Self Care is Not A Guilty Pleasure
By: Raquel Van Ry
“I’m so busy, I just don’t have enough time”. Does this sound like you? We’ve all used time as an excuse to not care for ourselves. Think about someone in your life who practices self care. How do you feel about them? Most likely, you admire that they have enough time to do so. So why the heck do we sometimes feel bad about doing something for ourselves, like it’s a guilty pleasure? I say be bad and make self care your guilty pleasure until it becomes something that you can’t live without.
Run your diffuser or light the candle you’ve been saving for some special time, I know most of you probably have unburnt wicks in many areas of your life, not just candles. Here are some easy ways to add self care to your life.
1. Take Notice
Next time you’re alone, think about the things that you do that give you energy versus take your energy. Sometimes, we allow other people’s needs to overwhelm our own. It’s good to be there for others but make sure you know when you need to reset.
I locked myself in my bathroom and was attacking a particularly stubborn black chin hair one day when I started noticing what made me feel good. For me, it’s when I set up all my favourite skin care products and the pointiest tweezers I can find and go at it in my 10x magnifying mirror. I also felt amazing after watching a couple of episodes of Modern Family to make me laugh while I ran on my elliptical. These things are just a few forms of self care that I have had to learn to prioritize. Yours will likely be different.
Other people’s version of self care may be vastly different than your own, there’s no room for comparisons. Don’t punish yourself if you hate meditating or moisturizing. Maybe those kinds of self care aren’t for you. Maybe sitting in your garden and playing in the dirt or grabbing a notebook and writing whatever comes to your mind could help you to ground and care for yourself. Check out our blog post on how to journal.
2. Use Reminders/Motivators
Just like our self care process, reminders and motivators will be different for each of us. Would a picture of a YouTube fitness guru inspire you to work out? Or, maybe it’s a motivational quote you tape to your fridge or the scent of Cedarwood that reminds you of nature when you’re surrounded by concrete. Determine what motivates you and reminds you to do the things you love, then establish a process that you can eventually do daily, or weekly, to take care of mind and body.
3. Execute Self Care
There are a few things you can add to your daily life that will help to make self care irresistible. Getting enough sleep is crucial and so is creating a relaxing environment by running a diffuser with a sleep oil, like ylang-ylang, and de-cluttering as much as possible. Set yourself up for success. There’s a reason essential oils have their name; they are an essential source of Team Self Care. If you need a little boost to get going in the morning, put a few drops of lemon essential oil into your diffuser. If you want to relax and reset after a hard day at work, eucalyptus (for self love) might do it for you.
Self care is about learning yourself. There’s no reason that you should feel guilty about it because it will make you better, stronger, and healthier in the long run. For more information on essential oils for men check out this article. So, on this day, let's move on and do things that rejuvenate us– unapologetically.