Self Care: What is it really?
What really is self care?
The term self-care is thrown around a lot these days. And if you’re like me, sometimes you wonder: what the heck is it anyway?
Is it taking myself out for ice cream?
Is it scheduling a massage every month?
Is it taking myself on a 3 day retreat?
These all do sound nice, but there’s got to be a way to care for myself daily without needing an extra spending account.
Over the years of working hard on personal growth, I’ve finally developed a basic understanding of what it means to practice good self-care. I'm super excited to share what I’ve learned.
In this blog, I’ll walk you through 7 examples of things you can implement each day or week that will enhance your personal self care at almost zero cost.
7 Self Care Ideas for Every Day
1# Process Emotions.
Ignoring or denying our emotions is one of the leading causes for personal struggles. Often we come to believe certain emotions are bad or undesirable.
How often do we get the message that we all are just striving to be happy. That our ultimate goal is happiness? What does this say when we’re not? That we’re lacking? That something isn’t right? Yes, sometimes emotions can be the canary in the coal mine, alerting us to where we need to make change. And other times emotions are just part of life. All emotions are just part of life. Pain, sadness, anger, despair.
Can you allow your emotions to surface and fully feel them? I’m not suggesting acting out from emotion, but I am asking you to sit with them.
How do you sit with emotions?
One of my favorite ways is to feel the emotion in my body. Label it as “anger” (or whatever) and be curious about where you feel it and what it feels like. Allow anything to come up while feeling it. Maybe this is in the form of images, flash-backs, colors, sensations, etc.
A lot of emotion avoidance is simply from being afraid of the feeling. We actually think it’s going to take over us, envelope us, or that we’ll feel this way forever. Sometimes seeing emotions as a separate part of us helps.
I’ve been working with a therapist who is helping me see each emotion as a separate part with a personality with individual needs and unique messages.
Through this work, I’ve actually created a house for two emotions that have been intense for me lately: pain and anger.
When I feel anger surfacing, I visit the house of anger. I’m invited in by a kind hippie-looking-guy with long white hair and he just lets me rage, without judgment or expectation of letting anything go. Allowing myself this experience has shortened my bouts of anger and let me create a truly safe place to rage.
Making time every day to process your emotions will change your life. When emotions are tended to, you can show up fully the way you want to me without being caught by surprise.
Try it:
How can you allow feelings? (write a quick journal entry about this - brainstorm for yourself what you think would work)
Can you speak them out loud?
Can you identify and name them, getting as specific as you can?
Use the feelings wheel for this exercise. You will probably find that our language for feeling has been limited in the past. Practice fine tuning your emotion vocabulary. It may sound trivial, but it is incredibly powerful. Go here to view a full feelings wheel https://uca.edu/bewell/files/2020/11/Feelings-Wheel-Learn-How-to-Label-Your-Feelings.pdf
Can you schedule time to feel powerful feelings when you know you’ll be safe and alone? If you have been feeling angry at your boss for the last week, schedule in 5 minutes to “feel angry”. Go to your car, sit, bring to mind the angry situation/emotion and just allow it.
#2 Have your own back.
Making decisions can be a challenge for some of us. And then to make things worse, once we finally decide we can stew in regret and doubt after the fact.
Do you realize that this is a choice? The good news here is that we can choose differently.
Let’s first clear up one thing: there is no right or wrong way to do anything. There is no right choice or wrong choice.
Each decision we make is in the service of something. Going for your morning run is in the service of exercising your body when you said you would. Not going for your morning run is in the service of resting your body because you’re just feeling off today.
Make sure to frame each decision in the service of something. Knowing why we make our choices sets us up to have our own back afterwards.
I love asking myself this question: “can I love this decision?” as a way to check in before making the choice and after as a way to keep myself accountable to have my own back.
If you feel like you chose wrong, can you 1) change your choice - we’re all allowed to make new choices everyday and re-decide or 2) re-frame the whole situation. How did this choice actually allow you to learn something valuable or develop a new or challenging skill?
Part of having your own back is having compassion for yourself no matter what. Speak to yourself kindly regardless of what happens. Have kind thoughts toward yourself. When you make a mistake, own it and repair it. A sincere apology goes a long way in repairing with another person and repairing with yourself.
Try it: Before finalizing your next decision ask yourself: do I love this decision?
#3 Say no when you mean no and say yes when you mean yes.
