What is Self Care?
At the end of the first session with a new client, I usually recommend over the next 48 hours to really focus on self-care. Why? Because for some people that don’t get cuddles, hugs or any kind of intentional touch regularly there’s a chance of experiencing what I call a “cuddle hangover.”
After a day or two of the wonderful cocktail of hormones running rampant through your body, sometimes there’s a chance of that feeling suddenly hitting a dramatic dropping point. For some, it feels like depression, anxiety, unfocused, or this weird need to go protect ourselves from the world.
From my experience, this usually happens because someone came in for a cuddle session and went back to life as usual. “Life as usual” is whatever stress level they were at before, and that usually means no real lifestyle change happened beyond coming in for a cuddle session one time.
In the past, when I told my clients to really give themselves a chance to do some self-care, they often grumble and waive their hands around and go “Yeah yeah yeah.”
No, no, no.
I think my clients do this because many of them see images on the internet of what self-care supposedly looks like and it doesn’t resonate with them. Hell, I look at images on the internet of self-care and am really turned off by a lot of them.
I don’t get it either, Sharon. There’s multiple pictures like these and I don’t understand why.
Image credit: @doodlyroses
This is not what I’m talking about when I tell anyone to do self-care. Stop looking at self-care as a luxury for a few minutes because in today’s video, the way I describe self-care is not luxurious at all and might be what keeps you functioning properly.
It certainly is for me. I even share an extreme moment of clarity that I have to get my shit together as far as self-care goes.
Main takeaways:
Self-care on a basic level is things that give you time, space, and energy
It can be as simple as taking a shower
Things we don’t want to do but will give us time, space or energy are also part of self-care
If the phrase “self-care” doesn’t resonate with you, try replacing the phrase with “time and space” and see if it makes more sense to you