Little Acts of Self-Care

I think the little acts of self-care like face masks, getting your nails done, going for a walk, taking time to read, and anything else you can think of get a bad rap. A lot of people seem to believe these things are not “real” or meaningful self-care. I don’t agree.

It took me a long time to learn to tolerate myself again, let alone start loving myself. Part of what helped that was small acts of self-care. I wasn’t ready to go to therapy. I wasn’t ready to talk to my doctor about what medications could help. I wasn’t ready to start doing the things that I needed to do to really improve my mental health, but I knew I hated myself and I needed to do something.

I started small; keeping my nails done was the first step. I figured that if my hands looked nice, I would feel more confident meeting new people and shaking hands. Then I realized that my skin had seen better days, so I started working on skincare and learning what my skin needs to be healthy. I’m still not great at keeping a skincare routine, but it’s a vast improvement. I noticed that when I was washing my face and applying my products that I was “talking” to myself as I did it. I started trying to appreciate different parts of my face. This led to me being able to appreciate different parts of my body and my mind.

Those small steps led to big steps because I now had some idea of what it looked like to start taking care of myself. I spoke to my doctor about meds, I started therapy. I started to treat myself they way I would treat someone that I love. I worked on feeding myself well and working out. I worked on learning how to be gentle with myself when I was struggling instead of beating myself up.

I can’t say I’m just bursting at the seams with self-love yet, but I definitely get along better with myself than I have in a very long time.