For years I’ve heard the advice: if it’s not a “hell yes” it’s a no. I’ve struggled with this idea because I think of myself as a person who can see endless shades of gray in every situation. I’ve never felt like a “hell yes” sort of person!
But recently, I’ve been trying to apply this wherever I can. Now honestly if I applied this religiously, I’d probably miss out on opportunities that I’m thankful for in retrospect.
Like the above “have your own back” tip, saying yes or no is a decision you can make in regard to anything.
Hint: if you’re feeling resentful for doing something, maybe next time practice saying “no”. Resentment can be a helpful sign that you are over-giving or enabling or overextending or not taking care of yourself.
Saying no protects your energy, allows you to honor your values and will leave you able to give in the places that really matter to you.
Try it: Can you say yes today and absolutely mean it?
If you don’t mean yes, then can you actually say no?
Or a bridge phrase could be: “let me think about it.”
#4 Take care of your body.
This is a big one. So if this is a new or overwhelming concept for you, just pick one thing to implement at a time.
Here’s how we take care of our bodies:
We have positive internal self talk about ourselves. We pledge to only say positive things about our body and how we look.
Louise Hay has a lovely approach to start this journey: stand in front of the mirror, look into your eyes and say “I love you” and “I trust you” upon waking and before bed. This can be painful for a lot of people, but it helps break open compassion for ourselves and our bodies - our earthly gift of existence.
We eat healthy nourishing food at regular intervals that works for us. This can be a big one. Pick one tiny change for the better and then have your own back. Maybe you add one vegetable to your lunch. Maybe you change from an afternoon latte to a green tea. Maybe you start taking vitamin D. Maybe you choose to sit and chew your entire breakfast mindfully.
We get adequate sleep. Give yourself time for wind down, set focus time on your phone so you are not disturbed during wind down. Have a notebook nearby to jot down things that come into your mind to do or to look up tomorrow.
We move and exercise our bodies for mental health, physical health and joy. Take 5 minute breaks for push-ups or squats. Get out to walk, run, or bike in nature. Head to the gym for a full strength workout. Do what makes sense for your lifestyle. Be honest about where you can improve one tiny step without beating yourself up. Small changes lead to big gains.
Try it: What’s ONE way you can improve taking care of your body today? This week? Write this on a sticky note and place it somewhere that you’ll see it multiple times per day.
#5 Feed your mind with appropriate and positive media.
I have not listened to the news for over a year. There’s so much out of my control in regards to global and even regional news. How many times have I switched on the news, only to be shocked, saddened or deeply disturbed by the story? I don’t believe this is helpful.
How do I not go astray? I strive to have a strong sense of self and values. If I need information, I find solution-oriented media.
Plus, I actually cannot do anything about a war across the globe. I cannot do much about climate change.
The things I can do for change are things I’d do anyway: vote, give money where I think it would be helpful, and live a simple and less-materialistic life.
I argue that global problems don’t motivate us as much as our true personal human values and beliefs.
This no-news policy has freed up my mind and my time so that I can instead consume podcasts on parenting, neuro-divergence, business, self-growth, and personal development which I believe is much more important than random bad-news stories thousands of miles away.
Just by switching from the news to a podcast or audio book when doing short drives around town has allowed me to be so much more proactive in my life.
Shoot - I’ve learned all the material I need to write a full blog on self care! Now that’s a win.
Try it: Go news free for an entire week. Then reflect on how you feel in your journal.
#6 Create Stillness Daily
Sitting with ourselves can be the hardest and most powerful form of self care on the market. And it’s 100% free.
How do you do this?
Sit, with or without coffee or tea and let your mind just wander. Oh man do I love this one! If you’re thinking, what the heck, what a waste of time, go read the book: Bored and Brilliant. I think you’ll change your mind.
Sit and meditate with or without guidance. If you want guidance, I recommend Insight Timer, a free meditation app with tons of fabulous guided meditations or Reveri, a hypnosis-based meditation app. I’ve been doing hypnotic meditations all summer, and it’s a whole new life-changing addition to my self care.
Try it: Schedule in 10 minutes today, wherever you can fit it in to either just sit and mind-wander (I call it blank-space time in my house) or do a guided meditation.
#7 Play or Find Joy
Do one thing every day just for fun, with no outcome of production or accomplishment.
I’ll be honest, this is the hardest one for me. But I know that when I can get lost in play, it is mood-transforming.
Try it: where can you make joy in your life today?
There you have it, 7 actionable self-care practices that are mostly free or low-cost.
They will help lead you to a highly rewarding and sustainable life.
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