What No One Actually Tells You About Self Care

So it’s the end of the day, at the end of the week, and you look at the clock. Where did all the time go? You did stuff today, all week (well, ok, maybe there was a little Facebooking and lingering over coffee) and you can’t help but wonder where the week went. You sigh as you look at your phone, noticing the time, and think of everything left to do. Next week, another week of the same. You’re so over the stress of it all, all you want is to sink into your bubble bath at home. And yet that doesn’t seem to relax you.

Sorry, did I accidentally step into your life? That was actually my life. It still is sometimes. Despite yoga, massages, mani pedi’s, I just couldn’t fully find center.

That’s because everything we’d been taught about self care was wrong.

What We Were Taught About Self Care

For decades, self care has been sold to us as bubble baths, mani pedis, long walks, and the like. I’ll be honest, when my kids were younger, that all sounded lovely. It still does. The only problem was it added something else to my never-ending to do list and list of expenses. In theory, it was perfectly fine to tell my kids no, mom wasn’t coming to your game, I’m getting a facial instead. At the end of the day though, I enjoyed being at those games. I didn’t want to miss those moments with my kids. And if push came to shove, money for a massage would always go to new cleats or a new hockey stick. Almost ten years after my kids have graduated, I have never regretted those decisions.

The idea of self care actually started in the 50’s in the medical world. With the rise of patient centered medicine, there was also a bigger emphasis on individual practices that would improve the health of patients. In the 60’s, the Black Panther Party promoted the idea of self care to strengthen communities and fight systemic racism. It wasn’t until the 1990’s and 2000’s that things started to morph and change. Self care began to move away from it’s origins to what we see now—things that feel good in the moment, but don’t necessarily support your long term well being.

Mental Health poster from Minneapolis Health Fair 1944

The Secret Truth About Self Care

Guys, I’m going to give it to you straight here. True Self Care isn’t always easy, and it’s not always the thing you want to do. It is, however, the thing that feeds your body and your soul and makes it stronger. As Melody Wilding so eloquently wrote, “Real self care is about rewarding habits that sustain instead of drain you.” That means if that mani pedi is going on your credit card with no way to pay it off, you need to probably think about something else. It also means that real self care is about habits that support strong physical and mental health, not one time fixes. It also means that at at times, those habits are not going to be comfortable at the beginning.

Here’s a couple of examples to keep in mind

Physical Self Care

• Exercise regularly

• Nutrition that works for your body

• Take a sick day, or even a nap, if you don’t feel well or didn’t get enough sleep

• Take all of your meds

Self Care for Your Mental Health

• Identify and be ok with your feelings

• Seek out help from mental health professionals

• Identify where you need to set boundaries

• Say NO and stick to it

Financial Self Care

• Set and keeping a budget

• Reduce and eliminating your debt

• Create a 3-6 month emergency fund

• Save for your future self

Self Care with Family

• Distance yourself from toxic family members

• Make a plan to spend time with the family members that fill you up

Self Care with Friends

• Make time and space to hang out with the 3-5 people who fill you up the most

• Look for mentors who can help move you to where you want to go

• Set boundaries with and say goodbye to toxic friends

Self Care for Work

While I feel like this will likely be an entire post to itself later, here’s a bit to get you started:

• Really identify your career path

• Recognize where you have control and where you don’t

• Isolate yourself from toxic coworkers whenever possible

• Where you have control, be creative and proactive to solving problems

Spiritual Self Care

This can mean religion, but it does not have to. It can also mean any ritual or practice that connects you with your higher self, the community, or the universe

• Prayer

• Scripture study

• Time in nature

• Meditation

• Journaling

• Service to others

Intellectual Self Care

• Play a board game with a friend or your partner

• Watch a documentary instead of reality tv

• Take a 30 day sabbatical from social media

• Find a favorite book to read

I know! It’s a lot, and a lot of those are new, and quite frankly not easy to do. But hey, This is the One New Thing Project. That’s what we do here, right? We stretch our comfort zones, try something new, and see how great we can be.

As you approach this list of Real Self Care, start with one at a time—the one that jumps out at you. Then stick with it, no kidding, for 30 days. Think it through, because you’re going to need a plan. If you’re going to do board games with your partner or a friend, are they on board? Do you have board games? How often are you playing? When is the best time? Talk it through. Take a walk through the board game aisle at Target or on Amazon, and pick a couple. Then jump in. Plan your nights for it. Tuesday and Thursday are board game nights. Something’s come up on a Thursday? are you going to say no to it or are you going move your game night to a different night? If so, which night? Make a plan. Talk about it. It helps.

The One New Thing Project has a couple of great tools to help you on your journey to better to self care. Links are below. Please reach out if we can help at all!