Self- Care, we’ve all heard it bandied about a fair amount in the past few years, but what exactly is it? In this post, we’ll iron out what it is, how you do it and why it is important.
WHAT IS SELF-CARE?
We get the flu shot at the end of autumn as winter approaches, we apply sunscreen as we are dashing out the door on a scorching summer’s day.
Yet, what do we do (even every day) to preserve, protect and strengthen our mental and emotional health?
What is it though? Well, it’s about time. Setting aside time that for yourself doing things that fill you up as a person.
When the everyday lives we lead are becoming increasingly individualised, there is less and less time for ‘ritual’: a key in shaping the quality of life through establishing meaning and structure. Not only have we lost communal ritual, but personal ritual as well. As the Western world is becoming increasingly secular, we need to find our own personal rituals outside the parameters of organised religion.
We need to find alternatives to faith-based ritualisation that has long been a major source of emotional balance and provided many with mental and emotional sanctuary.
It is ‘personal ritual’ that forms the basis of self-care and eases the swinging pendulum between emotional ease and distress.
SO WHAT CAN WE MAKE INTO OUR PERSONAL RITUALS?
It really is as simple as doing the things we love, that give us small joys, on a regular basis. Whether it finding a quiet space and meditating for half an hour every day, putting on a whole pot of tea and sitting down to read a couple chapters of a book or even going for a run as the sun is coming up. It is anything that gives you a sense of emotional equilibrium.
Take a pen right now and write down a list of things that you love to do, that give you a sense of inner calm, of balance. These small acts of kindness towards your own self, serve as emotional reset buttons
HOW DO I PRACTICE SELF-CARE
I’ve got to admit that this is a list that changes all the time. When you find yourself after a period of time in a more balanced mindset, you are more open to doing different things and therefore your list evolves and changes. For me self-care is kind of on two levels; the micro level (the everyday little rituals) and the macro level (day trips and holidays). They all give me that feeling, and you know what the Danes have a word for it and it’s hygge
For me my micro level rituals are;
1. Making my bed beautifully
I know it doesn’t sound like much but it really has become a ritual for me since I came back from England. Although it’s not to everyone’s liking, I love tucking the doona down the side of the bed as it makes me feel safe when I go to sleep but also it makes me feel like I’m on holiday in a hotel with those super folded and tucked sheets! The rest of the room is kept really neat as well. Less visual distraction = more relaxation!
2. I drink tea out of a cup and saucer at home – and put on a whole pot at a time
I was late to the tea drinking game, but I must admit I’m seriously partial to French Earl Grey. And loose leaf at that. I love the ritual of a teapot sitting on the table, waiting for its gorgeous leafy content to steep and create a brew that soothes you from the inside out. It connects me to family members who are no longer with us; who harked from an era where hospitable rituals of using fine china and special tea was a gesture of gratitude for the presence of your guest in your life. I feel like I’m treating myself!
3. Out in the garden taking photos
This should really be top of the list because it really is when I COMPLETELY zen out. My whole world (even if it’s just 20 minutes), is confined to what I can see through the viewfinder, the shifting speckled light that falls on the garden beds through the trees above. Alain de Botton has often mentioned the important part nature plays in giving man perspective about his own life. And I think focusing in on small parts of gardens, on particular plants and flowers achieves that same purpose. It makes you marvel at the simplicity of life, at photosynthesis of plant growth. There’s a different energy in the garden, and I think it’s really important to tap into it on a regular basis, even just for a little bit.
4. Reading books
Let me just clarify, I’m not reading a book all the time. I somehow am only drawn to reading the ones that call out to something unknown within me. When you pick it up off the shelf and just feel compelled to buy it and start it straight away. I don’t think I have a set genre, but I perhaps read more autobiographies on average; I guess the stories of real people told in their own voice is utterly fascinating to me.
5. Buying flowers!
OK, I think these numbers are really just arbitrary now because I can’t really rate one above the other. But buying flowers for myself feels like the biggest treat ever, even if it’s a bunch of mixed natives from the supermarket, I’m a happy girl. I’ve always got flowers on my desk, right now I’ve got some semi-permanent inhabitants that are dried Proteas (and if any of you follow my Instagram feed, you’ll know these Proteas rather well!), but I receive immense joy after buying the biggest bunch of hydrangeas. I think they are the floral equivalent of the biggest hug imaginable. Tell me if I’m wrong people.
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Look these are just a handful of mine, the ones that are “totally floating my boat” right now. Evidently, there isn’t any physical exercise included in that list… that’s if you don’t count repetitive bending over and crouching in the garden. I am yet to find an intense form of physical exercise that gives me the same feeling as these proteas on my desk. If you know, drop me a line.
WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?
As I mentioned earlier, the Western world is still coming to grips with this ‘new age idea’ of self-care as a preventative mental health measure. Time is so commodified in this age that we live in, that factoring in a relatively small block of time each day to care for one’s self is perceived as tantamount to sacrificing elsewhere in your life. The importance of self-care is this simple; if we don’t make the time for caring for ourselves, the ‘elsewhere’ in our lives will cease to stay afloat. We can’t keep all the colourful balls of our lives in the air if we don’t have the love, faith and belief in ourselves to juggle them. So find sit down, grab that pen and write down the little loves in your life, the rituals you’d love to actually bring back into your life. Who know’s you might even become a better juggler in life.
