It’s No Mark Of Weakness To Practice Regular Self-Care

There are a few toxic ideas and principles that still seem to service in society from time to time. While keeping a ‘stiff upper lip’ can be important, and it’s important to value strength and try to move away from weakness, we should stop seeing weakness as a bad thing and more of a process we all go through and can recover from. We often see this when people are told to ‘man up,’ for example, which generally only leads to affected people to bottle their emotions and ignore healthily expressing them.

Perhaps another pernicious belief that many parents allow themselves to keep in mind is that they need to spend their entire day running around to help everyone else and completely sacrifice their own needs. Of course, it’s hard to tell a single mother with two children that she simply needs to ‘put her own needs first.’ We do not mean to dismiss the very essential and crucial reasons while people feel this way.

But it’s also not a mark of weakness to practice self-care when you can, even if it takes five minutes. In fact, realizing your have your own needs that do need attending (and that make you better attending to others), is wisdom. Let’s consider what that means, and how we can avoid the bad principles that lead us to totally ignore who we are even with the best intentions:

Self-Care Sustainability

Of course, it’s important to not only practice self-care, but to use self-care methods that are both sustainable and that fit into your schedule. For instance, simple supplements that help you feel more like yourself can be important. This guide that explains everything you need to know about CBD and pain relief can help show you how sustainability in self-care works. Perhaps each morning, you spend ten minutes meditating. Self-care takes time and has an impact – so making sure this is something you can easily keep up with from day to day is important.

Expressing Your Authentic Emotions

It’s also true to say that understanding and expressing our authentic emotions can help us feel more ‘like ourselves’. Does this mean we have to complain at every moment? No, it just means knowing what’s important to you and being able to express it, even if that means using the power of ‘no’ to tell a boss you can’t work overtime for the third night this week, or that you’d love to walk the dog this week to clear your head each morning.

Asking For Help When Necessary

Asking for help is important when you need it. Doing so can take several forms. Perhaps you feel anxious on the road as of late, and want to ask your trusted neighbor to take your child to school for a couple of days. Perhaps you need to start seeing a counselor online (pending recent Covid limitations), and doing so can help you feel more comfortable and confident in yourself. Asking for help is noble. Refusing to do so is silliness. Don’t allow your pride to avoid this most natural of needs.

With this advice, we hope you can more easily practice regular self-care.