For highly sensitive people, self care is extremely important.
“The practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s health.”
Oxford dictionary
Self care can involve many factors, including emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health, and will look different from one person to the next. Some examples of self care might include:
- Taking care of your body – eating healthily and exercising;
- Getting sufficient sleep and understanding when you need to take a break;
reading or journaling, or any kind of creative activities. - Scheduling visits to the doctor, dentist and other wellness practitioners.
Acknowledging any long-term health conditions and dealing with them; - Spending time with family and friends; travelling.
- Understanding your boundaries and knowing when to say “No”.
Accurately assessing what you can and can’t do;
However, sometimes we can get so absorbed in our to-do list of ‘self-care’ that it actually becomes anything but caring. We’re so busy doing self-care that we stop being self-caring.
How about the times when we eat fast-food, or don’t work out, or we stay up late to watch a show instead of getting the sleep that we know we need, or forget the pile of laundry, or can’t be bothered to vacuum, or stack the dishes. Instead of showing kindness and compassion to ourselves, and accepting that we are only human, we treat ourselves badly and do the opposite.
Instead of focusing too much on all the things we should be doing, perhaps treat yourself to some time to do what you want to do first. It’s still important to do the things that really need to be done, but how about the things that you want to do? As a lovely friend puts it, she lets herself “get away with things”. What a wonderful gift to ourselves!
When was the last time that you let yourself get away with something?