A Guide to Practicing Self-Care with Mindfulness
Making sure our own needs are met is as important as taking care of those we love most. When turning your attention toward yourself feels challenging, there are simple ways to move through the discomfort. Explore our new guide for tips, practices, and reminders on how to engage in self-care.
Source | www.mindful.org
Self-care means asking yourself what you need and following through on the honest answer. Practicing self-care can be as simple as getting to bed earlier on a work night, or as hard as taking a look at some of the habits you’ve created for yourself and their long-term effects.
What Is Self-Care?
Self-care is the practice of taking an active role in protecting our own well-being, pursuing happiness, and having the ability, tools, and resources to respond to periods of stress so that they don’t result in imbalance and lead to a health crisis. Self-care means asking yourself what you need, and following through on the honest answer. Self-care can be as simple as getting to bed earlier on a work night, or as hard as taking a look at some of the habits you’ve created for yourself and their long-term effects.
The History of Self-Care
The “radical” concept of self-care was born during the civil rights era, a time when brave individuals were fighting the relentless enemies of prejudice and discrimination. These American heroes created the first real communities of care, standing strong together in the face of seemingly impossible challenges and unspeakable treatment.
It can’t be lost on us that one of the concepts they were fighting for was (and remains) the basic human right to self-care. People of color were often denied medical treatment at hospitals and healthcare centers. The government had turned its back on them. Self-care, quite literally, became a matter of life and death. They were fighting an exhausting battle and the only support to be found was in each other and within themselves.
The basic idea of being able to care for oneself, of having the time, money, and resources necessary to do so, was born out of the civil rights movement.
How to Build a Self-Care Movement
1) Let’s destigmatize mental health. We need to change the way we look at mental health and make sure every person has access to the caregivers, transportation, treatment, and funds needed to properly address mental health.
2) Commit to sharing your self-care knowledge. We all have daily routines and personal challenges. But let’s stop trying to go it alone. When we take the time to create space in our schedules for others; when we organize and meet up with our friends and social groups; even when we exchange a few thoughtful emails, we’re building communities of care and, therefore, fueling the self-care revolution.
3) Help define the standards. The slow adoption of self-care in our culture is in big part due to a lack of definition. We don’t know what the standards of self-care are, or should be, because they’ve never been clearly established. Once we define the standards for self-care, it will legitimize our cause by providing a clear roadmap for people to follow. They’ll be able to create a plan, measure their progress, and make changes along the way based on realistic and achievable goals.
