Self care looks like finding a quiet space and doing a five minute meditation.
It looks like recognizing that social media posts are making you especially jealous today and willing yourself to stop looking at them.
It tastes like chocolate after chocolate, unwrapped from the safety of your bed.
Self care is spending whole minutes watching the cat sleep, just obsessed with his cuteness and calm nature and how much happiness he's brought to your life.
Self care feels like that extra pinch of flesh around your belly. Touching it and saying, "It's OK," and getting back to your chocolates.
Self care sounds like the classical relaxation station on Pandora, softly, quietly sending sonatas to still your angsty chest.
It looks like Calvin's irresistible, wry, upside-down triangle grin. Like Hobbes' fuzzy fuzziness, a silly, adorable, philosophical tiger. It feels like letting a comic strip take you back to fifth grade, where you once slowly froze in the family basement but the pages kept turning and so no, you couldn't be bothered to get up and grab a sweatshirt.
Self care feels like an open window, breeze trickling in from the west, the ceiling fan click click clicking overhead.
It smells like a match struck, eucalyptus mint wax fumigating away the bad mood.
Self care looks like taking care of yourself, simple simple simple. It looks like giving yourself a break even though it took you a decade to realize that the practice is in fact simple. It looks like noticing that an hour, or day, or season is not going too hot for you, and letting go and letting God (I know this is kind of a throw-around phrase in the religious community, but all of a sudden I'm totally into it).
Self care is changing your environment -- get up and walk outside for five minutes only, or wash your face or re-stack the books on your nightstand. Self care is texting a friend. Self care is picking the right friend to text for the current occasion -- deciding who will make you laugh, offer advice (or NOT), rush to your door with tacos or take you to the tacos because you need to get out of the house. Self care is finding one positive in the moment and writing it down or typing it into the notepad on your phone. Write. It. Down. Don't keep it in the ol' noggin.
Self care may sound indulgent, or selfish (hey, it's in the name), or stupid or futile.
But self care only requires baby steps. No marathon sprints here. You can start at Square One and not move on to Square Two. We're only interested in seminal polygons here in the Self Care Wing.
Self care builds resilience.
Self care makes sure you are taken care of, and if you have ever felt the need to take care of anyone or anything in your life then you are already halfway there because you understand two things: urgency and necessity. You just have to tell yourself that you are worth the attention, you are worth the forgiving mercy, you are of worth. Tell yourself even if you don't believe it. And then wash your face. Or re-stack the books.
Square One, my friends. Start anywhere. It's OK to be angry, sad, irritable, stuck. Just don't let those things be the only players in the ring. Care for Self. Place value on yourself. Put a price tag on your heart that says:
"Not for sale. But here to stay. Here to be, and pump, and give life."
Go and give life to your life-giving heart. Wash your face. Re-stack the books. Tell yourself you have worth. Even if you don't believe it. You'll get there.
Love and more love,
Bailey and Max
