Cultivating Your Self Care

In the previous blog entitled How Can Creatives Practice Self Care - Part One, I reminded you of the saying,

“Put your gas mask on first before attending to others.” Author Unknown

If this fully resonated with you, then you’ll be pleased to know that below are some thoughts and offerings for how to practically incorporate being selfish as a form of self care. I’d like to redefine the way it is understand and encourage an alternate perspective.

How To Incorporate Self Care Into Your World

• Say “No” to protect your mental health thus supporting peace of mind. 

• The highest form of self-care is living with gratitude. How can you show gratitude and appreciation daily for the small things in your life?

  Also, how can you focus on the learnings from the negative experiences you encounter?

• Take time to be still. You’ll observe what’s on your mind and decide what’s critical to resolve.

• Consume good foods that nourish your mind and body. Choose healthy options, take time to research food choices and balance it out with guilty pleasures without over indulging. Remember that too much of either is not self-care.

• Maintain healthy relationships led by love and kindness. Aristotle once said it succinctly,

  “We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.”

• Finally, honour yourself with sufficient sleep. Scientists presently recommend 6-8 hours sleep per night/day with naps during the day but remember that we all have unique needs so find what works for you. Sufficient sleep has been proven to both mentally and physically rejuvenate plus it’s great for improving concentration levels.

Throughout this blog, I’ve talked about how being selfish can support taking action with self-care. If I haven’t made it clear already, I’d like to emphasise that in this instance, I’m certainly not referring to the general belief of selfishness as being neglectful or unkind.

Instead, I’m offering you the opportunity to consider whether being selfish can be a tool that gives you time to identify your needs - based purely on who you are in the moment.

Imagine an outcome of creating space to see the truth about you and those around you. You’ll cultivate relationships based on honesty, authenticity and love that will lead you to only wanting the best for yourself and others.

You’ll have wholesome respect and honour for others’ needs and as a result will build grace. Not only that, you’ll build the courage to confidently and unapologetically express when others have dishonoured and disrespected your needs too.

In spite of all our individual differences, there’s a chance that you’ll discover more similarities with others than you think. Whether you live creatively or not - as a human need - we all tend to want the same things: to be seen, loved, acknowledged, heard and to contribute.

If we can do this for ourselves, then how might it impact our ease to do it for others and with others?

I wonder what micro differences we’d see in our daily interactions and the relationships we form.

On a bigger scale, what ripple effects might it have on society as a whole?

Could it create a culture of self-care within communities or will it have little impact on the current belief that selfishness is ‘bad’?

Why not extend your creativity to being curious about this and allow the power of time to tell.