Self-Care: How It Was and How It’s Going

I came across this little questionnaire by jaquintinwriter and scored really low. Now, I’ve never really been high maintenance or the girly girl type but…5 out of 20? And this would have been a pre-pandemic score. I made a quick review of my self-care habits just to check if I still feel good about my habits lately.

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How It Was (pre-pandemic):

• Almost daily exercise
• Weekly Me time mostly consisting of meditation, reading, going for or making myself a nice meal
• Some regular monthly pampering i.e. mani or pedicure, massage
• Occasional pampering i.e. hair treatment, facial or some personal shopping
• Annual medical/physical/dental checkup or treatment as needed.

How It’s Going:

• Weekly exercise (mostly nature walks instead of gym) + Healthy eating (mostly home-cooked)
• Me time still there (+writing or art when I’m feeling extra)
• Monthly pampering scrapped – I still do not feel safe visiting a salon or spa.
• Occasional pampering still there but more DIY/at-home, personal shopping at a minimum or barely happening (the latter mainly because I’m going for zero to less waste since mid-2020)
• Annual physical and dental skipped last year (OVERDUE, so will probably try the mobile center options).

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My self-care habits now look very different, even more minimal and cost so much less, but a lot more mindful. Actually, this mindfulness spills over to almost all areas of my life now. Rare are the days when I’m running on autopilot. I still struggle a bit with consistency but motivation comes easier now, a lot lighter on my feet compared to last year.

What does self-care look like for you these days?

How Do You Recover?

I may have made a few mistakes over the weekend. After treating ourselves to a rare sushi and beer (delivery, of course) and feeling good about the week (last week) in general, hubby and I decided to check out the Trump-Biden debate over youtube. We survived but not unscathed. It was…headache-inducing. i feel for my American friends who can’t help but rant about politics every now and then. I’m not an American, but the debate was just a bit much and I caught myself trying to recover with a bunch of SNL/The Late Show clips, standups and armchair travel. Then the news came that Trump and FLOTUS caught the Covid-19 virus. Frankly, I did not have a case of schadenfreude. It put a lot of people at risk of exposure, maybe even Biden and all those who went to the debate.

Let’s go back to the question/title. I find myself having several recovery approaches to stresses, trauma or tragedy that come my way. Especially these days, I find them essential to mental/emotional health. It’s easier to know when recovery is needed physically when you can’t feel your legs after a few laps or a marathon, not so much for other aspects of our health. I intend to explore this in several posts. And I’m curious, how are you dealing with life’s stresses, then and now? What have you learned about yourself in the process? So far, what I’ve learned is that when I don’t prioritize my well-being and let stress go on for too long and unnecessarily so, my physical manifestations can either be hair loss or that one case, bell’s palsy. Although the cause for the latter is largely unknown still, it showed itself up for me while I was going through an extremely stressful time in my life spanning a year. This was back in University almost two decades ago and since then, I’ve made it a point to take care of myself more actively, call it self-care if you will.

Forest bathing is good for your health. Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com

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