Self-care is a fine line

Self-care isn’t as simple as taking a long bath or booking in a manicure. It’s about value, self-worth and believing you deserve treating yourself with care and respect. It’s about recognising the difference in what one day may be self-care, can be self-destructive procrastination the next. It can be a fine line.

It’s about how putting the to-do list aside one day can be an act of kindness to yourself, whereas the next day it can be an act of self-sabotage. Self-care can be working out, or it can be giving yourself a day off the gym when you actually want to go. Self-care can be a large glass of wine in the sunshine, or it can be forgoing the alcohol altogether. Self-care can be taking a day of solitude away from the world, or it might be encouraging yourself out the door to interact.

Self-care is about knowing what your needs are (this can be a challenge in itself for many), and how it is wisest to fulfil them. We need to know ourself to know the difference, and we need to love ourselves to act. The good thing is that one feeds into the other. Self-care fuels self-love. Self-love fuels self-care. You just need to take some challenging first steps to start a new cycle. A new way.

Today, I’m wearing bright, red lipstick and I’m not even dressed. Self-care for me at the moment is about not hiding from the world, not apologising for myself. It’s about daring to believe that I can use my passions and skills to encourage others to be more open about mental health, and start to engage in some new behaviours that I believe can change their world as they know it.  It’s about indulging in the simple things that make me smile and give me joy. Today, it’s a rich, red, eye catching pigment on my lips, to remind myself how far I’ve come from the days I used to hide.

Self-care cultivates self-love. The best investment you can ever make. For the love you have for yourself is the gateway of all other loves.

If you want to know any more about these topics, or want to chat them through in the light of your own experience, take a look at my therapy and coaching page here