A Year of Self Care
Hello friends and happy new year! I can't believe it's already 2019 (I pretty much say this at the end of every year. Anyone else?).
I was doing a lot of reflecting at the end of 2018 and thinking about what I wanted for this year. Not just for myself, but for my shop, for my art and for my friends and clients. The topic that kept coming up was the idea of self care. I got a little glimpse of what self care really means in 2018 and it's become very clear to me that self care is important and it's not something that I've been staying on top of. I'm not good at it and I want to be good at it. And it's not just me. Based on my personal observations, I feel like there are a lot of us out there who are struggling with taking the time to take care of ourselves. The world moves so fast and it's almost impossible to not get swept up along with it and spend so much time taking care of family, work, church, pets, home, etc., that you and I and each of us forget or actively ignore our own body's cries for HELP!
So this year on top of all of the other regular releases, I'm going to be encouraging you and myself through my words and my art and my social media to take the steps necessary to take care of ourselves. Each month I will upload a blog post regarding a specific act of self care and will be focusing on that theme for the month. It's meant to be used as an idea or a starting off point. You can take it or interpret it however you fancy. Each month will feature unique hand drawn artwork to match the theme. Our theme for January is Breathe and you can find it here.
So, all of that being said I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to what I have interpreted Self Care to be:
What is Self Care?
Self Care is any activity that you actively choose to do to improve your overall health and quality of life.
Why is Self Care Important?
Self Care is important because if we take deliberate steps to take care of ourselves we can:
- Improve our mood: be less grouchy, tired, sad, lonely, empty, overwhelmed
- Reduce Anxiety: how we care for ourselves can have an effect on the levels of anxiety we deal with and how well we cope with that anxiety when it comes up.
- Improve Relationships: we are better, nicer, kinder and more giving people to be around when we are being kind, nice and giving to ourselves first.
Note: What Self Care Isn't
Self Care is NOT indulging your every whim. Eating chocolate every night because you have a craving for chocolate is not self care. It's indulging your sweet tooth.
Self Care is NOT Selfish. You can't pour from an empty vessel.
The Three areas of Self Care:
There are three main areas of self care. You should make sure you are doing something in each of these three areas when you are considering a self care routine.
- Physical: includes walking, eating well, going to the doctor
- Mental: includes reading, learning, creating
- Spiritual: includes journaling, meditating
And that's it! That's my interpretation of Self Care! I would love to hear what you interpret self care to be and I challenge you to make this year the year that you take a step back and focus more on taking care of YOU. Because YOU are worth it.
Stay tuned for more blog posts on this and other related topics! You can see our theme for January here.