Winter can be a challenging time. There is less sunlight, the holidays may evoke feelings of stress and loneliness, and it’s a time of year when family conflict and old wounds rise to the surface. The need to practice self-care is important year-round, but it is especially important during times that place extra demands on the self. Social media would have us believe that self-care is all about massages, exotic travel, and luxurious purchases. Acts of self-care have become synonymous with treating yourself and spending money. Purchasing an item or a service that brings you joy and is good for your body is not wrong. However, you do need to question the idea that self-care needs to be costly, or that you have to buy things to make it happen. There seems to be a trend towards commercializing self-care, and its portrayal on social media suggests that self-care is affordable to some, but not to others. This can make the thought of taking care of yourself seem daunting or out of your reach.
In addition to feeling inaccessible, self-care can be challenging because there is a fine line between self-care and self-destructive behavior. What happens when a treat turns into a binge, or one glass turns into the whole bottle? Or when an episode of “treating yourself” leaves you feeling guilty, stressed, and financially overextended? What happens when self-indulgence becomes self-abuse? An important aspect of self-care is examining the short-term versus the long-term benefit, and becoming aware of actions that are going to make you feel worse in the long run. Relying on acquiring stuff to nurture yourself can lead to a cycle of spending and guilt that can be challenging to break, and relying exclusively on numbing or distraction does not allow for true self-regulation or true emotional processing. Let’s bring the focus back to what self-care is really about: physical and mental health and personal well-being.
The subject of self-care can seem large and overwhelming. It can be helpful to break it down into domains.
Domains of self-care:
Physical
Physical self-care is getting enough water, food, sleep, and physical activity. Caring for yourself physically means not abusing drugs or alcohol, or not doing anything else that actively hurts your body. It means not binging on food, not staying up late, and not pushing yourself when you’re sick or tired. It means going to the doctor and the dentist when you need to. It also means time for rest and recreation.
Emotional
Emotional self-care is taking care of your feelings and staying emotionally regulated. Having the ability to deal with your feelings in a healthy way is critical to your happiness and your quality of life. Emotional self-care means being aware of what you’re feeling, and having the ability to cope with your emotions and express them in a healthy way. It is learning to be gentle with yourself and with your feelings.
Personal
Personal self-care is an awareness of yourself as an individual. Personal self-care means not being consumed by how other people feel about you or with what other people want from you. Personal self-care is taking care of your identity and setting boundaries with others. It is about being yourself and not what others want you to be.
Social
Social self-care is about honouring your needs for connection and your needs for personal time and space. Social self-care is knowing when you need to seek out people and when you need time to recharge. Social self-care also involves examining relationships. Are your relationships healthy and respectful? Do they build you up or leave you drained? Do you need boundaries to protect yourself?
Spiritual
Spiritual self-care is about taking care of your soul and engaging in activities or practices that make you feel whole and that give you meaning. For some this includes religion. For others it means discovering what you truly believe and letting go of beliefs that don’t serve you, or beliefs that were forced on you. Spiritual self-care is about finding personal meaning and living in congruence with your personal values and beliefs. It can also include expressing yourself creatively.
Practical
Practical self-care refers to tasks of living such as work, school, or household tasks. For example: continuing to learn and advance at your job, having a job that is fulfilling, having healthy boundaries for work and home, taking care of your living space, not letting household tasks pile up to unmanageable levels, making sure your home life is free from danger or abuse, having healthy finances, living within your means, budgeting, paying bills on time, and having boundaries with others to protect your time and resources.
Self-care isn’t out of anyone’s reach. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to be costly. Self-care is as basic as knowing what you need to be ok. Self-care is saying to yourself: “I’m going to take care of myself in this particular way.” You are likely taking great care of yourself in ways that you hadn’t even considered. Celebrate that and be curious about where you need to add some more. These are just a few areas in which you could be taking care of yourself. If you look at your own life, you may think of more. Which of these domains are you taking really good care of yourself? Which domains do you need to build up? Sometimes self-care means asking for help and the team at Synergy is always here for you.