Taking a hot water shower, listening to music while strolling around, practicing yoga for an hour, munching on favourite snacks, or spending hours reading books, self-care has different meanings in everyone’s life.
It is said that working on yourself and caring for yourself isn’t being selfish, instead, it’s self-love. Agreed. Nonetheless, there are several times when practicing self-care can become demanding and challenging, and often leads to people being lonely, and battling anxiety or mental health issues. What sort of self-care is it when it leads to self-harm?
What Does Self Care Mean?
As discussed above, self-care can have different meanings for different people. However, the crux of the topic is that any activity that makes us feel content, relaxed, and boosts our self-confidence, can be termed self-care.
For many, just buying a flower bouquet can be self-care, while for others, self-care can mean getting an expensive spa. It also means discovering new things about yourself or learning to love a part of you that you always hated (like a scar or flabby arms).
Self-care also goes deeper than this. It makes you question certain life choices or might even make you question yourself, or your self-worth. At night, you might find yourself asking, “Am I doing the right thing in life?” or “I hate myself!”
These questions alarm you and you desire to find an answer to them. This journey of finding answers to such questions can also be termed “self-care”.
Also Read: FlippED: Is Self-Care Good Or Just A Toxic Trend, Our Bloggers Argue
What It Is Not?
We all have heard the famous phrase “fake it, till you make it!” It is used repeatedly for practicing self-care as well. For instance, one might be insecure about their body when they look in the mirror, but might show on social media platforms that they are okay with it, and when questioned, they say, “I am faking it, till I actually start being secure about myself”.
Yes, it is bougie and all, but do you feel self-care is something that needs to be faked?
Well, the answer is no. Most of you might have guessed.
Self-care or self-love isn’t something you fake. Self-care doesn’t mean pretending. It doesn’t mean doing something just for the sake of doing it.
When Can Self Care Lead To Aloofness?
There’s a thin line between the two.
When you feel that doing a certain thing is making you feel negative about yourself or is harming your mental health, then that is not self-love. When self-love is practiced just because you see others practicing it, it can lead to self-harm.
When self-love makes you distanced from the ones you love, then self-love can make you lonely. When you ignore calls saying that you are taking out time yourself, it can lead to losing a bond.
Self-care should be about accepting the way you are, and then working on it. You aren’t supposed to pretend that you practice self-care and that it calms you. Instead, it is something that should come from within and make you feel all the good things about yourself because you know that you are working on a better version of yourself!
Image Credits: Google Image
Feature image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: Healthline, Forge, Bustle
Find the blogger: Palak Dogra
This post is tagged under: self care, self love, self care club, love yourself, loneliness, alone, mental health, be yourself
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