Self-care is a trending phrase. And trust me, I'm here for it. 

I LOVE the attention we are bringing to the importance of caring for ourselves. But sometimes self-care tips can feel a little...surface level. 

If you're looking for REAL, deep ways to truly care for yourself, your mental health, and your wellbeing, keep reading...here are 5 ways to start practicing real self care: 

1. Be Your Own Good Parent

Take care of yourself as a good parent would. “Good” is subjective and that’s okay, but generally speaking, a “good parent” for many people might look like someone who is supportive and encouraging, who also sets limits and has certain expectations, all for the purpose of building you up and supporting your growth and wellness. Be this to yourself! Approach yourself not with harshness and criticism, but with encouragement and gentle pushes. 

This approach can apply to a wide variety of things and can help you really focus in on what is good for you vs. what isn’t. For example, you may feel the urge stay up scrolling on your phone at night but you know you need a good night sleep in order to feel good. The “good parent” in you thus gently sets a limit. You can say to yourself, “I know social media has a strong pull, but I’m really going to feel crummy if I don’t get some sleep. So 5 more minutes, and then it’s phone off.” This approach helps motivate you and keep you on track, but comes from a place of love and being attuned with your needs.

2 . Be Mindful of How You Talk to Yourself 

We are often our biggest bullies. And think about what we know about bullying: if someone if being bullied, doesn’t it affect their mental health, self-esteem, and ability to focus and thrive? Bullying ourselves is no exception. We cannot be expected to feel good and balanced if we have a voice in our head all day telling us terrible things about ourselves and criticizing everything we do. So first things first: check in with how you’re talking to yourself. Start to think of yourself as someone you want to build up, not break down. Talk to yourself like you would to others in your life that you love, and that you want to encourage and see do well.

3. Replace Criticism with Curiosity 

Take a look at the way you speak to yourself and adjust accordingly. For example, instead of saying, “I was so nervous on that date. I looked stupid and boring. I’ll never find love,” try: “What makes it hard for me to generate conversation and how can I calm my nerves while I’m out on dates?”

4. Replace Self-Judgment with Compassion

We cannot possibly care for something that we constantly beat up on. Compassion and gentleness is a way to start shifting the tide. Instead of saying, “Everyone my age is more accomplished than I am,” try: “Everyone is on their own path. I have overcome a lot and I am working hard; I will get to where I want to be in my own time.”

5. Challenge Your Own Harsh Comments

If you find yourself saying, “I’m a terrible friend for ignoring her call,” challenge it by asking: “isn’t it possible to be a good friend AND also need space sometimes?”

Words matter, especially the ones we say to ourselves day in and day out.

6. Get In Tune With Your Needs and Your Limits

This requires building mindfulness and self-awareness. Start to pay attention to what you might need in order to feel good, as well as the points in which things no longer feel good for you. This can start with tuning into how different things impact your mood, energy level, and overall ability to function (like work productively, sleep well, enjoy down time, etc.). 

Check in with your feelings: how are you feeling when you volunteer to stay late at work to complete a task? Are you feeling, for the most part, unbothered and balanced when you leave? Or are you feeling resentful, burnt out, and coming home and crashing? Maybe you notice doing this once in a while doesn’t affect you, but frequent late nights impact your mood and energy level. Start to recognize what works for you and what doesn’t, and when things start to negatively impact you. You cannot honor your needs if you don’t know what they are. Mindfulness and checking in with yourself is a huge component of caring for yourself.

7. Get Clear on Your Values

A way to explore your values is to think about what makes life meaningful for you. This guides you towards what to prioritize. Maybe you’re someone who feels that genuine connections and a sense of deep belonging makes life feel richer. You can then start to incorporate more time with loved ones, and connection-building activities together. Maybe the sense of mastery and accomplishment really fills up your cup. Knowing this can prompt you then to go for that promotion at work, or learn that new language. Understanding what makes life meaningful to you helps you create a roadmap; you start to learn which roads are important to explore and which aren’t.

