Why aren’t we treating ourselves better?

This Could Be Stopping You From True Self-care

Making a persuasive case for yourself, to yourself.

The Confession

My self-care goes through periods of ups and downs. There are days when I treat myself as a total Goddess, and others when even a proper balanced meal feels superfluous. I admit, that the consistency that I show in so many other aspects of my life, is utterly missing when it comes to practicing self-care.

A few weeks back, I began to wonder why. Soon after, a clue into my inconsistent self-care attitudes revealed itself unexpectedly, while writing my “morning pages”, à la Julia Cameron.

Could It Be That…?

Our mind is incredibly logical. It drives us to invest in actions only when we can see clear benefits in doing so. You may be able to suspend this thinking for a while. Yet, if you want to make a habit out of anything, you need your mind on board. The clue that hit me was that my mind did not believe that there were any benefits to giving due care to my self.

Brutal, yet there it was.

Could it be that, like mine, your mind does not believe that you are worthy of care? Self-care will only take place, consistently and unwaveringly, when it feels truly worthwhile to you.

Take a moment and re-read that.

Do you feel that your “self” is worthy of care every day, every moment, at all? In fact, let me ask you something more pointed — do you feel that your “Self” is valid?

Self-care will only feel worthwhile when the “self”, whatever your current concept of it is, feels valid to you. Worthy of existing indefinitely. Worthy of the time and space you take up on this planet. Worthy of receiving a new day, every day.

Truth is…

For a long time, unbeknownst to me (and perhaps, even now to some extent?) all my feelings of being valid came from my success and career. And yet, how mistaken I was! How unhealthy is that mindset?

The truth is, each one of us is valid, even when we don’t do anything in particular to demonstrate it. In other words, we don’t need to earn our validity in this world. We are valid, simply because we were minted out into this world.

This could feel unrelatable, even outrageously privileged if you were brought up with the social conditioning that you must work for your place in the world. The mental distance to cross this new paradigm is far too enormous. However, if you can, indulge me, if only for a few minutes.

To make it easier, let us say that each one of us is valid so long as we share our gifts with the world. Sometimes, that gift could be merely to be the most feasible version of yourself that you can be. Not the most authentic, not the most pleasant, and certainly not the best. Only the most feasible, on that day.

My practice for self-care

In final thoughts, I’d like to invite you to try my daily self-care practice.

Every morning, when I start my day, I will be asking myself —

“What am I going to do today to share my gifts with the world?”

All of us have gifts to give, innate gifts we are born with. However, to ask that question, we must first introspect what our gifts are and nourish them. Do we know what our gifts are? And do they even stay the same every day? Perhaps, some will, and others will disappear.

However, if I do just that much, I feel I am valid, and so are you. More importantly, I am nourished. That is all I expect of myself and of any other person.

And here’s another secret. We don’t just have gifts to share, we are all gifted. We are not just “valid” selves, we are “gifted” selves, in our own unique ways.

So it is not just okay to care for this self but it is absolutely crucial to do so. Give yourself permission, you deserve it. And so do I.