Self-care is a prescription that comes with a long list of to-dos that can seem rather overwhelming at times. Exercise, socialise, meditate, take up a hobby, eat healthy… it’s all too much! Everything that usually falls under the tag of ‘self-care’ involves doing something or being active in some way.
When it comes to Indian women, experts believe we’re more likely to put everyone above ourselves. R. Alford, a senior counselor at 1to1help.net in Bangalore, told iDiva: “Indian women are nurturers and givers. Not only India actually, females in general. Be it as a mother, as a daughter or as a wife and partner–we devote a large amount of our lives into making sure our close ones are alright. In the bargain, however, we forget, we cannot pour from an empty cup. We need to make ourselves a priority in order to be balanced.”
Many of us have so many responsibilities in life that we more often than not, forget to take care of our personal needs. While it’s hard to prioritize something as simple as taking a long hot bath when you have lots on your to-do list, it is imperative to realise that self-care is an important aspect of stress management.
Lisa Ray’s poignant note on self-care
In a moving post on Instagram, Lisa Ray shared her views on the same.
“Self-care is often a very beautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.”
Her poignant post goes on to say that self-care often involves doing the ugliest thing that you have to do–“like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath, and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.”
Lisa’s post sheds light on the world as it is now
“A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure,” wrote the ‘Afreen Afreen’ star.
The actress and author educates her many, many followers on the true nature of self-care. She wrote that self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, but it’s choosing to build a life we don’t need to regularly escape from. She added, “And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living in a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.”
You don’t always have to be exceptional
We often want to be the best versions of ourselves, holding ourselves up to a ridiculously high standard. This leads to great feelings of disappointment when we have a lapse in resolve or judgement. The Close to the Bone author wrote, “It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.”
Her note ended with a thought that’s something that will stay with us forever, “If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with ‘treating yourself’ and a whole lot to do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.”
Now, isn’t that food for thought?
