Self-Care Gets a Rebrand
One of the first questions I like to ask clients I work with takes some by surprise. Yet, it helps me steer our entire therapeutic journey. It’s simple…and very complex.
Tell me about your relationship with you?
Typically, after a long stare back at me like I have eight heads, they respond:
“Um…good question. I don’t think about it much.”
Exactly. How we relate to ourselves doesn’t typically stay top of mind. Others, more likely.
Yet how I relate to myself—how I treat, take care of, and talk to myself directly impacts everything else in life. Everything.
Why? Because I can’t live and give out of an empty vessel.
Two years ago, I hosted a Self-Care Workshop alongside two dear friends. (It’s coming back next month!) It was powerful because we realized how desperate our souls, especially as women, are for deep, true self-care.
I’m not talking mani-pedis and facials and wine nights with the girls. Those are all fabulous and can be nurturing, but let’s call a spade a spade. Those are forms of pampering…and pampering is a good thing! Yet we’ve sold self-care short if we deem them expensive beauty treatments and indulgences, especially right now. We approach it as a luxury—the stuff that ensues out of an abundance of time, energy, and resources.
And yet I firmly believe the fewer of those three resources we have, the more important it is to fight for self-care.
Actually, I’d like to rebrand self-care as self-compassion because I feel self-compassion looks more like true, life-giving self-care than spa treatments do.
So what is self-compassion?
Self-compassion is the practice of befriending ourselves. It’s learning to think of, talk to, and treat ourselves with kindness and compassion like we would a friend we deeply care about.
Yet self-compassion also takes notice of some important things.
It recognizes our hurt and suffering.
It moves towards this pain with a kind and open heart instead of trying to fix it, shame it, or numb it.
It is built on the foundation that the human condition is fragile and this frailty is the connective tissue that binds us all together.
Guess what? Whereas “self-care” in a traditional, indulgent context has been tough for most of us this past year, self-compassion is available and necessary at every turn. (Oh, and free!)
History has presented us these last two years with the perfect space and time to practice true self-care or self-compassion.
We’ve got an incredible opportunity right now to prioritize mental health and in doing so, dig deep, love ourselves, and love our people well. I love supporting you in this process.