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The term self care has been floating around a bit loosely lately and I’m left to wonder if it’s being properly interpreted. While it may seem straightforward enough, there are a lot of aspects to the complex topic of self care than just a quick fix to pacify a bad feeling or fix a bad day. It’s often perceived to be selfish or indulgent and is often confused with simply being a form of physical care. Sooo...if it's not just a drink of wine or a full body massage when you're feeling down then what is it?
Self care is a deliberate action to preserve well being in all facets of life. This includes maintenance as well as improvement in different areas such as:
Physical
Emotional
Spiritual
Financial
Professional
Social
In each mentioned category, there are steps to take to maintain balance, manage stress and prepare yourself for future challenges. It’s certainly not a cookie cutter approach to self improvement since everyone’s strengths and weaknesses differ and we all possess and lack in separate areas. An effective technique to ensure self care is unique to you would be to list the different categories and state the steps you are taking towards self care in each group, you will notice there are more entries in one section than others. This is where you would take a cognitive approach to be mindful about where you need to devote more attention. It’s a simple way to bring awareness to the areas that are sorely lacking and need improvement. Listing ways in which you can create boundaries are also helpful since you will have to actively practice elimination as much as implementation. The trick is to keep your goals simple and stick to a manageable plan, you don’t want to set unrealistic targets to overwhelm yourself. Start slowly, commit to your goals and track your short term progress. Before you know it you would have formed habits that are beneficial to your overall well being and enhancement of self care.
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