As many of you know, I am a big encourager of self-care. Prioritizing your own basic needs of movement water, connection and rest ALONG with your other priorities. Since the pandemic has started, the pendulum has swung aggressively the other way, weaponizing self-care as “toxic positivity” and even oppressive in some circles (education included).
I think taking care of one’s self, both physically and emotionally shouldn’t need a label. And the fact that it does and we have to remind folks to attend to their own self IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. We have adapted to daily schedules in our society that are so busy, hectic and focused on performance, work and social status that individuals are forgetting that their body and brain need to be healthy enough to even do those things in the first place!
How I operationally define self-care is really just focusing on self-awareness leading to healthy habits. I stop long enough to see what my body, brain and heart needs during specific moments of the day….and then throughout my week and schedule, I actually and intentionally give my self those things.That’s it!
How do I focus on awareness? Stop, meditate, be still, turn off the podcast/music while driving, read personal development books, free write/blog, go to bed early so my mind can wander (and hopefully not turn into sleep-stealing anxiety), etc.
Without awareness, we don’t know what to self-regulate. Without an ability to self-regulate, many people then start to self-medicate (typically in harmful ways to our physical and mental health).
The other piece of self-care that I don’t think gets talked about often enough is setting and adapting your own personal standards of “success” or “good enough.” This is the truest form of love (as quoted in the image above) – being humble enough to shift your own standards of good enough so your actually are good (and healthy and whole and connected to folks that also love you).
One example of this is my goal with exercise this year – as a former athlete, I have some interesting habitual thoughts when it comes to “working out” and fitness. That post could be an entire novel on its own but some of my disordered thinking about exercise and movement has blocked my motivation to even want to do it at all. So this year, after coming to terms with some of that, I am LOWERING my standards of what I think daily exercise should/could/would look like for me. Instead, my goal each day is just 20 minutes of movement. Even if that movement doesn’t make me sweat, doesn’t burn enough calories, isn’t cutesy enough to post on social media, etc. And I have found that just the simple mindset shift of this has made me actually feel more accomplished (and consistent) that what I was expecting of myself previously.
So with that, I will just summarize with this – whatever self-care is to you, I hope you lean into it. I hope you MAKE time for your self this week, this month, this year….and I hope those moments reinforce the narrative that you are important and of value alongside everyone else you’re caring for. Healthy habits Tik Tok
