Self-Care is Worth the Effort
Fall in love with taking care of yourself, when you do, you cultivate a strong sense of self-love and self-love is the best love you will experience. Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s necessary. Self-care fosters a deep sense of self-worth and awareness, which are both vital in navigating the terrains of life. It allows you to enjoy the journey over continuously chasing a goal or achievement. It allows you to rest and just be, over constantly doing and trying. It allows you to reflect and connect with your life purpose over just working due to responsibilities. There really is no greater gift you can give yourself than taking time for self-care.
There are numerous ways to approach self-care. It can be as simple as doing something you find relaxing regularly, to incorporating a variety of self-care practices into your life daily. It’s an individual journey so it’s not about doing what everyone else is doing, it’s about finding what lights your soul and finding the time to enjoy it. Here are some of our favourite self-care practices and ways to effortlessly include them into busy schedules.
Meditation
Meditation is one of the most powerful self-care practices we’ve experienced. With regular practice, meditation has the capacity to keep your nervous system balanced, promote self-awareness, help you sleep better, be more resilient and generally feel better all round. If you’re someone who finds it difficult to meditate because you just can’t stop the monkey mind from wondering, consider listening to binaural beats or Solfeggio frequencies to help quieten your mind and help you relax into a state of meditation. It’s like a short-cut to getting into deeper states, with different frequencies targeting different states.
By meditating for just 30 minutes in the morning can help to keep you more calm and balanced for the whole day. We love the tracks created by Mind Vibrations (for Solfeggio frequencies) and iAwake (for binaural beats), so if you feel you need some help with meditation, have a look at their offerings.
Empowering Self-Talk
There is nothing more powerful in communication than the way you talk to yourself. It has the power to cause you stress and misery and it also has the power to serve and uplift. Often self-talk can habitually run without our conscious input, which can be disempowering and go against us. We need to become aware of our self-talk to ensure it is supportive and loving. If not, we need to work on changing this. Yes, it will feel like work to begin with, but after some practice, it will become automatic and empower us in many ways.
To experience the vast benefits of empowering self-talk, think of a phrase that you repeat to yourself daily, multiple times throughout the day. You can either practice for 10 minutes at a time 3-4 times a day, or you can combine it with daily tasks such as brushing your teeth, taking a shower, washing the dishes, cooking a meal etc. The more you repeat the phrase, the more automatic it will become. Repeating a long list of affirmations can sometimes become robotic and unfeeling. Practice with just one phrase for 30 days, you can always mix it up once you start feeling the benefits. Keep it simple and feel the words as you say them in your mind. Here are some of our favourite power phrases/mantras we regularly use.
“I love myself”
“I am powerful”
“I am healthy and vibrant”
Pick a phrase that makes you feel good, that is the only rule after repeating it in your mind as much as possible with feeling. The more the phrase becomes embedded in your subconscious mind, the more loving, powerful, peaceful etc you will start to feel and start to become.
When change takes place on the inside, it is only a matter of time before it starts impacting your external world too. It is not egotistical to repeat “I love myself” over and over, because if you don’t truly love yourself, how can you expect someone else to love you. This is deep self-care because with time, it has the power to make changes to your inner world and your outer world in permanent ways.
Journaling
Journaling can be a powerful self-care practice that offers a safe space for reflection, expression, and self-discovery. To start journaling, find a quiet and comfortable environment where you can be alone with your thoughts. Begin by setting an intention for your journaling session, whether it’s to process emotions, gain clarity on a situation, or simply to check in with yourself. Start writing freely, without judgment or inhibition, allowing your thoughts and feelings to flow onto the page.
You can explore prompts such as “What am I grateful for today?” or “What emotions am I experiencing right now?” Additionally, consider writing about positive experiences, accomplishments, or things that bring you joy. Reflect on any patterns or insights that emerge from your writing and be gentle with yourself throughout the process.
Journaling is a personal practice, so feel free to customise it to suit your needs and preferences. Whether done daily or sporadically, journaling can serve as a valuable tool for self-care, fostering greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and overall well-being.
These are just three ways to practice self-care, however the list is truly endless. It may include exercise, gardening, prioritising sleep, singing, dancing, spending more time in nature, cooking healthy meals, taking 10,000 steps each day, or whatever else that brings you peace and joy.
Find one or a couple of practices that resonate with you to practice regularly for 30 days and see how it changes and empowers your life. Hopefully by then you will never want to stop! By constantly nurturing yourself, you honour yourself, you improve your relationships, and you impact your stress levels and health in positive ways. Most of all, self-care should be enjoyable and relaxing, if it’s not, change your practices to ones that make you feel good.
