6 Reasons Why Your Self Care is Not Working and How to Fix It
Even with good intentions, sometimes, our self-care routine can fall short and work against us. This can be due to inconsistency with our routine or needing more intention behind our self-care to heal. Read on for six reasons why your self-care routine is not working and how to fix it.
It Is Not Catered To Your Needs
Self-care means different things to different people. For example, taking bubble baths or booking a spa are common self-care activities, but they do not work for everyone.
Try spending time with yourself to help determine what makes you feel at peace and your best. This may be an activity that is not a cliche self-care activity, and that is okay. Self-care for you might involve volunteering for a cause close to your heart or spending time in nature.
Try to pick an activity that avoids using recreational drugs to help you feel better, as it can invoke additional stress and be detrimental to your wellbeing in the long run.
It Lacks Inconsistency
When self-care is done reactively and not proactively, it fails. The most important part of building a routine is consistency.
To build a consistent self-care routine and be more proactive about your self-care, you must schedule for it. What times are best for scheduling self-care? For example, I practice my self-care every morning before I start my day by speaking out loud about what I'm thankful for, making my bed, and lighting my essential oils. I also have Sundays reserved for self-care that restricts me from going out, working out, and doing any extraneous work.
Of course, your days can sometimes go unplanned, and things will come up that derail our plans. However, it is helpful to identify a certain time of day or day(s) of the week to devote to self-care.
You Are Using It To Neglect Your Responsibilities
Self-care has become a bit of buzz word in the last few years with so much information that can be harmful.
I have noticed the push to rest, say no, and set boundaries - common self-care practices - to neglect to-do lists, personal healing, and other responsibilities.
Have you used self-care to say do the below:
Say no to seeing friends to avoid difficult conversations.
Breaking your cooking routine to order unhealthy food as a way to reduce stress?
Binge-watch your favorite TV show to avoid the quiet time, journaling, or exploring other emotions?
If so, you may be using self-care to create a path of avoidance. Self-care is all about taking care of yourself. It does not mean you become selfish or use it to justify poor lifestyle choices. Instead, it encourages you to become more self-aware of your needs to help reduce stress when taking care of others and your responsibilities. This sometimes requires you to change unhealthy routines you have grown so comfortable in to appropriately deal with what is happening.
It Is One Dimensional
Does your self-care routine take care of your whole self? Self-care has been defined as, "a multidimensional, multifaceted process of purposeful engagement in strategies that promote healthy functioning and enhance well-being.
The examples of bubble baths and spa days limit the self-care definition to dealing with the stress of your daily routine.
While this is important, when done alone it can become problematic. Self-care should involve all aspects of your life emotional, physical, interpersonal, financial and more. If you are unsure how include more aspects, check out VeryWell's 5 Self-Care Practices for Every Area of Your Life.
You Are Not Doing The Difficult Work
When your self-care is not multifaceted, it can cause you to skip the work to heal and transform your wellbeing.
For example, having a self-care routine that only involves indulgence or relaxation can mean you are using self-care as a form of escapism and are avoiding other elements of life that also define self-care.
Escapism is when the goal is actually to avoid addressing our problems or to numb our feelings about issues. An occasional escape practices should be used to allow for quiet, pampering and indulgence. However, habitual escapism will only exacerbates our problems and can lead to addictive behavior.
Self-care must involve doing the difficult work of meeting your problems head on, asking yourself difficult questions, and holding yourself accountable. correction yourself. It is putting yourself on a strict budget, eliminating alcohol for amount of time, letting yourself feel your uncomfortable emotions instead of avoiding it.
Self-care should not be about creating a temporary escape - but consciously and intentionally creating the life and do not want or need to escape.
It's Not A Sole Solution
Oftentimes, self-care needs to be supplemented with trauma treatment, psychotherapy, or medical care.
If you have a low vitamin deficiency impacting your moods or back pain preventing you from sleep, your self-care activities may not help support your overall wellbeing.
If your multifaceted self-care routine has not been working to your satisfaction, you may need to supplement it with therapy or medical care.
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