A few days ago, I was half-listening to my 8:00 a.m. philosophy lecture on Zoom, and it suddenly hit that I had an overwhelming urge to lay on the floor and just wallow in my feelings for a few minutes. I miss my friends. I miss giving hugs. I miss home. Moving back in the middle of the semester deeply affected my mental health, as I am sure many others can also say. I stopped being able to find the motivation to attend classes and get work done on time. Even getting out of bed and showering was a struggle.
While I am doing better now, (thank you, therapy!), I still haven’t been giving myself the love that I have needed in the past few months. My skincare routine, once a staple in my self-care, sits untouched on my shelf. The sticky notes on my laptop, once organized, colorful, and filled with positive affirmations, now are full of random sentences from classes and are scattered across my desktop. Currently, if I actually drink a glass of water, it’s a rare event. I have a few self-care activities that are still a part of my routine, like playing Animal Crossing and bullet journaling. However, the majority of the habits I spent time developing are gone. I am determined to get them back and to discover new ones along the way!
I’m not going to pretend that things aren’t still messy. I’m so homesick for my life in college, but I am still trying to get self-care back into my routine. This week, I challenged myself to re-discover self-care, with a twist! Because I have very few activities currently in place, I figured it was a good time to challenge myself to try new ones every day. I found it overwhelming to just “try new self-care.” To ease this, I drew inspiration from love languages and sought to apply them to myself.
I have always been fascinated with love languages. It’s beautiful that we all have specific instincts when we want to give people around us affection. I adore learning people’s specific ways of receiving love, so then I can tailor my affection to them. It also helps me recognize when people are putting love into our relationship. Personally, mine are a tie between physical touch and words of affirmation. However, I am not going to try to limit the ways I can self-care, so, while I will give special attention to these, I want to give love to myself in all the ways possible!
Here is a list of everything I brainstormed:
Words of Affirmation:
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Write a letter about how proud you are of yourself! You’ve overcome every single one of your worst days, and that’s something to always acknowledge.
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Record voice memos when you feel inspired. Listen to them later and remember that self-love. No activity is too small, from going on a run to getting out of bed in the morning.
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Place sticky notes with positive affirmations around your living space. Practice these mantras. Ensure you cannot start a day without being reminded of some positivity.
Quality Time:
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Set aside chunks of time to be with your thoughts. Journal, meditate, write!
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Make yourself a playlist of songs that resonate with you and press play!
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Get active! Go for a run or do some yoga.
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Try to make time for hobbies that make you feel present. Set some time weekly to just sit with those hobbies.
Receiving Gifts:
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Make yourself a playlist for the following week! Include upbeat songs and inspirational ones that help you feel like you can do anything.
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Invest in a nice pen: something that you’ll use for assignments, your planner, and your journal.
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Buy some inexpensive and fun stickers and place them around your room!
Acts of Service:
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Clean out your pajama drawer!
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Drink some water. You’re probably dehydrated.
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Meal prep with leftovers.
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There has to be something that you’ve been procrastinating. Just do it!
Physical Touch:
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Treat yourself to following a skincare routine. Do a face mask, stop picking, and be kind to your skin.
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Give yourself hugs! Relax with your body. Thank it for everything it’s doing to keep you going.
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Find a thick, comfy blanket and burrito yourself into it. It feels like a hug.
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Cuddle with a pet!
For five days, I sought to try one self-care activity every day. Here’s an overview of what that was like:
Monday: After our HerCampus meeting for the week, I decided to treat myself to physical touch self-care and went to my skincare shelf. I put on a Salicylic Acid clay mask for about 20 minutes. My dog-niece gave it a sniff and didn’t like the smell, but I disagree. I struggle with compulsive skin picking, so any time I spend treating my skin kindly is special. After I washed it off, I followed it up with some moisturizer and went to bed. I enjoyed being kind to my skin, and, as the week progressed, I did another mask and started to see some glow!
Tuesday: Tuesday evening, I gave myself the gift of a personalized desk space. I have been procrastinating this for a while. I just moved, so it hasn’t fully felt like “my space” yet. I printed out about 20 4×7 photos for my room. These I organized up on my wall behind my laptop. Now, when I glance up from my laptop, I see some of my best friends, happy moments, and favorite memories from the past few years. Whenever I space out during class now, I can look up and see people I care about deeply and moments that I always want to remember.
Wednesday: To bring in some words of affirmation, I spent some time doodling quotes and song lyrics, and then I put them up on my mirror. I don’t have any tape currently, but I did find some High School Musical 2 stickers, so I used those instead. Why do I have High School Musical 2 stickers but not clear tape? No idea. They are infinitely better, though. I drew the Hozier lyric, “oh, your love is sunlight”, the Chance the Rapper lyric, “don’t forget the happy thoughts”, and a positive affirmation of “good morning, it is a beautiful day”. I love them, but they keep falling down. I still need to find some tape.
Thursday: Between classes, I did some yoga with my sister. She has taken classes for years, so she was able to lead me through a flow and teach me some poses. After, my legs were a little sore, but it was really nice to just spend time thinking about how my body was moving, instead of anything else. I hit a meditative place as I stopped thinking about everything else I had to do, and I felt very present in my body. Every time I stood up on the mat, my dog-niece would walk over and plop down at my feet. It was really cute and made my day.
Friday: Late Thursday night, I stayed up and cleaned out my drawers. I put on some TV and folded all the laundry that I crammed into my bureau before classes. Waking up Friday morning to a clean drawer was a treat.
I’m not going to pretend like adding these five activities into my week magically fixed everything, but making an effort definitely helped me feel better. There are still some I want to try in the next few days. Maybe then I’ll actually start drinking water (I know being dehydrated isn’t a personality trait … but isn’t it a little bit?)
Monday morning, when I am sitting in my philosophy class and inevitably want to wallow, instead I will look at the pictures scattered on my wall. I’ll take comfort in the fact that those memories are frozen in time and forever re-visitable. Maybe I’ll get a little lost in them, but not for too long. I mean … technically I will be in class. The semester is actually happening, right?