This year as self- care, we are not restricting it to over the top behaviour that yields only temporary rewards. Self care should feed into your present and future self. It’s not just getting drunk on a weekday night and being unable to concentrate at work the next day or splurging on the dress you know you can’t afford, or ignoring the sound on your car and buying a bottle just because or only eating the most expensive and calorific foods or booking a series of spa days with the money you were saving for something else.
Listen, we are balancing. We are loving ourselves. We are doing self care differently- we are buying better groceries and learning how to make the things we love to eat- we are investing in daily skincare that works for us, we are finding exercise that we love and stopping the ones we hate (bye burpees).
We are paying off debt and getting our health checks. We are loving people that can love us back and cutting off the people that constantly make us feel bad about ourselves. We are eating stuff that makes us feel good and not just masking our feelings and drinking only when we want to- we are not measuring the entirety of our self worth with only one thing.
We are speaking up for ourselves but picking our battles and making our social media pages safe spaces for ourselves. We are speaking up for people and tracking our thoughts and feelings and our spending habits.
We are apologising wholeheartedly and accepting responsibility when we are wrong. We are examining the generalised hate we were taught and educating ourselves so we can let it go.
We are consuming all the content we love. We are investing in our spaces that we spend most of our time in and doing what we like with our hair.
We are giving genuine compliments and accepting them back graciously. No putting ourselves down.
We are vulnerable, we are honest, we are kind. We are the people we want to be, not the people anyone else expects us to be.
We are telling our friends what their strengths are, and supporting their businesses. We are sharing and creating opportunities, showing up on time and dancing if we want to (even if no one else is).
We are making that friend, applying for that opportunity and showing up to places bearing gifts.
Most of all, we are reading what Dami did and reminding her that she’s a great gal!