What is Self-Care & Why is it Important?
We all know self-care has become quite the popular buzzword and if you look up the hashtag you will find a huge range of pictures from pedicures, shopping sprees, massages, vacations, face masks, pizza & wine, all a part of “self-care”.
It can be quite confusing for you to get clear on what exactly self-care looks like for you with all these different posts defining “self-care”.
SO what exactly is self-care?
Self-care can be defined as looking after & honouring your body, mind and spirit in a way that helps activate your best self.
Self-care choices are those that improve your physical, mental, or emotional health & help move you forward towards your desired outcome.
Only you can determine what “moving forward” means for you, based on your personal preferences, desired outcomes, and what you may need on each particular day. One day a gentle massage may be what you need to help move you forward but on a different day, completing a challenging training session may actually be the ‘self-care’ that helps move you forward.
It should also be noted that self-care is more often than not, much less glamorous as posed in social media posts. True self-care choices typically end up being the more difficult choices.
For example:
-choosing nutritious food more often than not
-drinking enough water
-turning down a social event invite so you can have needed alone time
-going for a walk
-choosing to go to bed earlier rather than staying up late or going out
-pursuing personal development
-seeking help from a mental health professional
-going for your annual check-up at your doctors
Acts of self-care are an investment in your FUTURE YOU.
Now yes self-care looks different for everyone but it can be easy to confuse self-care with habits or behaviours that may not actually be serving your best self and may actually take you away from your desired outcome.
There is a Difference Between Self-Care and Self-Comfort
Self-comfort is a behaviour you engage in that is more focused on soothing and coping, instead of moving us toward our desired goal.
These types of choices usually involve things that are considered “easier” in the moment. For example: skipping a workout, having another glass of wine when you said only one to yourself, picking up takeout after a long day at work even though you said you would cook on work nights this week, sacrificing sleep for Netflix binges or scrolling on social media, etc.
When we choose self-comfort, these choices will keep us where we are, rather than move us forward.
There is nothing wrong with these choices, and from time to time, everyone chooses them. The important thing to grasp is that you understand the possible consequences or effects, so that you are able to make an intentional choice.
Self-Comfort Can Turn into Self-Indulgence
Self-indulgence is self-comfort taken to more extreme levels. Self-comfort may be the easy choice but self-indulgence goes all in.
If your self-comfort is staying up late to watch that extra episode on Netflix rather than going to bed on time or when you’re tired, the self-indulgence would be binge-watching several more episodes and going to be far too late, leaving you exhausted and ruining your next day.
Self-comfort may be eating a second cookie, whereas self-indulgence is eating half the pan/box.
When we choose self-indulgence often enough, it can actually move us backwards and away from our desired outcome.
Choosing Your Self-Care, Self-Comfort,& Self-Indulgence
The purpose of distinguishing each of these categories is to help you figure out which behaviours may be hindering you and which ones may actually help you be your best self. When you understand these, you are better equipped to make a choice as to what is truly worth it, and what is not.
For me, I know it's not worth it for me to sacrifice my sleep by watching another episode and throwing off my mood and energy for the next day, BUT when I'm at dinner with friends or family it is almost always worth it to choose that extra glass of wine. (These would both fall under self-comfort).
Remember that there is no judgement here, this is only supposed to help you figure out which behaviours serve you best and move you forward and which ones may be keeping you stuck.
So remember:
-self-care is a choice that moves us forward
-self-comfort can keep us stuck where we are when we choose this enough
-self-indulgence can make us move backwards when done often enough.
The choice is always yours. To better equip you with confidence in what you may need in that moment or day, ask yourself these questions:
-Which behaviours do I participate in that make me feel good and help move me towards my desired outcome?
-Which choices do i make consistently that provide comfort, but may not be truly worth it? What are some alternatives that would fall under self-care?
-Which behaviours provide me comfort, and are definitely worth it?
-Which choices feel a little overboard, and I suspect may be moving me further from my goals? What are some alternatives that would better serve me?
A Note on Exercise
Exercise is typically viewed as self-care however, it too can fall into the category of self-comfort or self-indulgence. If you are using extreme amounts of exercise to cope rather than putting in the work to figure out the underlying issue, it could be self-comfort. If you are using copious amounts of exercise to punish yourself for something you ate, then it could be looked at as self-indulgence.
