We’re not talking a monthly massage or pedicure–while those things are nice, we’re talking about the kind of self-care that actually helps you to keep going when you want to lay down, give up, or scream WTAF.
SELF-CARE–here’s a working definition if you will…if you aren’t going to take care of yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to take better care of you. It’s the truth, some feel that it’s a hard truth but it’s that we all need to take responsibility for ourselves. For caring for ourselves deeply, and again–I’m not just talking about a deep soak in the bath.
I’m talking about…
Therapy
Crying
Journaling
Being with yourself
Processing your emotions
Actually telling people what you think and want and not just saying, “everything is fine…I’m fine.”
We are not fine. We are all changing and evolving at rapid speeds–like it or not. We are tearing down old versions of ourselves and making way for something new. And, sometimes that’s hard. It’s hard to change. It’s hard to accept the responsibility to change. It’s hard to take care of ourselves and the reason for that is because numbing is actually easier.
It’s easier to netflix and numb, it’s easier to scroll social media, it’s easier to “get busy” and ignore what’s actually going on for you.
Whether that is new things that just bother you because your bandwidth is low (I mean, hello, we’ve been in a pandemic for a long time), or it might even be old shit that is surfacing up years later–relationships, childhood traumas, past experiences, regrets–and all of it comes to the surface to be healed, to be addressed, to finally be dealt with.
But sometimes we lack the skills and tools to handle it.
Maybe it’s because we’ve been checked out, maybe it’s because we’ve been busy taking care of everyone but ourselves. Maybe it’s because we’ve never ACTUALLY been taught how to care for ourselves beyond that 60 minute massage.
Caring for yourself is going to therapy, getting the coach, reading the book, saying what you need to say, feeling the feelings that you’ve been pushing away for so long and never seem to disappear. F*ck, it’s hard to be a human sometimes.
But that’s what we are–humans, not robots. We need time, sleep, love, attention, care, regard, boundaries, no’s, yes’s. We need to listen to the information from our feelings and then respond instead of react. We need to actually respond instead of hide.
It’s all messy and it’s all so very human. And the ONLY way to get through any of it is to take really good care of yourself.
More talk on self care? I’ll be speaking LIVE and in-person (finally!!) on Friday, October 1st at the SELF(ish) Wellness Conference in Philadelphia, you can snag your seat here: www.selfishphilly.com