Happy Valentine’s Day!
I say that with a head and heart of mixed feelings about the holiday. Over the years I’ve had a variety of experiences: disappointment due to unmet expectations, grumpiness due to the comparison game, wonderful friend dinners, being loved on by my family, spoiled by my husband. It seems like it’s a day that is hard or special, depending on your current frame of mind.
A lot of external factors can play into my current mental state. But sometimes, I think it’s the internal choices that carry the most weight. There’s another name for those choices – ‘self-care.’ It’s a phrase that’s kind of overused these days, but I think it encompasses something very important: setting yourself up to do life well. Everything from being a professional, a wife, a mom, a friend, a sister, a caregiver, a teacher, a student, etc., We need to fill our own cups to prepare ourselves for what our lives hold, and ensure that we have enough to give to others.
On this holiday of love, I offer a few of my best self-care ideas for today and everyday.
1) Adjust expectations. This has been one of the biggest life lessons I’ve learned, and continue to learn, as an adult. You can scale it up to some of the most important scenarios and relationships of your life and boil it all the way down to the Valentine’s holiday.
I remember talking to a friend years and years ago about how she was repeatedly frustrated by her mom. And, while talking it through, I said perhaps she’d better stop expecting something her mom to give something that she wasn’t capable of giving, in other words, adjusting her expectations. Continuing to put expectations on people that they can’t or won’t meet sets us up for perpetual disappointment. Sometimes the better choice is to gently reframe what we are expecting from a relationship or situation.
I feel like Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that amps up our expectations of ourselves (do we have a mate?) and our loved ones (are we getting #spoiled with flowers and chocolate?). Perhaps we should ask ourselves, where do these expectations come from? And are they worthy of our concern?
2) Take care of your own needs – everything from chocolate to getting to bed early. Meeting your own needs is a beautiful thing. Your partner/friends will never be able to do it for you. They can complement your life, and even some of your needs but, ultimately, it’s up to us to make sure we get what we need. That might be verbalizing needs in a relationship, going to bed early enough to be well-rested the next day, or even buying yourself chocolate on Valentine’s Day. Make sure your cup is full so you are able to love those around you well.
3) Listen to your body. This one is the hardest for me. It’s so important to be tuned in to your physical self. Sometimes your body is asking for sleep, other times it’s more vegetables. Sometimes it’s asking us to slow down. Listening to and caring for our bodies leads to greater success at whole body health, including our minds.
4) Feed yourself spiritually. I go through seasons of being really into this, and seasons of neglecting my spiritual needs. If you’re a person of faith, I encourage you to dig into it completely. Go deeper than before, wade through the hard questions, wrestle with it, make it your own.
If you’re a person of Christian faith, I know there are so many great digital resources out there. I love the Bible Project (they have the best videos), She Reads Truth, and the You Version Bible App. Each of these have customizable plans that make digging into the Bible seem a lot less daunting.
5) Create a once-a-week (or daily) ritual that is purely for pleasure. I have to make a point to incorporate stuff like this in my life, because my tendency is to go full bore with work, and family life until there are no margins left for my personal downtime. But all work and no play makes for a stressed out, uptight mama.
Some fun ideas: on Saturdays, grab your coffee and return to bed. Fluff up your pillows and grab the novel you’ve been reading. Or, on Sundays, sit by the fire (or cozy up with a heavy blanket) and dive into the NYT crossword puzzle with your loved one. And my personal favorites: nightly tea and Netflix (so long as I’ve finished writing my blog posts!) and dark chocolate squares after the kids go to bed.
I know I’m just scratching the surface here. I would love to hear your best self-care tips!
Photo courtesy: pinterest
Selfish knitting. Especially great for frazzly days are simple, repetitive items such as scarves. Dark chocolate is really good, too!
I *almost* included knitting! Though sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with it, haha.
These are great ideas! Keep up the wonderful content :)
Number three has been life-changing for me: I get more sleep and eat better because I practice listening to my body. Personally, I think exercise is underrated as self-care. Our society tends to frame it as punishment (“I ate a cookie, so now I have to go to the gym”) or reward (“I went to the gym, so now I can have a cookie!”)–but reframing it as self-care has made me 1) feel like it’s less of a chore and 2) want to do it more often.
I have one last comment that I hope won’t come off the wrong way: in #4, you say, “If you’re a person of faith” and then mention “Find a Bible study.” I wanted to point out that this comes across as faith=Christianity, which kind of erases people of other faiths. I’m sure that wasn’t your intention, and I don’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t talk about your own spirituality/religion on this blog–I just wanted to mention it because I believe there is a better way to word it that acknowledges people of other faiths while including your own personal experience (perhaps by explicitly stating, “If you’re a Christian…”) And I think wording it like that would go a long way toward making the ethical/sustainable fashion community more welcoming for all.
Thanks Kelly for bringing this to my attention. I started out talking about faith in general and then focused on my own without transitioning very well in that paragraph. (I added an edit, and hopefully that made it more clear!) Thanks for understanding! And thank you for sharing your perspective on faith and self-care.
So much goodness here! Expectations are the biggest source of disappointment. My good friend asked me to be her matron of honor this past weekend. After saying YES!, my next thing was to tell her “I am not a mind reader (like your future husband is also not) and will do whatever you want me to do. Just TELL me so we’re clear on what you expect me to handle.” Ultimately I want us to both be happy and not frustrated – talking about it in advance is the best way to accomplish it!
As far as exercise that Kelly mentioned above, this totally falls into the listening to my body aspect. Sometimes my body is telling me, PLEASE RUN, or go for a walk, or do something because I’ll feel better. Plus, endorphins. I have found stretching to be especially good self care regardless of if it’s before/after a work out, or just because. It keeps me in touch with my bod and gives me quiet time to reflect.