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The Art of Radical Self Care
I’ve been hearing a lot about self care recently.
I’m a big advocate for self care, but it feels to me like the word has been misappropriated by businesses trying to sell us something.
A massage, a day at the spa, a green smoothie, a restorative yoga class.
If we’re not careful, self care can become just be another THING that we have to spend our money on and try to squeeze into our already busy lives.
Then self care becomes stressful and something else that we can beat ourselves up about for not being able to afford or for failing to find the time to do.
The way I see it, true self care is very simple.
True self care is simply asking ourselves, “In this moment, what do I need?”
It may be a massage or a restorative yoga class, but it may also be sleeping in, making love, baking, calling your Mum, lying in the sun, stretching, meditating, dancing, reading, having that hard-to-have conversation with your partner, going for a run, working late to get that project finished or lying next to your kids as they fall asleep.
When we practice self care like this, it becomes RADICAL self care.
It’s radical not only because we’re taking time for ourselves, but because we’re listening to our intuition and acting in accordance with it’s calling. It’s radical because we’re ignoring the ‘shoulds’, the advertising machines and our cultural conditioning.
And it’s radical because we’re living life from the inside, based on what it FEELS like rather than what it LOOKS like.
If we all lived in this way, the world would be a very different place.
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy
Let me share what self care look like for me.
My self care looks like practicing yoga for 20 minutes in the morning and iRest meditation in the evenings.
It also looks like prioritising sleep over my morning yoga practice. It looks like not giving myself a hard time if I don’t practice and most definitely not giving myself a hard time that I don’t practice for hours every day like I did when I was living in India and didn’t have kids or a job.
It looks like reading a novel in bed most nights.
It looks like introducing a meat into my diet after being vegetarian for 15 years.
It looks like hiring an assistant to help me keep up with the emails and phone calls that I’m so grateful for, but feel overwhelmed by at times.
It looks like walking on the beach whenever I get a chance.
It looks like turning off the computer at night, even though I want to keep working, so I can get a good night’s sleep.
It looks like resting when I’m tired.
Radical huh?
I’d love to hear about what radical self care looks like for you.
Right now, in this moment, what is your intuition calling you to do?
Share with us all by leaving a comment below (then go do it)!
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Thanks for sharing your approach to keeping your feminine flow going, being in touch with what our bodies need each moment is so nurturing. With my menopausal hot flushes I used to get annoyed when they’d rush over me and tell them to go away! Now I see them as a reminder to sit down, take some deep breaths and connect to myself. Simple yet radical in my world!
Thanks for stopped by Lainie and sharing your experience with radical self care. Sounds radical indeed 🙂
Love reading your little snippets of advice. My radical self care would be going to bed early, turning off all technology and picking up one of the ever growing pile of books on my bed side table.
Thanks Caitlin! Lovely to meet you here. That sounds exactly like my kind of self care 🙂
Love it Lauren, your self care sounds very like mine!?
Ohhh…. how wonderful Dael! Thanks for sharing your self care with us here 🙂