As a small business owner / operator, self-care is massively important to me, and as a mental health practitioner / therapist, it is also something I help clients with on a daily basis.
Self-care is essential to help manage stress, avoid burnout, maintain a relationship with yourself, and decrease the risk of illness. As the world has been returning to in-person work, large gatherings and travel after Covid, schedules have gotten much busier and the added stress and social anxiety seems to be taking a hit to many people’s over-stimulated nervous systems. Counterintuitively, self-care is often the first to go and.
Ok, ‘time for a spa day’ you may be thinking, and that’s great if it works for you but not only is self-care specific to the individual, there are also several types of self-care and you may find that your go-to practice doesn’t always cut it. Additionally, what may feel good in the moment may not be so good for you (and vice versa), i.e.: you may not want to put your running shoes on and hit the track when you get home from a hard day, but if you know it makes you feel better, your future self will thank you.
The types of self-care are:
- Physical: think massage, bubble bath, cuddling, or exercise
- Mental: think losing yourself in an engaging book, doing a crossword puzzle, or creating a budget or meal plan so that your future self doesn’t have to stress
- Emotional: think catching up with a friend, having a good cry, seeing a therapist, playing / having fun
- Spiritual: think spending time in nature, meditating / praying, being inspired
The important part is to check in with yourself – what do you feel you need in this moment? what do you feel you need for overall wellness and resiliency (the big picture)? – and then carve out the time and space to prioritize it so that you’re doing it before you need it.
In my practice, I work from a holistic approach, combining body, mind and soul (a similar model to the one used above) to help clients alleviate distress and achieve their goals for mental wellbeing. I believe that through cultural messaging, family dynamics, cultural norms, traumatic incidents, stress, etc. our true, authentic self often gets lost behind coping mechanisms and parts that we develop to protect our vulnerability. Sometimes we end up in a place that feels unrecognizable, or that doesn’t feel aligned with where we want to be. Through counselling, I work with my clients to untangle the distress and dis-ease in order to build up their core self and create a narrative where they will thrive.