What is Self-Care?

Photo credit: Kelvin Valerio on Pexels

I've been thinking about self-care a lot lately and I found myself asking the question, "What is self-care really?" I thought I did a good job of caring for myself because I would take time to rest and retreat to regulate my stress and I meditate twice a day, every day. But is that really all there is to self-care? Is there more that I'm missing? I'm caring for my physical body and my mind but is there more I can do to really honour myself?

One lesson I’ve learned on my Journey is to accept that I am human. For my entire life, I put tons of pressure on myself to be perfect, to have all the answers and to show up like I know what I’m doing. The world is full of judgement and criticism. The least we can do for ourselves is not jump on the band wagon of critics! I was listening to a video by Louise Hay and there were 2 things she spoke of - first, be kind to yourself by eliminating self-judgement and criticism, and second, eliminate fear wherever possible, or at least temper it to limit the amount of time you spend feeling afraid. This really resonated with me as I was contemplating self-care. This kind of care seems to me even more impactful, especially for someone like myself that has a tendency to build stories in my mind of things that are hypothetical rather than real. You know how the mind goes off into a thought spiral and makes assumptions about the reason for other people's behaviour, the intent behind a comment or action, or why it is unlikely we will end up successful or getting what we want? This is the time when it becomes helpful to catch yourself and stop the story before it really gets going. This is when it becomes important to give ourselves and others grace - to practice self-love.

Grace means showing favour, love and kindness when you have the power to judge or condemn. Grace means we don't wield this power, rather we suspend judgement in order to allow for change and growth. When we give ourselves grace, we offer a compassionate view of our shortcomings. We understand that life is about learning and mistakes are a natural, if not essential, part of learning. Practice means to take action over and over again to build a skill. This action requires the awareness of the outcome to be able to learn and grow. There is no progress without it. Giving ourselves grace helps us to limit the negative self talk and judgement that comes when we make mistakes, or when we create false stories as a way to protect our hearts from disappointment and hurt. Grace is the ability to cheer ourselves on and notice the small steps forward, even in the face of fear. This is a powerful form of self-care as we learn to give ourselves the love and the space we need to let go of judgement or fear and replace it with the opportunity to understand what drives our way of thinking.

So what actions can we take to practice self-care with grace and self-love? We can practice paying attention to our thoughts and notice when we enter that spiral of thoughts leading us down the road of criticism, fear, and doom and gloom. We can stop the thought in the moment and say "I notice my thoughts are spiralling. What am I feeling right now?" Starting with our emotions helps to determine where we are on the emotional scale so we can find the next best feeling to pursue. Then we can set the intention of creating thoughts that align with that more positive feeling. For example, if someone said something to us that was shocking and hurtful, we can notice we are feeling insecure and and begin a thought pattern to rise up to anger and eventually worry or disappointment saying something like "I'm really angry they said that to me. I'm worried they don't want to be my friend any more. I'm really disappointed they chose those words." This may not seem like it's a relief but energetically the emotions of anger, worry and disappointment are higher vibrations than insecurity. We can then remember that what someone else chooses is completely out of our control and living in a state of fear you can't resolve is choosing to suffer. So we can choose to let go of the fear and either have a conversation to get more information or simply acknowledge the only thing we can control is our response. We can choose to feel our emotions and actively give ourselves grace and remember that it isn't about us because we don't control other's choices.

Self care and self-love is what we deserve, but often forget. We focus on those outside ourselves to contribute compassion to the world. We see these acts as a way to make the world a better place. Meanwhile, we secretly tell ourselves we’re stupid or hopeless. Practicing self-care through grace and self-love helps us to master our thoughts and emotions in a way that helps us show up in the world. It’s essential to remember that our thoughts and words send corresponding energy out into the world so kindness to ourselves also impacts humanity at large, because that is the vibration we show up with. Grace and self-love help us to show up for ourselves too. After all, if we can practice kindness and grace towards ourselves, we build our practice which makes it easier to be kind and give grace to others.

To learn more about the emotional scale, download my infographic from the Resources page.

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