Let’s Love That Self-Care

                The new year, new start is still fresh in our minds. So many of us want to be better for ourselves in a multitude of ways. One general area people tend to focus on is their self-care. A fantastic place to start. However, I hear the struggle points that come up and self-care becomes more of a stressor than a benefit. This happens when goals are too rigid or unrealistic to fit in the day or maybe you decided on a vague goal and do not know where to get started, or maybe you select goals that would make other people happy or to avoid feeling guilty/anxious for not having it as a goal. All of these scenarios can lead to not loving your self-care.

                So what to do?

                First, let’s look at the areas of self-care. It is important to identify what is included and where you want/need to place more focus and energy on. Areas of self-care include physical, emotional, psychological, personal, spiritual, and professional.

Physical self-care would include elements like your nourishment, movement, sleep hygiene, personal hygiene, and medical/dental care.

Emotional self-care includes items such as self-love/compassion, laughter, journal experience, time with a pet, and connection with others.

Psychological self-care would be actions like self-reflection, sensory engagement, therapy, self-help/self-development books

Personal self-care would be getting to know yourself, setting short and long-term goals, learning a new skill, creating a vision board, and/or engaging in a hobby.

Spiritual self-care is connecting with something greater than the self. This may be time in nature, this may be a religion, this could be watching a sunset/the beauty of nature, this may be a meditation practice, this may be volunteering, and/or this may be singing/dancing.

Professional self-care would include ensuring time for lunch, setting work/life boundaries, continuing training and development, taking vacation/mental health/sick days, and/or plan you next career move.

These are in no way exhaustive ideas and hopefully give you a start into reflecting on your own self-care. The question now is in what area do you feel you need better self-care? In what way can you add this and it increase your enjoyment/satisfaction rather than it be an obligation to another thing that must get done in the day?