If you’re looking for things to do for self-care, online there are a plethora of listicles ranging from 10 to 134 ideas for you. I started making my own kind of list until I thought
Who needs another to-do list?
Self-care is not rooted in performing tasks.
Self-care is behavior that follows the mindset of treating yourself with the love and respect you deserve as a human being.
There are 2 kinds of self-care and the listicles can be helpful but that’s not where to start.
Proper self-care starts by looking inside.
How can we properly care for someone we don’t know?
There’s an entire world going on inside of each and every one of us that many never pay attention to.
That world runs our lives and it’s a messy place because life is messy. Our minds and emotions are subjected to misinformation and injury often.
We need to look inside, know who we are and intentionally become involved in what’s going on inside there.
The first kind of self-care is internal repair and healing
This is first because everyone needs internal repair and healing to some degree.
I’ve needed both.
We accumulate and internalize negative views of ourselves.
These are damaging and need to be repaired or they’ll make us miserable and steal all our dreams.
I know from experience.
I had to listen to how I talked to myself. I had to pay attention to what I was thinking and find out why.
There’s a reason, a source of the negativity inside us. It has to be dragged out into the light and destroyed.
Slaying our reason begins our healing.
It’s important to embrace our imperfections. Nobody’s perfect.
Identifying the negative inner dialogue isn’t enough though. It needs to be replaced with positive truth.
It’s important to embrace our imperfections. Nobody’s perfect. Share on XPractice believing new thoughts that enforce your value.
Use your imagination to see them as true in your life.
Say them out loud over and over until they become a part of you.
Changing how we think about ourselves takes a lot of work but the payoff is amazing.
Bad things happen and we suffer injury or loss.
Sometimes trauma. It happens more than most realize.
That’s a lot of people.
Emotional and mental wounds are as real as broken bones and deserve proper care to heal.
Disregarding or minimizing something you’ve gone through won’t rip it out of the timeline of your life. On the contrary, the wound will go underground hiding in the back of the mind and emotions where it will fester.
Eventually, it will come back to bite you like a rabid animal if you refuse to tend to it.
Embrace the feelings you’re dealing with instead of slapping on a patch of it’s not a big deal or just get over it.
Get help if you need it. Sometimes we need to be carried.
There’s no shame in asking for help.
Emotional and mental wounds are as real as broken bones and deserve proper care to heal. Share on XI started seeing a professional counselor for the process of writing my book. I still see her.
Talk with someone you can trust and unload the pain, confusion, shame, fear etc.
Tending to inner wounds takes a lot of work and bravery.
Sometimes as you peel back layers of pain you find more underneath that’s been hidden for a long time. These inner wounds require validation and empathy to begin to heal.
Tending to inner wounds takes a lot of work and bravery. Share on X
The second kind of self-care is maintenance
Maintenance self-care is continuing to treat yourself with the love and respect you deserve as a human being.
This is where the listicles can be helpful.
Things like go for a walk, smile at yourself in the mirror, take a hot bath, meet up with a friend, go to bed early, start a gratitude jar…
We need to remember though—there is no perfect way to practice self-care because it’s not about the to-do list.
It’s about how we treat ourselves.
There is no self-care routine you can perform on your outsides that will take care of an attitude of self-loathing, negative or shaming inner dialogue, untended traumas, or self-harming behaviors. There’s inner work that must be done.
There is no perfect way to practice self-care because it’s not about the to-do list. Share on XWhen we can live in maintenance mode we’re able to carry those who are in need of inner repair and healing and eat sweet fruit.
Sweet fruit
Doing the hard work of self-care is worth the effort because it will bear good fruit in our lives.
We taste its sweetness when we respond in a positive manner where we used to be negative.
Like I did the other day.
While I was writing I lost track of time and was late to a meet-up with a group of writer friends. Every week we participate together in something called a Medium challenge.
Medium is a website where writers share their work.
During this challenge, we post the links to our articles on Medium and then recommend and share each other’s work.
I shared the wrong link for everyone to see because I was late and in a hurry.
A friend asked me about what I’d done and I bust into hilarious laughter.
Then my laughter escalated as I recognized I was able to laugh at myself because I had learned how to do it.
There was a time when I would have reacted with being horrified at myself and spewed awful inner dialogue. Maybe even cried.
Being able to laugh at your own mistakes is sweet fruit!!
I needed internal repair and healing. I did the hard work. Laughing at myself was the fruit of hard work. It tasted good.
Being able to laugh at your own mistakes is sweet fruit!! Share on X
Proper self-care requires us to know who we are, accept ourselves and treat ourselves with honor.
What next:
Which kind of self-care do you need right now?
Have you tasted sweet fruit?
- Share in the comments.
- Share this with someone who would benefit.
- Read Love’s Manifesto – get it now free – You’re worth it!
- Read more about my journey on my about page. You are NOT alone!
That’s really good, Danielle, I’ve never heard it broken out that way into two types, but it makes *a lot* of sense. Great post!
Thank you, Dave. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I like the part about laughing at your self. I have experience that and it is indeed sweet fruit. However I don’t spend a lot of time delving into my past hurts and sins. To think about them only makes me relive them. And sometimes I do catch myself doing so. What I do now is acknowledge the fact that the past is in the past, it’s over and it doesn’t exist anymore. Today is a new day. God gives us a brand new beginning every morning. We get to start over and do it right. And with God’s grace, we will get it right.
I’m happy to hear your past is resolved and doesn’t disrupt your life. That’s awesome, Marilyn.
There’s nothing like that sweet fruit. Thanks for sharing!
such important reminders! self-care is something I struggle with and have to be SUPER intentional with.
Thank you, Deanne.
I’ve struggled a lot too so I understand. Getting our mindset on board and our soul wounds healed helps a lot. But it’s still something we need to be intentional about, like you said.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Great point about maintainence. I tend to abandon self-care (for instance, meditating) when things are going well and pick it up again when things are really bad, but maybe if I kept it up I would be better at dealing with the obstacles.
Thank you, Kate. I’m sure we’ve all done that. It’s a natural response. That’s why we need to remind each other.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Great post! performing self-care is tough. Specially if one is raised to believe that one needs to worry & take care of family/relatives first before self.
Thank you, Bernadette.
You’re right. That mindset hinders us from within. That’s why it’s so important to understand the dynamics of proper self-care I wrote about.
When we fail to replenish ourselves we have nothing left to give and when we burn the candle at both ends those around us usually get burnt too.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you, Danielle.
This post is really helpful. I love how you broke it down. After two marriages, five children grown and gone one buried, I find that I need to get to know myself. Who am I, etc. Internal healing.
Thank you,
Much love and blessings,
Hanna
You’re welcome Hanna. Thank you for letting me know that what I wrote was helpful. I’m sorry for your pain and losses. Cheering you on in your self-care and healing journey.