Sometimes self-care can look like this:

Self-care can look like this

Have you ever found yourself tired beyond your usual limits and in need of desperate time alone to practice your self-care routine?

But then, once you finally get the time, you find yourself fidgeting and unable to relax. Nothing seems to be working; not your usual workout, nor the perfectly scented bubble bath you have prepared for yourself.

I have been in that situation many times myself; eager for some self-care time, yet unable to relax and enjoy whatever activity I had planned for that day.

I discovered that sometimes, self-care is just NOT exercising, NOT reading, NOT going on a walk, and indulging in whatever I was feeling like doing at that particular moment, whether staying in bed all day or binge-watching my favorite series.

I have learned that sometimes NOT doing anything is the best thing you can do for yourself.

Not reading that book, NOT taking a long hot bath, and simply NOT exercising, for example, can also be suitable forms of self-care, albeit practiced in restraint.

We have constantly been bombarded by ideas on how to take care of ourselves in our alone time; maybe it’s taking a walk or watching a feel-good movie. Perhaps it’s cooking and eating a healthy meal.

But what if I told you that the utmost form of self-care for me is listening to myself a moment and honoring my needs accordingly?

Many times in my life, at low points in my life, I felt like going with the flow and just giving my body what it wants instead of what I thought it should need.

My utmost form of self-care is sitting by myself on my balcony and self-reflecting.

It is a practice that soothes me, allows me to reconnect with myself, and clears my head. It allows me to understand what has been bothering me, and what has been going on with me, but also allows me to feel gratitude, find solutions, and simply be.

But even self-reflection can sometimes be too much for me, and although I look for my alone time avidly, sometimes I do not feel like self-reflecting at all. 

Rather, I sometimes feel like spending my alone time in bed watching mindless TV. And with time, I have learned to be OK with it, because if that is what I need at the moment, although it is not quite nourishing for my soul, then why the hell not?

If I feel like turning off the noise and my inner voice for a while, I have learned not to resist it. I have learned to accept it as part of the process. All of us need to escape ourselves sometimes; it might also be a good strategy to cope and come back stronger. 

Time has taught me to listen to my body, even if it means being disconnected for a while; as long as I find a way back to myself, then everything should be fine.