HAPPY SELF CARE-DAY! This is about to get a bit personal in here. I think it’s important that we understand self-care is different for everyone but is an essential necessity in our daily lives. Like us, it comes in all shapes and sizes and we have different priorities. However, the biggest priority and investment should always be ourselves. The amazing Evie Mitchell started a campaign to raise the support and voice of self-care suggesting we make it a little bit personal and I am happy to oblige.
‘You’re always so optimistic’, ‘You’re always smiling’, ‘You’re so quirky’, ‘You’re wonder woman, I don’t know how you do all of this’, ‘WOW you go a hundred miles an hour, how super’, ‘Nothing get’s you down’, ‘You have such an awesome life’.
These are all things that have been said to me over the years and I take great pride in them as well as sadness as to how much they once conditioned me. I try to be positive and optimistic on all things but much of my life has been a struggle caring about what others think both good and bad and the results I could offer them, in hope it seemed much more substantial then simply myself. One of my biggest lessons has been that being ambitious is ‘okay’ but putting my body in harms ways by running it down, taking to many things on board and even telling myself on a daily ‘Smile. You are a robot. You can do this. It’s mind over matter’ is not self-caring. In fact, for me it was the opposite. I’m only twenty-six and have fatigued three times. The first time I was only nineteen years old with three jobs and a passion for all thing’s success. Not a bad mentality to have but it was taxing for my body and let me tell you from first hand, the body cannot keep up with the demand, no matter how much you disconnect your personal feelings and intuition away from it.
It’s only these last twelve months that I’ve truly begun to regain some of that energy, learning and finding the tools to prioritise myself, personal fun and lowering self-expectation and ridicule. I was always determined to not let others see my imperfections and fatigued because I thought I was almost inspiring in a way or if they saw the truth behind the mask then I’d be more of a burden with all my inner dialogue, so instead I chose to ignore it as well. These were all genuine concerns for my health and wellbeing and I CHOSE to ignore them. I chose to ignore myself. I didn’t want anyone to know how much I didn’t have my s**t together. There it is again, what did others think?
I’ve yoyo-ed with body image for as long as I could remember and because of it, in periods of my life been extreme in methods and hours I’ve put into exercise and what I’ve eaten. And you know what, it never worked! I might’ve been obsessed with doing what I thought was the right thing to do but what I didn’t focus on was my personal obsession of self-love that would actually make any difference besides counting out how many carrots I could eat that day.
In recent months, with the world coming to a pause, I have been blessed to take this time out, pick up amazing books and really evaluate what’s important to me and WHY I’m important to ME. My mentality has changed significantly. It wasn’t easy but necessary. I am literally the person I will be spending the rest of my life with; it only makes sense to give as much love, actually MORE love to me then what I can offer anyone else.
The biggest form of negativity we will ever encounter, I can guarantee is from ourselves. And you know what! I’m sick of beating myself up with cycled silly nonsense I created on replay because of bullies in the past who no doubt had their own insecurities, opinions of others because they were comparing their work to mine, or the images I face every day that might tell me my body isn’t the same as hers.
Now every morning when I wake up I’m grateful for my morning coffee, curl under my blankets and read a book, meditate and affirm to myself that today is a great day, that I’m beautiful, smart, successful, and that I’m blessed to love my career as an author where I can passionately do what I love most, WRITE. I take my beautiful dog, Sia for a forty-five minute walk, listen to an inspirational audio book, and then hit the gym because I ENJOY exercise. I then have an awesome breakfast because I’m convinced I’ve recently turned into a master chef, sit down at my laptop and run my awesome business that I’m building brick by brick, with obstacles on some steps and I find a way to deal with them in a positive manner instead of trying to bulldoze through them face first. And some days, if I just want to have time to myself, hang out with friends or my sister, or just play a video game to make my inner nerd dance, I DO! Because I’m just as important as my goals and everyone else I care about.
CHOOSE yourself. LOVE yourself. And CARE for yourself. In whatever way that looks, I support you and can’t wait until you have the epiphany that you support yourself too. How will you practice self-care today?
Let’s cheers together on this amazing day of self-care, love and nurture. HAPPY SELF CARE DAY! Xx
#iselfcare #selfcareisnotselfish