Meaningful self-care and how to do it

My first idea for the title was “Real self-care”. But then I thought: who am I to tell you how to take care of yourself? All I wanted to do is share my experience with the dark side of self-care promoted by the social media. That’s why I decided to change the title to “meaningful self-care”. What do I mean by that? Read on to find out.

I am not a mental or any other healthcare professional. If you feel like self-care does not suffice, please, consult a specialist. Read more.
This post contains some affiliate links, which means I might get a commission when you make a purchase through my link at no additional cost to you. Read more.

What is meaningful self-care

Were you wondering why I chose a glass marble for this post’s featured image? That’s what self-care is for me. It’s as different for each person as seeing your future in a glass ball might be. Plus, it does have a lot to do with future. There’s this great article by Brianna Wiest (the author of books 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery and When You’re Ready, This Is How You Heal) where she writes: “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

So, as you can see, meaningful self-care varies from person to person, depending on what your vision of “dream life” is. Brianna Wiest gives some harsh and hard examples of what true self-care is.

She mentions:

• managing your debt
• sticking to a morning routine
• exercising
• dealing with toxic relationships
• realizing your failures
• disappointing others
• practicing delayed gratification
• healing

All these ideas are rather difficult to sell and too “unbeautiful” to show on Instagram. Right there you see the difference between what social media are trying to sell us, which more often than not is pampering or mere self-indulgence. That was exactly the dark trap I fell into this past summer.

From buzzing around to burning out

You see, I got separated and became a single mom. So I pushed hard to try to manage my kids’ emotions, our new reality, and my own heartbreak, while being solely responsible for my children’s day-to-day wellbeing, and opening my own business. For almost a year I ran on fumes. But then, the tank got empty.

Come springtime and I am burnt out to the core. I went from hyper to diaper. From determined to disinterested, from dynamic to dispirited, from intense to indifferent. Along that my son’s behavior started changing as well, and not for the better. So I sought help, and received it.

My therapist recommended me a book called Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. I read it, I liked it. But I understood it all wrong.

And that’s when summer holidays began…

A slippery slope through self-indulgence

I thought that sleeping in late, watching films until wee hours, going for ice-cream with my kids was exactly what I needed to take care of myself. It was so tempting to get away with all the utter self-indulgence. I thought chocolate was helping me manage my stress, while it was actually adding internal guilt. There is nothing wrong with binging Netflix shows. In the end I wasn’t getting drunk or something of that sort, so no harm was done. I thought I was just processing my grief and that my behavior was justified and morally neutral as a way of managing my emotions.

If you think I applied running as a way to end my stress cycle, as advised in Burnout, you are wrong. I did not want to feel uncomfortable, and running is uncomfortable for me. I was avoiding any feeling of discomfort actually, and trying to deal with it in very unproductive ways. It was my way of coping with the reality.

Overdoing on self-indulgence has negative consecuences

You’d think that after so much “self-care” of giving myself “grace”, letting go of expectations and pressure, taking time to “live” the dream life of show-bigning, emotional eating and procrastination I would get better.

I didn’t.

Never would I have thought that I could get in a deeper slump, but I did. I lacked motivation and energy. I felt more and more guilty because of my bad habits. You see, anything you ever learn stays with you, and if you don’t apply that knowledge, cognitive dissonance is created. If you know that sugar is bad for you, but you keep consuming it. You realize you need more sleep, but you binge on tv shows instead. All those situations lead to cognitive dissonance and you end up with mental toll and psychological stress.

What is more, some bad habits cause not only mental, but also physical damage. In my case, it was insuline resistance. I kept on gaining weight and felt more and more unconfortable in my clothes and, well… in my own skin.

None of what I thought was self-care made me feel better in the long run. That is the problem with the shallow idea of “self-care” we are being sold. It usually does make you feel better in the moment. The quality that makes any action an act of real self-care is long-term gains. We are so used to the instant gratification, we can barely fathom the idea of postponing the “prize”.

Substitute ideas

Let me share with you some ideas for replacements of self-indulgance for more meaningful self-care. Obviously, not all of these might fit your context. You might not like my ideas. You might come up with better ideas yourself (share them in the comment section, please).

This is just a kick-start for improving your situation. Take what you want from it, change it, adjust it, or discard it if you wish. Here we go:

1. When you’re stressed, change snacking for mindful breathing exercises.
2. Figure out the list of your wants and your needs, and try to exchange each want for a real need (e.g. you want to binge TikTok, but you need more sleep).
3. If you tend to lash out on your kids because of too much pressure, try asking for help, lower the self-expectations, learn how to manage your perfectionizm.
4. There is nothing wrong with a bubble bath, but consider if it won’t backfire. If you prioritize a bath over a task that would improve your life significantly, you’ll forget about its benefits the next day when reality hits you. Also, add some Epsom salt to the bubbles.
5. If you indulge in alcohol, food, social media, procrastination, etc., consider getting to the root of the problem. You might want to read some books or maybe ask for professional psychological help.
6. Investing in yourself doesn’t always mean getting your hair or nails done. Consider changing those for a massage, especially a health-improving one, like lymphatic massage.
7. If you overindulge in shopping, try to manage your stress through free (or nearly free) activities, like walking, jogging, breathing, YouTube yoga, etc.
8. Instead of keeping it all to yourself, like a “good woman” should do, be a bad emotional exaggerating one. Learn emotional intelligence and start naming your emotions, noticing how they manifest in your body and what behaviors they provoke. Be intentionally emotional.
9. Make sure that the dream life you want is actually what you want, and not what social media pushes you to want. I myself fell in the trap of wanting to have what the influencers promote, and the lifestyle they represent. But when I started living more mindfully, I also began to appreciate little things in my life that I am grateful for. Now I feel much happier just sitting in the garden with my kids, driving my cheap old car that just gets me places and doing budget-friendly vacations and adventures with the little ones. Maybe all the stress you’re going through is to fulfil other people’s dreams and not your own.
10. Whichever self-indulgence habit you want to get rid of, don’t stop looking for a replacement that suits you! I might recommend adult coloring books or paint-by-number sets, but that helps me because I’m the artistic type. So make a bucket list of things to try. Not maintain, mind you. Don’t do what others tell you, you do you. Tick off any item on your list that you tried and decide if you liked it or not. Try not to invest upfront, take up courses in your neighborhood cultural centers or libraries, do free masterclasses, ask friends and family to show you the ropes of their hobbies and have a go.

Your meaningful self-care

Now don’t get me wrong. We all need a little bit of self-indulgence from time to time. A piece of chocolate cake, a glass of red wine or a lunch with your friends. What I want you do understand is that self-indulgence doesn’t work long-term. Learn from my mistakes.

So, grab a piece of paper and do some work, right now. Don’t postpone it! No more procrastination. Go through the ten points again, ponder, take notes, make resolutions (these aren’t only for the New Year), make plans.

If you’re brave enough to share your experience, your ideas, or the meaningful self-care habits you’re already implementing in your life, drop us a comment. You never know, you might end up helping someone more than you may think. Ha, you might end up helping me more than I helped you!