the only one of you so if you don’t care for yourself to regenerate, no one else will. You, my dear, are worth your own time. I repeat: You are worth your own time.
So, go do whatever you need to do to take care of you. Right now.
Side note: If you have never been to a Backbody Project class remedy that immediately. Great music, serious butt work and jumping! All in one hour-ish.