🔼: [[⭐️ Self-Love]], [[🕯️ Self-Stewardship]] #### ⭐️ Self-Care Self-Care is self-tending, nurturing our holistic well-being on an ongoing basis by discovering and meeting our own [[⭐️ Needs]]. It is reserving some of our own time, energy, attention, and resources to pour back into ourself, acts self-love and self-respect. This is a facet of [[🕯️ Self-Stewardship]] which both promotes our healing and aids our [[⭐️ Self-Becoming]]. > ”*Imagine for a moment, at the beginning of your life, you were given a human. And you were told […] you have one job for the rest of your life. You have to take care of this human. Most of us have not realized that that's our job. We finish our parenting where we were raised by somebody else. We go out into the world and we start looking for someone else to show up for us. But we are our human. The only person who's truly here to take care of Matthew is me. He's in my custody.* > > *And when you wake up in the morning and you say, what would I do today if I was taking care of my human? The answer is completely different to what we do most days when we beat ourselves up, when we put ourselves around […] people who don't treat us well. It's completely different.*” > — Matthew Hussey ([source](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAY9ibcPgVS)) Only some of us were never really taught to care for our human — our caregivers don’t just take care of our needs when we’re young, they reveal our needs to us by way of tending to them. And if we didn’t get to witness some of our needs being tended to, we may not know what they are. For many of us, taking care of our human is something we are learning to do for the first time. So it can be worthwhile to underline some elements of self-care, some ways (not the only or “right” way) of looking at it: [[🔑 Our doings arise out of our being|🔑 It's not what you do, but who you are when you do it, that matters most]]. Foundational to this entire experiment is our attunement, how we're attuned to ourselves and to our life is more important than the particulars of what we do. It is the soil which everything else grows out of, and if that soil is polluted, what grows from it will be too because we naturally act in ways that grow out of our attunement to the world and to ourselves. [[🔑 Don’t strive for self-worth]]. %% - [[🛡️ Codependency]] ![[💡 Panchakosha Theory|Panchakosha Theory]] %% - [[🔑 There is no such thing as Self-Care|🔑 There is no such thing as (traditional) Self-Care]] - [[🔑 Emotional Suppression is often mistaken for Care]] - [[🔑 Care, Maintenance, and Regulation can overlap and synergize]] - [[🔑 Not all pleasure has to be earned]] - [[✍️ The Myth of Self-Reliance]] - [[🔑 We need each other]] - [[🔑 Listen to your body]] - [[🔑 We need Nothing]] - [[🔑 We tend to value what we pay attention to (and vice versa)]] - [[🔑 Emotional Regulation can be Presence-led or Parts-led]] - [[🔑 Do the next right thing]] - [[🔑 Don’t strive for self-worth]] ![[⭐️ Emotions#⭐️ Emotions When Needs Are Satisfied]] ![[⭐️ Emotions#⭐️ Emotions When Needs Are Not Satisfied]] ###### Self-Care Menu [[⭐️ Self-Care]] is about [[⭐️ Needs]] being met, not just feeling better so that we don’t notice them going unmet. In order to meet our needs, we need to know what they are. Because of this, most self-care begins with self-connection, even if that means noticing our internal responses to our exterior lives. If we don’t feel like we know ourselves, if we feel like we’re not whole, we almost certainly are disconnected from various [[💡 Parts|parts]] of ourselves. Self care means allowing our [[⭐️ Body]] and [[⭐️ Inner-Compass]] guide us — not an external prescription from social media algorithms or wellness gurus. We can’t let our feeds, notifications, calendars, routines, or associative thinking tell us what to pay attention to or what we need. It’s meant to go the other way around. > [!info] > Self-Care has been largely co-opted by consumerism. We’re taught that it means spending money on luxuries and non-essentials all by ourselves. It *can* be that, gifting ourselves with things and experiences we enjoy is sometimes what we need, but this easily become a [[Protector Strategies 🛡️|Protector Strategy]], what some call [[🛡️ Retail Therapy]]. This is not self-care. To use the Menu, we read slowly while paying attention to how our bodies, minds, and hearts respond. We take note of what resonates most leaning into intuition more than rationality. We might even ask ourselves, without thinking about the answer, “What sounds good today?” or “What do I need right now?” and notice what arises. Better yet, it may be worthwhile to