8. Set Boundaries With Yourself

Once you know what you need and how things impact you, you can start to honor those needs. One way to do that is to establish your limits, with other people AND with yourself. For example, maybe you set your own work schedule and you know that seeing more than 6 clients a day feels overwhelming and exhausts you. Set that limit with yourself. You may be tempted to take on more clients because you feel badly or maybe you’re judging yourself for having that limit (“I should be able to see more people. What’s wrong with me?”). Part of caring for yourself is knowing and respecting the limits, and honoring them with compassion for yourself.

9. Give Yourself Permission to Say No

With other people, this may seem a little harder. “No” is the simplest word yet it’s often the hardest to say. But think about what happens when you KNOW something will push you past a limit, will effect your mood, energy level, and/or functioning in a negative way, but you do it any way. How do you feel? Probably resentful of the person that you didn’t say “no” to, which can cause tension in the relationship. You may also feel frustration towards yourself, which causes internal stress and conflict, and maybe also just feel generally overworked, burnt out, or worn down, which are major points against our state of mental and emotional wellbeing.

Start giving yourself permission to say “no,” to not have to do it all, and to just be a human being. Unravel some of the messages you’ve received about what it means to have boundaries, and start to redefine what it means to be someone who sets limits: it doesn’t have to mean that you’re a bad friend, a lazy parent, or a selfish partner. It can mean that you are caring and thoughtful, AND you’re also a human being who naturally gets tired, stressed, and needs to care for themselves. And once you start setting boundaries, yes, you may get some push back at times, but you also may come to find eventually that people respect and appreciate directness and clarity. You’re no longer beating around the bush on whether or not you will make that friend’s party, which in doing so is maybe impacting your friend’s planning process; you are instead politely declining from the get-go and making it a non-issue moving forward.

10. Do The Things That Feel Good

These are the things that genuinely support your mood, energy level, and functioning on the day-to-day: We all derive happiness, energy, and support from different places. It’s essential to get in touch with what helps your mood be positive and balanced, what energizes and empowers you, and what helps you move through your days smoothly. For example, maybe you’ve recognized that moving your body helps balance your mood and strengthen you to face the days ahead. So you can start incorporating exercises into your morning routine.

This is also where many of the feel-good activities can come in that you most often hear about when people talk about self-care. Bubble baths, massages, shopping sprees, cozying up on the couch with a feel-good movie can all be self-care if they serve a purpose for you. If you are someone who feels really refreshed and reinvigorated after having a day of pampering, allowing you to feel more equipped to handle the challenges in your life, then schedule that day of pampering! But if a spa day doesn’t do that for you, don’t do it just to do it; find the thing that does do that for you. What helps your mind and body rest and repair? 

Can you please share a few of the main roadblocks that prevent people from making better self-care choices? What would you suggest can be done to overcome those roadblocks?

Self-care is a buzz word right now and that’s great because it means people are thinking about it, but it also means there is a lot of confusing information out there. Self-care is often presented as very surface level, which can make us say, “oh that’s stupid, that’s vain, that’s not going to help me.” We need to recognize that self-care is much more than that.

And there isn’t a right or wrong way to start practicing self-care, and you also don’t have to overhaul your whole life. Start with one thing at a time and see how it feels. For example, do you feel like your mind is spinning when you wake up, and that sets you up for a stressful morning? Take 5 minutes in the morning to journal and sort out your thoughts. Do it for a few days. See how you feel. If it helps, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, well now you know.

And of course, therapy helps with so much of this. It can help you untangle the limiting beliefs you may have about yourself and self-care, learn what really works for you and feels good for you, what your limits are and how to set them, and how to truly care for yourself on the deepest levels. So even if nothing is blaringly “wrong” in your life right now, but you just want to learn more about how to care for yourself and your wellbeing, therapy is a fantastic resource for that.

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This post is for informational purposes only, is not advice.