Self-care, as a term, is banded about everywhere just now; in glossy magazines, blogs, self help guides, even in pop songs. But what is it? What does it mean to you? How do you know if self-care is affective? How do you recognise when you need to increase your self-care, or if it becomes detrimental and even turns into a self harm? Do you ever feel guilty after taking time to care for yourself? What purpose does this guilt serve for you and how is it trying to help?

I like to think of self care as a buffet, or a smorgasbord, rather than a big meal to eat every now and again only when you’re ravenous. Something to pick at, lots to choose from, always available; sometimes shared with others, sometimes to be enjoyed alone. Self care isn’t necessarily about having a candle lit bath, or a weekend away, although these can be examples of self-care. In a broader sense, it’s about doing something just for you, that means something to you, for your own relaxation or pleasure; gradually building the core belief that you deserve to feel relaxed and feel pleasure, and that you can provide this for yourself.

For many of us, somewhere along the line, we are taught by others that we aren’t worthy of these things; that we don’t deserve to feel relaxed, happy or content. We’re taught that caring for ourselves is a selfish act, and that we must set ourselves on fire to keep others warm. Much like becoming independent as a result of being dependent, we may not care for our-self if we weren’t cared for. We may have learnt somewhere along the way that a condition of our worth is based on making others happy, and to keep that self worth coming, we need to place ourselves at the bottom of the pile. Sometimes, making sure those around us are kept content or happy is more about survival than anything else, and to put ourselves first is to put ourselves in the firing line.

Self care, to me, is very much a balancing act. On the right, If I were to only care about my self, to only meet my own needs, and have no consideration for others, this would be selfish. On the left, if I never attended to my own needs, always put others before myself, and burnt out time and time again to keep others warm, this would be selfless. As with a lot of things in life, there needs to be a balance. Sometimes, (especially as a parent) it’s natural that we need to put others before us; we can’t not pick up little Johnny from playgroup because we want to go for a massage, and when a baby cries, we need to be available to meet their needs more often than not. At the same time, if we’re exhausted and we have an hour spare, do we do a load of washing and cleaning, or turn to our self care smorgasbord and re-charge our batteries? An analogy I go back to often, is that when you get on an airplane, the safety briefing instructs you to put your own mask on first, before attending to anyone else. This is because if we can’t breathe properly, we pass out before we’re able to help others.

Where, when and how we find this balance of self care within our busy worlds is a task in itself, but at it’s heart, believing we deserve to care for ourselves and offer self compassion is the starting block, and can change how we feel towards ourselves too.

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