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journeyofmagic-blog · 7 years

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What is Self-Care and Why is it Important?

Self-care is addressing the needs of your body, whether it be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Because we are all built differently, self-care isn’t going to look the same for all of us. For some, self-care is gathering the strength to get out of bed and take a shower while for others it’s finding 15 minutes in their busy day to sit alone outside. There is no RIGHT way to self-care only YOUR way. So it’s essential that you listen to your body and allow it to lead you towards what you need in order to care for yourself.

As stated above, there are 4 areas of yourself that require acts of self-care to stay in balance and working properly. Though they are separated, they are also very much connected. Ignoring one area has the potential to negatively affect the others so it’s important to scan through all aspects of yourself and not disregard any. Below is a further explanation of each area and examples of how to self-care.

Physical - The physical refers to the physical body and out of all 4 areas it’s probably the easiest to spot when it’s out of sorts. It’s also the area society puts the most focus on. Sickness, pain, exhaustion, fatigue, soreness, and just an overall sense of feeling like crap are some indicators that you need some self-care in the physical area. Some examples of self-care are adding healthier foods into your diet or making sure you are getting enough of each of the essential vitamins and minerals, doing some kind of physical activity (even just taking a walk outside), adjusting your sleep cycle so that you are getting enough GOOD sleep, taking a warm bath to soothe tired and achy muscles, and most importantly RESTING! Your body is sacred and when you treat it as such the world becomes a lot less formidable.

Mental - Sadly, mental health is still struggling to get out of the shadow of physical health. Theres so much stigma on mental health that a lot of times this area goes untouched which can cause the other areas to fall apart regardless of how much self-care you throw at them. So let me stress with bold italics to make it clear: MENTAL HEALTH IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS PHYSICAL HEALTH!!! Okay one more time just in case anyone missed it. MENTAL HEALTH IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS PHYSICAL HEALTH!!! Whew, glad we got that out of the way now we can continue. Mental and physical health are equals in regards to our overall health especially because they are strongly linked. It’s been my own experience that when one is off the other is soon to follow, but thankfully it also works in the opposite direction. Improving one will also help improve the other. So a lot of the examples of self-care listed for physical can also apply to mental. Though that doesn’t work for everyone or it will only get you part of the way. It’s important to understand that we all have our own individual struggles with mental health, with some being more severe than others especially when you take into account our home lives, our environments, our experiences, and of course our access to healthcare. So this area especially is going to have many different forms of self-care and like I said before, there is no right way just your way. Some examples for mental self-care are seeing a professional, taking your medication as instructed, finding healthy coping mechanisms, being kind and patient with yourself, meditation, rewarding yourself for even the littlest of achievements, and allowing yourself to have bad days without punishing yourself.

Emotional - So some might think that the emotional should tie into mental and though it is true that emotional and mental have an EXTREMELY close link, emotional can operate outside of the influence of mental allowing it to be its own area. Other than mental and physical, the emotional aspect is deeply connected to our life experiences and our interactions with people. So in a lot of cases when our emotions are in a state of chaos it’s an indicator we haven’t properly dealt with a painful experience. Or we are currently experiencing a traumatic event or relationship. When your emotions are running rampant the most crucial and mandatory act of self-care is to LISTEN! It may seem like the emotional is just being a cruel bitch, but it’s actually trying to tell you something important. Its sounding an alarm, trying to bring your focus to an area that desperately needs your attention. It’s like when your body sends pain signals to your brain when you have a wound or a broken bone. It’s telling you that there’s parts of your body that needs healing. The same goes for your emotions. They are telling you that there’s issues that you haven’t yet healed from or even dealt with. So absolutely part of your emotional self-care should be allowing yourself to heal from whatever it is that’s caused you trauma, pain, and distress. Other examples of self-care for the emotional aspect are journaling, confiding in someone you trust, allowing yourself to cry, treating yourself to what comforts you, finding or creating a place you feel safe and relaxed in, movie marathons or netflix binge watching, and being very gentle and loving with yourself. Oh and it’s also important to note that for some of us it’s natural to get emotional flare ups, especially for those of us who menstruate. In those cases, it’s still imperative to listen to your emotions (and body) which are most likely telling you to rest and take it easy! Seriously, one of the best acts of self-care for any (and really all) areas is to allow yourself time to really rest.

Spiritual - It’s my personal opinion that this is the hardest area to gain access to yet it also has the greatest ability to positively affect not only the other areas, but your own relationship with self-care itself. I have to say feeding my spiritual area was a game changer for me. It’s the reason I made self-care a vital part of my life and it’s the reason I’m here typing up this post. Its allowed me to start healing from my abusive relationship (emotional), its helped me learn to cope with and control my anxiety and depression (mental), and its aided me with treating my body like the sacred temple it is (physical). Now i’m not saying that all your problems will be fixed by putting all your efforts and focus into the spiritual, I just think when you make taking care of yourself part of your religion or practice, you are much more likely to see it as a priority. So ways to self-care the spiritual are being outside and soaking in nature, going to a place of worship, earthing, sitting outside during the full moon, going to the beach, meditation, sit with a deity or some kind of higher power, enjoy some silence, and spend time in sacred space (create sacred space if you don’t already have one).

I also want to stress that self-care should be a part of your everyday life not just when one of the areas goes into chaos. Getting into the habit of checking in with yourself routinely and practicing self-care daily makes it much less likely that you will even reach the point of complete chaos or at the very least you will find stability a lot quicker. Though in order to truly make a habit of practicing self-care the key concept that you absolutely need to accept and embrace is that YOU ARE WORTH IT!!! Repeat it. Say it right now! Say I AM WORTH IT! You are 100% worth dedicating time and energy to yourself! You are 100% deserving of love, patience, rewards, and kindness from yourself! You are 100% entitled to all the self-care and self-love you need. You are worth it, my friends. You are so worth it. Now go give yourself some much deserved love and care!

~Jessie

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