Thanksgiving break has come and gone! Like many others, I had been awaiting this break since the beginning of the month. I kept telling myself: “I deserve it! I haven’t had a break in so long! I’m going to treat myself to ice cream and I’m also going to do yoga, and read, and sleep, and so on.” Meanwhile, I was not taking great care of myself; I was sleeping late, not working out often, not drinking enough water, and just not caring much about it because I would be getting my Thanksgiving break soon enough, right? That’s when I would be able to take my break to do my “self-care” routine that I was expecting.
Courtesy of Imgur
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I should be practicing self-care all the time. In other words, if I want to reap the benefits of self-care, I can’t do it by letting myself get burnt out and then trying to mend myself via “self-care” by eating healthy, binge watching Grey’s Anatomy or sleeping in over Thanksgiving break. I need to incorporate healthy living and self-care throughout my life, and make it a priority.
I recently read an article entitled “This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Bath Bombs and Chocolate Cake.” It explores how today’s culture has become about posting about cucumbers over your eyes, candlelit tubs filled with bath bombs or some other way of “treating yo-self.” It says that “self-care” isn’t about always doing something luxurious or letting yourself go. It’s about making your own life better and easier by planning, eating healthy regularly, and having a well-balanced life; it’s about making the conscious decision to create a life that you don’t have to escape from.
It made me think about the words “self-care” and I realized that the most important part of it is making yourself the best version of you that you can be. So, just remember that self-care isn’t about showing off to other people that you are taking care of yourself; it means that you should care about yourself because you’re the only person who has to live your life. So eat those pints of ice cream and get those massages, but do it to enjoy your life, not because you’ve built a life that you need to escape from.
Courtesy of Frank Sonnenberg Online