In counselling we often find ourselves urging clients to take care of themselves, to practice self-care, but what does that mean? And why do we do that?
Looking after ourselves is one of the things that is in our control. When external events are out of our control, we can still look after ourselves. In addition, at these times we need even more self-care than usual.
Self-care is looking after our own needs; taking responsibility for identifying our unique needs and then meeting them, as best we can. Those needs could be physical, emotional or spiritual. The challenge for us all right now is that meeting some of those needs just got much harder, with constraints on our freedom and higher levels of fear around us. Our go-to strategies so often may have involved the comfort of other people or specific places we would visit for distraction, amusement and solace. Undeniably this process is now harder.
Yet harder does not mean impossible. We can start with our basic needs of sleep and rest, movement, healthy food choices and speaking kindly to ourselves. In what ways could you choose to boost these areas of your life in a small way, today?
We know these things improve our wellbeing, our moods and our ability to be more resilient and able to help others. You can find more ideas, including a self-care calendar on the Action for Happiness Website. Keep an eye out for future posts in this blog series where we’ll share more about self-care strategies.
Self-care is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and others, so take care.
