You’ve heard the term. You’ve seen the TikToks. You’ve been swept up in the phenomenon of practicing self-care and achieving that elusive inner peace, that seemingly unattainable standard that people somehow manage to set aside the time for without worrying about the thousands and thousands of little things they have to do.
But what exactly is self-care?
Is it a bubble bath with a facemask and a nice glass of wine? Is it a long walk through Golden Gate Park during golden hour watching all of the dogs run past you? Is it a $200 shopping spree at Aritzia because they are having a sale?
Yes and no.
Self-care is different for everyone simply because stressors are different for everyone. Relaxing in a bathtub may be one person’s ultimate way to relax and another person’s worst nightmare.
I’m a naturally anxious person. I tend to assume the worst, not because I’m a pessimist but because I like to be prepared for the worst.
To combat this anxiety, I tend to fill up my schedule, juggling as many things as possible to keep myself moving and my mind busy. I know that I perform better under pressure and opting to pack my days so that I am forced to study in the little free time that I have.
Over the course of the pandemic, however, I wasn’t able to do that. Being at home with absolutely nothing to do meant I was forced to confront how I scheduled and spent my time.
I was able to modulate myself and retrain my brain to relax when I wasn’t doing anything. I began to learn that for me, self care was baking and binge watching Madam Secretary episodes.
It worked, I came into my final semester of senior year relaxed and finally able to spend time exploring the city that I had missed. I was able to take time out of my day to enjoy the little things like getting mochi in Japantown or tanning on my roof.
But after two chaotic months of work, classes, and volunteering, all of that progress seemed to have disappeared.
I began to feel guilty about taking time off for myself.
I began to feel bad that I was simply doing nothing when instead, I could have been preparing for the week ahead.
I stopped going to cafes and bakeries because “I didn’t have the time.” I stopped setting aside that free time because the blank spaces on my schedule made me anxious and neglected to put my own needs before others.
It didn’t help that I was volunteering as much as I was working, with the forty-five-minute bus rides to the Mission and Presidio taking up a good chunk of my day.
It wasn’t until an emergency that hit very close to home made me realize what I was doing was unsustainable, even if it was only for two more weeks.
It’s difficult to say and even harder to write but I needed that wake up call. I needed to re-evaluate my schedule. I needed to reprioritize. Most importantly, I needed time for myself.
Desperately.
So I’m trying something new.
I’m scheduling in moments of free time, anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours, into my schedule.
I’m physically reminding myself that I need to take a break.
I’m forcing myself to take a break, eliminating any excuses. I can’t be guilty for “wasting time” because I quite literally made time for it in my calendar.
Deliberately setting aside time for myself means there is an obligation to follow through with it.
Guilting myself into taking time for self-care is probably not the best way to go about implementing it into my life, but it’s the only way I can think of that won’t make me feel guilty, anxious, or lazy.
It’s three days into this new schedule.
It’s been difficult juggling my busy days and my newly found free time, but the anticipation of having time off is exhilarating.
I look forward to the time set aside for self-care, not because I want to practice self-care, but because I want to complete this task.
I’m hoping that over time, with enough practice and decompressing, I will be able to make the transition from something I have to do to something I want to do.
That’s something I look forward to, that is self-care.