What is self-care?

Self-Care is a part of everyday life. Without it we would not exist. Often we take our selves and our actions for granted and we ‘self-care’ without even noticing.

So what is self-care? What does it mean for you? You are the expert on your life and the process of self-care is as unique and individual as we are ourselves. Contrary to what you might think self-care is not about spending lots of money on spa trips and expensive pampering. Similarly, it is not something that requires you to take a lot of time out of your already busy schedule. It is more about the simple daily habits that we engage in on a regular basis to manage and improve our health and wellbeing. A self-care moment can be simply that – a moment – or it can be longer. It is about figuring out what works for you in your life. It is about striving for balance in your life.

But before we explore the notion of self-care further, first we must ask ourselves, what is ‘the self’?

The Unknown ‘Self’

When you think of your ‘self’, what springs to mind? What does it mean to you? Is it individual to you? How often do we really listen to ‘our selves’? Have you ever stopped to get to know it? Self-care is a multi-dimensional approach to our health and wellbeing (Monk, 2011). So what are the components or various aspects of the self? Take a moment to consider what your self means to you. It is yours. You should get to know it.

So when you think of each of these different parts of your self what comes to mind? What does it mean ‘to feed the soul’? How do you care for your heart? What is your body telling you about its care needs right now? What do we need to do in order to survive? What can we do to go beyond surviving? What does it mean to live?

Other times our bodies, our thoughts, our emotions and our behaviours remind us that we are forgetting about us. Sometimes too a friend, a colleague or a family member might notice that ‘I am neglecting me’.

Sometimes, we are so focused on the relationships in our lives and the lives of others that we forget about the ‘me’ in the relationship. We are so focused on our kids’ needs, on our friend’s latest new toy, on achieving the goals set by our parents, on caring for a sick relative, on our school or bosses’ demands that we forget to ask what we want.

Often in the busy world that is our lives today, we are so focused on ‘doing’ that we often forget to just ‘be’. We are so focused on doing for ourselves and others that we often forget about ‘the we who do’. Just as on an aeroplane we are told to put on our own oxygen mask before that of a child or person we are caring for, in life too, sometimes we need to focus on taking care of our inner self in order to sustain our ability to care for and respond to others. Just as a fireman would not run into a burning building without his protective clothing, we too often need to put on our ‘clothing’ to protect us from the daily stresses and strains of life. In daily life, we are the tools of our trade, the trade of living – our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our spirit, our relationships – and we need to learn to protect and nurture these tools.

Sometimes too we are so focused on one aspect of our lives or one aspect of the self that we neglect, or simply forget about, others. It is only when we stop and be, when we slow down and breathe, when we take stock and check in with ourselves, when we notice… It is only then that we become self-aware and we begin to listen to what our body, our mind, our heart, our behaviours, our spirit, our connections are trying to tell us… we begin to notice the responses that our bodies, our minds, our hearts are having to the daily activities of our lives and we can begin to focus on striving for balance in our lives. It is only with this balance that our tools can continue to continue to work for us.