Many women have a tendency to put other people before themselves. I know I am one of those people, and you can go ahead and raise your hand (uhh… or just keep reading) if you are one of those people, too.
But in all this taking care of others effort, sometimes we forget to take care of ourselves.
Confession time? I haven’t been good about self care lately. I thought I was being pretty good about it, I was kind of tired and felt like I needed to re-charge so I was doing a lot less than normal. To “relax” I found myself primarily watching netflix and zoning out online in other ways.
In a way that could sound sensible. Freeing up mental energy for other things. But what it mostly did was make me feel more tired and lazy and like I was accomplishing just about nothing beyond what was immediately necessary.
When I thought about it a little more I realized that what I needed wasn’t a huge massive zone out break, but self-care. I’ve talked about self care before and I want to chat about it again because I just put into words an important distinction between what I sometimes might think is self-care and what actually is self-care.
Taking care of yourself can involve taking it easy, sure, but it actually is so much more than that. It’s about doing something that’s going to make you feel good after you’re done doing it, too.
For me, that definitely doesn’t equate to mindless-internet consuming and too much TV, but something like:
- Going for a walk or run
- Knitting
- Taking a bath
- Cooking fantabulous food (really slowly)
- Organizing or systematizing something that has been irking me
- Cleaning my house
- Reading
- Making myself pretty (I don’t know how else to say this.. Actually putting on a nice outfit and make-up, doing a clay mask, shaving my legs, something like that).
- Doing a really good job on my fertility awareness charts (and using paper instead of an app)
They are all things that may take a good chunk out of my day, so they tend to get pushed to the back burner if I have other things to take care of, often things benefiting other people more than myself. But when I do them I feel so good. It makes me feel recharged and ready to kick some bootie.
If you can’t figure out any good self-care activities for yourself, ask yourself:
- Am I going to feel good after I do this? Does it replenish me?
- Is this important to me and not necessarily to other people?
What are your favorite ways to care for yourself?
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Love this post! Spot on and something we can probably all be reminded of from time to time. I also find going for a run followed by a bath and/or cooking something delicious to be very replenishing :) – Going to a yoga class is also a good one!
Love going to yoga. I keep telling myself to buy a membership so I can actually go and I keep not doing it. ::kicks self in butt::
Ah, yes, yoga! I’m in yoga teacher training right now and one of my teachers said something I’m finding really profound: a huge part of self-care is simply getting enough sleep and eating at regular times each day. And since these are not really habits I’ve spent a bunch of time cultivating, it’s really easy to stay up late and push breakfast (or lunch, or dinner) back and feel stressed out like a crazy person just because I’m tired or hungry. <–totally trying to work on that ;)
Ohhh, I totally agree. I don’t think about it too much, though, since I am a religious eater and sleeper. I will say, though, that if either aren’t happening enough for me I am irritable as all get out.