Looking for ways to practice self-care? You’ll find many listicles. I thought of making my own but who needs another to-do list? That’s not the best way to make self-care work. It’s not about performing tasks.
Self-care is behavior that follows the mindset of treating yourself with proper care. You deserve love and respect as a human being.
The listicles can be helpful in a way but there is another way that needs to come first.
A way that many dismiss and then they suffer. I know because I was one of them.
The best way to make self-care work starts with seeing what you need.
SEEING
To discover what you need requires looking inside you.
How can you properly care for someone you don’t know well?
There’s an entire world going on inside of each and every one of us that many never pay attention to.
That world runs our lives and it’s a messy place because life is messy. Our minds and emotions are subjected to misinformation and injury all the time.
We need to look inside, know who we are and intentionally become involved in what’s going on inside there.
The best way to make self-care work is to do first things first.
THE FIRST THING
Looking inside you’ll find you need some internal repair and healing because everyone needs it to some degree. Don’t let this scare you, it means you’re human.
We accumulate and internalize negative views of ourselves.
These are damaging and need to be repaired or they’ll make us miserable and steal all our dreams.
I know from experience.
I had to listen to how I talked to myself. I had to pay attention to what I was thinking and find out why.
There’s a reason, a source of the negativity inside us. It has to be dragged out into the light and destroyed.
Slaying our reason begins our healing.
It’s important to embrace our imperfections. Nobody’s perfect.
Identifying the negative inner dialogue isn’t enough though. It needs to be replaced with positive truth.
The best way to make self-care work is to change how you see yourself.
SEEING DIFFERENT
Practice believing new thoughts that enforce your value.
Use your imagination to see them as true in your life.
Say them out loud over and over until they become a part of you.
Changing how we think about ourselves takes a lot of work but the payoff is amazing.
Bad things happen and we suffer injury or loss.
Sometimes trauma. It happens more than you may realize.
That’s a lot of people.
Emotional and mental wounds (also known as soul wounds) are as real as broken bones and deserve proper care to heal.
Disregarding or minimizing something you’ve gone through won’t make it vanish out of the timeline of your life. On the contrary, the wound will go hiding underground where it will fester. But it won’t stay there.
Eventually, it will come back to bite you like a rabid animal if you refuse to deal with it.
Embrace the feelings you’re dealing with instead of slapping on a band-aid of it’s not a big deal or just get over it.
Get help if you need it. Sometimes we need to be carried.
There’s no shame in asking for help.
I started seeing a professional counselor for the process of writing my first book. I saw her for a long time and still have her number if I need her.
Talk with someone you can trust and unload the pain, confusion, shame, fear etc.
Tending to your inner wounds will take a lot of work and bravery. You’re worth it.
Sometimes as you peel back layers of pain you find more underneath that’s been hidden for a long time. These inner wounds require validation and empathy to begin to heal.
The best way to make self-care work is to do the inner work for healing.
FOLLOW UP SELF-CARE
Follow up self-care is continuing to treat yourself with the love and respect you deserve as a human being.
This is where the listicles can be helpful.
Things like go for a walk, smile at yourself in the mirror, take a hot bath, meet up with a friend, go to bed early, start a gratitude jar…
We need to remember though—there is no perfect way to practice self-care because it’s not about the to-do list.
Self-care is about how we treat ourselves.
There‘s no self-care routine you can perform on your outsides that will take care of an attitude of self-loathing, negative or shaming inner dialogue, untended traumas, or self-harming behaviors. That inner work must be done first and then follow up self-care turns into maintenance.
Once we can live in maintenance mode we’re able to carry others who need what we’ve been through.
The best way to make self-care work is to keep it up and taste the sweet fruit.
HOW SWEET IT IS
Doing the hard work of self-care is worth the effort because it will bear good fruit in your life.
We taste its sweetness when we respond in a positive manner where we used to be negative.
Like I did the other day.
I’ve been doing LIVE readings on Facebook with some of the people I interviewed for my book Because You Matter. I wanted everyone to meet these people so they come alive when the reader reads their story.
We did a combination of reading their story and interjecting additional information. As we did this many times I’d stumble while reading – making a mistake – and I’d laugh. I even elaborated on how this is normal and why audio books are edited after recording.
There was a time when I would have reacted with being horrified at myself and spewed awful inner dialogue. Maybe even cried.
Being able to laugh at your own mistakes is sweet fruit!!
I needed internal repair and healing. I did the hard work. Laughing at myself was the fruit of hard work. It’s one of my favorite fruits now.
Proper self-care requires us to know who we are, accept ourselves and treat ourselves with honor.
The best way to make self-care work is to truly care for your self.
WHAT NEXT:
- Share your thoughts on this article in the comments.
- Have you tasted sweet fruit?
- If you struggle to love yourself enough to do the work of self-care go here.
- If you’re looking for a coach to come along side and help you go here.
The recordings of the readings are on this playlist on my YouTube channel.
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“Dismmissing or minimizing something you’ve gone through won’t make it vanish out of the timeline of your life. On the contrary, the wound will go hiding underground where it will fester. But it won’t stay there.”
This is what I’ve done, or what many people have done over the years. Right now, it seems like all my crap from the past is bubbling to the surface. In some ways,I feel like that kid from many years ago, but I’m supposed to have myl together. But I don’t even close.
I’m trying to deal with it but it feels a wound that has chronic infection.
I relate to so much of what you wrote.
Thank you.
but I’m supposed to have my life together. But I’m not even close in some regards. But all I can do, is keep going. 🙂
I understand the feeling but I’ve learned that no one actually has it all together. 🙂
Robin, I’m so sorry for your pain. Let me begin with validating whatever has traumatized you. Trauma is trauma. Trauma is personal. You have the right to be healed.
I understand that feeling of “supposed to have it all together” but it’s a lie. I lived under the pressure of the “shoulds” for a long time. Still I’m not immune because they erupt from time to time. It’s the judgement we feel from others, toxic self-criticism, or falling into comparison. Those shoulds are destructive to us. They make things even worse. I have an article on it comparing those shoulds to Godzilla. You can read it here.
I can relate to your words too. The “wound that has a chronic infection”. I dealt with so much in my life but it still struggled so much. It wasn’t until I went into counseling to write my book Emerging With Wings and discovered deeper issues I was unaware of. Dealing with them has made all the difference. It’s what compelled me to be sharing with others. Being trapped in that emotional prison of pain is awful. I want to help as many as I can get free. It’s not magic but every little bit of healing brings a new taste of freedom and joy. If you want to talk, set up a free consultation and we can see if I’m a good fit to come along side you in your healing journey.
Love Danielle