What True Self-Care Means To Me

Instagram self-care rituals seem to consist of charcoal masks, Calvin Klein underwear, and minimalist decors. These are great commodities and no doubt, self-soothing is important, but they’re precisely that: commodities. Sometimes even props for a digital audience. These are surface-level strategies of self-care. True self-care is a combination of inner work and meaningful change. We must learn to tune in to our needs and make choices that cultivate our authentic selves. It’s about using nurture, growth, and self-love to independently thrive. These are what I consider some of the most important aspects of true self-care.

Spiritual Self-Care Here’s a fair question: What feeds your soul? Whatever feeds your soul; go do that. The daily accepted routines of the rat race can be soul-crushing. Mid-life crises have practically become a rite of passage. Between the monotony of grey processors and 9-5s, creaky office chairs and the complaints of back pain, I’ve watched dreams die in a very slow way. Capitalism teaches us to pursue the American Dream during the week, consumerism on weekends and other media endorsed ideals (such as attaining a tiny waist size, etc.) in the meantime. We’re taught to prioritize sheeping a capitalist status quo, while our passions take a backseat. Chasing false ideologies often alienates us from partaking in activities and careers that truly fulfill us.

One of the simplest acts of spiritual self-care is doing the things that make you happy. Traveling. Being surrounded by the wild. Introductions to new cultures. Aesthetics. Developing analog films. Evenings surfing under coral horizons that remind me of Pink Floyd songs.

My soul sings. It’s the moments where I live my real life as boldly, unapologetically and adventurously as the dream life in my head, that unequivocally fulfill me. Yes, reality doesn’t always pan out as smoothly as in my imagination and it’s peppered with unpredictability. But the most beautiful scenes of my life have been the ones I could have never prescripted in fantasy. Most importantly, it’s the person I’d like to be in my head that becomes real.

Doing the things I love is like escaping into self-actualization. Self-actualization

being the pinnacle of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is where we dare to live to our fullest potentials and become our truest and highest selves.

Therefore, it’s important to have agency and stop dissociating. Quit being an office space cadet, and engage in hobbies and careers that align with your interests. (Thanks to the internet it’s easy to reach out to any company and client, and launch digital portfolios. The world is your oyster.) Do things that make you proud. Find purpose. Be honest with yourself and get out of your comfort zone.

I’m a firm believer that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Much of what we want presides on the other side of fear, so it’s important to live a life based on curiosity rather than fear. It’s the uncertainty of life that creates adventure and poetry. I believe it’s vital living a life filled with mistakes, highs, and lows, rather than having regrets over a life you never lived when you’re 90.

Emotional Self-Care Who is your highest self? My highest self is my internal mother. She’s compassionate, intuitive and sees the best in people. My emotional self is my child self. Both are important and carry out different roles. Your internal mother nurtures and self-soothes, your child-self tugs your sleeve to alert you when something is wrong.

Emotional self-care is about learning to take care of that inner child. If it’s crying, be gentle with yourself. Have loving self-talks. Validate, pacify and pamper it. Eat a home-cooked meal and watch your favorite tv show. Find your comfiest PJs and read a good book. Finally, try a digital detox! Learn which rituals summon a state of coziness when life is dark!

It’s also important for our mental health that we acknowledge, feel and release emotions. Let your self feel your feelings and process them in a healthy way. Let yourself be sad. Journal toxic thoughts out of your system. Gently try to address toxic beliefs and cognitive distortions. If you’re constantly recycling traumas, because the past has unfinished business with you, perhaps therapy could be helpful. Maybe it’s affirmations to build your confidence or a healthy dose of self-love! Whatever it is, emotional self-care is about listening to your emotions, asking yourself which steps you need to nurture yourself and doing it!

Social Self-Care The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. Humans are tribal creatures. Socializing is a preventative medicine for both mental and physical health. It’s important to bond and release the love neurotransmitter oxytocin.We boost oxytocin by spending time with close family and friends. It’s healthy to take a break from lurking on the internet, and engage with actual sapiens! It’s crucial that we have a sense of belonging, so find the tribe that speaks to you on a soul level! I’m a nostalgic creative who romanticizes life. My love languages are trust, honesty, and empathy. My tribe consists of idealistic old souls searching for the same values. Finding a tribe that mirrors and understands us strengthens our own sense of identity. I feel more confident in myself knowing that, no matter how weird or flawed I may sometimes perceive myself, there will always be a community that welcomes me back.

It’s important to note that everyone’s doses of social needs vary. Introverts need alone time to recuperate, finding too much social time draining, while extroverts absorb energy from social spaces.

Physical Self-Care Sound body, sound mind. How you take care of yourself physically is one of the most important steps of self-care. The state of the physical casing which houses your mind and soul colors the mood of your spiritual being. So figure out what your body needs at this moment? What are you putting into your body? Do you need exercise? Restorative sleep? Is it turning off physiological stress responses with HRV? A daily dose of Vitamin D? Or perhaps Vitamin Sea and a holiday are in order? Maybe it’s going to the doctor and addressing illness or food allergies? Like a Tamagotchi, it’s important that you keep all your health bars full.

There are many avenues of self-care, but ultimately true self-care is created through the honesty and agency which produces change. Change which cultivates our most authentic selves and comes from a place of nurture, growth, and self-love. Maybe telling others to actively pursue self-care stinks of millennialism and will surely encourage Boomer heckling, and cries of reality checks. But perhaps, the “grin and bear your unhappiness” line of thought doesn’t work. Arguably the same logic fuels toxic masculinity, mid-life crises, and burnouts. Which equally don’t work. I’m not promoting laziness or a lack of self-sufficiency. But I think living fulfilled lives leaves more compassion, energy, and interest in fixing the world around us. By taking care of ourselves, we are able to take better care of others.