try [[🕯️ Re-Centering]] and then sense or intuit what we might need right now, without reading the list. We might already know if we just pause and listen — [[🔑 start where you are]]. If the list feels generic or uninteresting, it might as well be empty. We cannot standardize being human, Self-Care cannot be prescriptive. If doing whatever ‘Self-Care thing’ wouldn’t be nourishing or enriching, it's not Self-Care! Making a list of things that do feel good, nurturing, and restorative to us can help us get to know ourselves. Self-care is generative and restorative. If it instead feels burdensome, like a draining chore… - We may have leaky or missing [[🕯️ Boundaries]] and be giving too much. We may need to retreat and lean into [[⭐️ Rest and Restoration]] as a first step. - We may be caring for ourselves in ways that don’t match our actual [[⭐️ Needs]] or [[🛠️ Goals and Intentions|Goals]]. - We may not be attuned to the somatic sensations which tell us what is nourishing and what is taxing. - A part of us may feel like we are not worth taking care of. - A part of us may not feel safe to feel cared for. - A part of us may believe self-care should always be effortless. - A part of us may believe self-care it is always about doing more, when it often is about doing less or doing differently — finding [[Practices 🕯️]] or activities that truly feel nurturing. - We are checking of a list of self-care “[[💡 Should Statements|shoulds]]” without checking in to intuit what we really need. We might see self-care as an item on the list rather than an essential lifestyle change to be woven into our life as a whole. - We actually need [[⭐️ Community Care]]. These are meant to be expressions of [[☀️ Compassion]], [[🕯️ Love]], or care; this is about making contact and satisfying our [[⭐️ Needs]], *not* making emotions go away. [[🛡️ Emotional Foreclosure]] makes Self-Care quite difficult. - [[🕯️ Tending to feelings]] - [[🕯️ Resourcing]] - [[🛠️ One Point Better]] - Remind yourself to focus on what you can control and to stop striving to control what you can't. - Occasional [[🛡️ Spiritual Bypassing]] — everyone needs a break. - Choosing foods, clothes, or other things that are nourishing and help us feel loved. - Remove stressful things from our to-do list that we don’t actually need to do. - [[Nurture]] - [[🕯️ Movement Practices 👟]] - [[👟 Stretching]] - [[⭐️ Sleep]] or take a comfy nap. - [[⭐️ Rest and Restoration]] - [[💡 Grief|Grieving]] - Setting [[🕯️ Boundaries]] - Have a do-nothing day every week. - Massage / [[🛠 Self-Massage]] - A simple skincare routine. - Soak your feet. - Sink into a comfortable chair - Wrap in a cozy blanket - Drive with your windows down - Create an intentional morning routine. - Make relaxation a priority. - Relax in the sun - Cloud watching - Get [[⭐️ Outdoors]], somewhere pretty - Light a candle and watch the flame - [[🧘 Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation]] - Part of Self-Care is knowing when we need or even would like care from others. Nurturing [[⭐️ Relationships]] and [[⭐️ Community Care]]. - Call a friend we haven't talked to in a while. - Hang out with pets. If we don't have any pets, we could go walk at the park and ask to pet someone else's. - Being nice to a stranger for no reason. - Give affection for no reason. - Cuddling a partner, friend, pet, stuffed animal, or a big fluffy pillow. We can hug ourself and be amused at how adorable we are. - Go [[👟 Walking]] in the park and hug some trees. - [[🕯️ Journaling]] - [[🕯️ Gratitude]] - Look at photos of loved ones - Listen or move to [[🛠 Music]]. - Create a playlist that will get you through rough days. - Read Fiction - Coloring / Art / Pastels - Cute animal videos. - A long, luxurious shower or [[🌿 Herbal Bath]] with music, candles, and smell-goods. [[Aromatherapy]] - Put on comfy clothes - Eating yummy stuff, even something super indulgent from time to time. - Take a selfie - If we're tired, what's something small that might help even a tiny bit? - Herbal tea - Smell some flowers - Smell [[🌿 Lavender]] or vanilla - Light a scented candle - Deeply breathe in fresh air - Open a package of coffee and inhale the aroma - Boil cinnamon - Watch a funny movie or show - Look at photos from a past vacation or somewhere you'd like to visit - Pay attention to the sounds of nature/around you. - [You Feel Like Shit](https://philome.la/jace_harr/you-feel-like-shit-an-interactive-self-care-guide/play/index.html), for when we have no motivation. - [[🕯️ Tending to feelings]] ###### Related - [[💡 Burnout|Burnout]] - [[⭐️ Rest and Restoration]] [^1]: https://www.take5tosavelives.org/practiceselfcare