Small Things That Impact Self Care in a Big Way

Self-care is referred to as a journey because it’s something that you continuously have to work on and be mindful of your entire life – which is something I’ve come to learn over the past year and a half. It isn’t as easy as learning something one time, you have to practice it until it becomes a habit making sure that you take it slow and make changes a little at a time. You just survived a global pandemic! Don’t minimize that in your head and don’t overwhelm yourself by taking on more than necessary.

Today I thought that I would share the small things that I’m doing to make a big impact on my mental health and overall well-being. We have to remember that we can’t pour from an empty pot and we have to focus on filling our pot with things that makes us feel good, especially for those days you just feel like you can’t do it; reach into the pot and grab that good thing you did yesterday.

Create a fund

It’s not on my good days that I lack self care, it’s on the days that I feel like I don’t want to get out of bed – which is completely normal. However that’s why it’s even more dire that you do the things that make you feel good when you do feel good.

Creating a fund is all about how you feel on a day-to-day basis. It’s like doing your sad, unmotivated self a favour from your happy, productive self. Or like your sober self doing your hungover self a favour – same difference. The idea is on days your feeling good you do the things that otherwise you would put off so that you can “bank” all these things in your fund to pull at on days you don’t feel good.

This can look like many different things: getting organized, self-care/beauty routines, checking off to-do’s, you get the idea.

Slow down

Ask yourself why you’re always in a rush, always in hustle mode and make a serious point of prioritizing and scheduling downtime. We live in a time where we’re made to feel guilty and scrutinized if we aren’t filling our time with productive things that further our lives. It’s so important to try to avoid toxic hustle culture and remember that where you are right now, is exactly where you are meant to be.

It’s okay to sit down and get lost in a book, it’s okay to binge Netflix on a Saturday afternoon, you have to teach yourself that you deserve to take a break and not worry about what tomorrow brings. Allow yourself the space to unwind and connect with the people you love, because if you never stop to recharge your batteries eventually your body will do it for you.

We have to stop waiting for summer, for friday, for exams to be over, for someone to discover our worth and fall deeply in love with us. We must stop waiting for our lives to begin and acknowledge that every second we spend in denial of how important our current existence is becomes lost in time.

Maryam – indefinitely a daydreamer

Questioning myself

When you face what your feeling and ask yourself why? it can feel so uncomfortable you want to crawl out of your skin. However it’s that feeling of being uncomfortable and challenging it, pushing past it, that will help you to overcome it.

A lot of the time as humans our emotions are so quick to take over and they can be so strong it’s all you can feel, like it’s coursing through your veins. Emotions cloud judgement so if you take a second and ask yourself why do I feel like this and why am I reacting this way you can flip the switch in your brain to waft through the fogginess of emotion and be able to analyze the situation from a logical place.

Educating myself

Education.Is.Power. and I’ve learned a lot of what I’m practicing from self-care books written by professionals and others who are on the same path but a few miles ahead of me.

There is guidance available for every price point and every person if you’re willing to commit to your self-care journey and find what works for you. Therapy is an expensive investment and for many it’s out of reach, but a $20 book is extremely do-able.

Being ready & willing to change

This is a big one. In the past my parents [of good will] wanted to get me into therapy and as a kid I wanted nothing to do with it therefore I was extremely resistant and didn’t put anything I actually learned into practice.

It makes a significant difference when you’re ready to see change and you want to make it happen. How will you know when you’re ready? It’s just kinda one of those things, one day you’ll wake up and be motivated to make things different but until then no one can force you – they can lead you to the water but can’t force ya to drink it friends.

Reaching out

Knowing that we have someone in our corner can make all the difference. Don’t ever think that you’re in this alone – the reason why therapy and self help books exist is because so many people need the same guidance that you & I do.

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