Over the past years, many beauty influencers started talking more about skincare. Of course, a lot of people already used some products on their faces to help with the skin’s health, but the skincare culture became much more than using a few moisturizers — it became a sort of a ritual, an act of self-care. But is self-care really just adding up some stuff to your face twice a day? Let’s talk a little bit about self-care then, shall we?
Taking a break from the usual chaotic routine to look up in the mirror and focus on yourself for a while is a great ally for your mental health, but that’s not all it takes for you to be actively looking out for yourself. Your face might be breathtakingly gorgeous, but what about your mind? Taking care of ourselves has less to do with superficial issues, and way more to do with outing our internal problems — and that’s when therapy comes into the picture. Therapy is a tool to reach a good level of self-knowledge, it helps you to understand better who you are, and what is keeping you from being the best version of yourself.
The importance of therapy for a good mental health
“Usually, people think they know themselves until they go to therapy. In therapy, we start the process of self-knowledge, getting in touch with our deep essence that exists beyond our ego. We get out of the facade we create to live in society. At this moment, we have the opportunity of truly getting to know ourselves, learning about our qualities and our limitations“, said Cristiane Silva, a Brazilian psychologist specialized in the treatment of teenagers, when asked about therapy’s role in the self-care exercise.
According to her, understanding and accepting who we are makes us more confident to be our true selves and helps us to develop skills to deal with our interior and exterior worlds. In therapy, we create balance, and that’s the key to live a peaceful life — even among the 21st-century chaos.
“During these 21 years of experience as a therapist, I find it very interesting to see how surprised people get when they realize they didn’t know themselves. They knew the pretty facade they put out there”, completed the psychologist.
Skincare vs Self-Care
Now that we talked about how important therapy is, let’s talk for a bit about why people relate skincare to self-care in the first place. Taking care of our minds in therapy is the key to self-knowledge, which means understanding our boundaries and respecting ourselves more and that is basically the definition of self-care. But going to therapy once a week and treating yourself badly the rest of the time, isn’t enough to stay in a good place mentally. I know that our routines are crazy, but we still need to make room for focusing on our well-being once in a while.
So, even though taking care of your skin isn’t enough to check “self-care time” off your schedule, the act of taking some time of your day to breathe, wash your face, use some lotions, oils, moisturizers (or whatever products you prefer) and feel connected to yourself somehow, is also very important to the process of self-care. Yes, you need to focus on your mind on a deeper level than just putting a face mask on for a few minutes a day, but you should put a face mask on for a few minutes a day if that makes you feel like you’re being kind to yourself.
Some people find their peace while cooking, baking, reading a book, playing the piano, singing their favorite songs, or dancing to the sound of their favorite artists. It doesn’t matter how you choose to take care of yourself outside of therapy, as long as you do it.
At the end of the day, treating yourself with kindness and respect is what really makes a difference to your self-care process. However, don’t forget to give therapy a try as well, so you can understand what exactly kindness and respect mean for you.
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The article above was edited by Amanda Moraes.
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