Mental Health Awareness Month Day 7.
Self-care is not selfish. It is key to being able to do anything and everything else we need and want to do.
First, let’s define what self-care is. According to psychcentral.com, “self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health… It is not something that we force ourselves to do, or something we don’t enjoy doing… [It is] something that refuels us, rather than takes from us.” We’ve all heard the safety speech the flight attendants give on a plane before takeoff. Be sure to secure your own mask before you help anyone else secure theirs. That sounds easy enough, right?
In general, I think most people are pretty good at taking care of their basic physical needs. But when it comes to mental and emotional needs, I think many struggle in this area. Maybe for some it comes naturally? I don’t think I know those people though. Personally, I have struggled with all aspects of self-care my whole life. When I’m doing okay mentally and emotionally, I’m usually decent at taking care of my physical needs. But in looking back at my life, I can see NUMEROUS times when I seemed fairly okay mentally and emotionally, but I wasn’t even making my physical needs a priority.
I’ve just recently started making sense of that... Because I didn’t see self-care modeled in my home as a child and teenager. And even though I’ve known I had depression since I was a teenager, I’ve spent countless years as an adult just trying to survive. Over the last 6 months or so, I have been trying to figure out what my needs are and how to best meet them. And it has been really hard. Mostly because I’m not used to taking care of myself the way I deserve to be taken care of.
I’m currently living with Tasha, a friend who was one of my first roommates I had at BYU-I. She keeps asking me if I want to go on a walk with her, and I’ve declined every time until today. Because on those days she asked me, I hadn’t done what I needed to do to feel like I could enjoy a walk with her. However, today I felt like I had done what I needed to do for myself, and I did enjoy my walk with her and her girls.
I truly believe that if I could master my self-care, I would be unstoppable. And I know the same applies for you!
PS Along the same lines, there is a video you need to watch that one of my best friends, Whitney "Hollywood" Gomez, posted today. (Go to my Instagram profile - chrismarie811 for the link.) #heber #byuiroommates#walk #mentalillness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness#mentalhealthawarenessmonth #mentalhealthinthetimeofcorona#letsbereal #psychcentralcom #selfcareisntselfish #selfcare #31in31at31#agamutofgrey #lifeisbeautiful #may2020 5.7.20
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