Thoughts on Self-Care

If you have followed my posts on Facebook or Instagram, you know that I post something about self-care every Sunday. But the truth is that I am still learning about self-care myself. When I was in massage school, we were told over and over to make sure that we take care of ourselves so that we would be able to take care of our clients. I sort of listened to this advice. I was young and thought that I was invincible and didn't need to practice self-care. That kind of thing was for older massage therapists, not young people like me!

Oh, how wrong I was! Not only did I not realize the value of self-care in my youth, I misunderstood what self-care actually is. I thought self-care was treating yourself to a day at the spa, or an entire pint of ice cream. There was no way that self-care was as mundane as going to bed on time to get 8 hours of sleep or eating a balanced diet. Self-care was supposed to be those lavish things that you only do occasionally.

I was under the mistaken impression that self-care and rewards were the same thing. Self-care is making sure that you shower and brush your teeth every day. Self-care is cleaning or working out even when you don't want to because you know it will help your mental health. Yes, self-care can be staying in bed all day when you need to rest, but it is also doing the hard things that you don't necessarily want to do. Like making sure to drink your water and do your stretches every day.

Rewards can be a type of self-care, but they are not the same. A reward is treating yourself to a day at the spa for working out every day for a month. A reward is zoning out and binge watching your favorite show after spending the last few weeks finishing an important project. Rewards are how you should congratulate yourself on a job well done, but it is easy to confuse them with self-care.

A few months ago, I posted an article about what self-care is and is not. (If you want to refresh your memory, you can check out that article here.) That article really struck a chord with me and got me thinking about how I think about self-care. What does taking care of yourself really look like?

To answer that question, I had to step outside of myself and look at it another way. If I were taking care of a small child, what would I do for them? As a mother, the answer to that question was a lot more obvious. I make sure that my kids eat healthy meals regularly. I make sure that my children are clean and have clean clothes to wear. I make sure that my kids get to bed on time so that they can get the rest their growing bodies need. I make sure that they know that I love them no matter what. Now, how much of that have I been doing for myself?

Sadly, when I really looked at my life, the answer was almost none of it. I often skip meals and when I do eat, it's not always healthy food. I make sure that I am presentable, but will often neglect things like washing my face regularly. I regularly stay up late, scrolling on my phone, making me tired and cranky in the mornings. And let's not even get into my self-talk.

If I saw a child being treated like that, would I stand by and say nothing? I would hope not. So then why would it be okay for me to treat myself like that? The answer is, that it's not.

I've had to really look at and re-evaluate how I perceive self-care. And I'll be the first to admit, that I still have a long way to go. But I'm getting better. I set up routines and schedules to make things easier for myself. I gave myself a set bedtime that I asked my husband to help me enforce. I started bringing my lunch to work so I know I have good food to eat and don't skip eating. I have friends I work out with so I can keep myself healthy enough to do my job.

I also have rewards in place. Like if I can manage to work out consistently for 30 days, I plan on treating myself to a facial, manicure, and pedicure. Or if I do both my nighttime and morning routines for 14 days, I get to go to the craft store. But my main goal is to set up a routine that gets my body used to working out and my mind used to waking up and going to bed at the same time each day. And that is self-care.