Self-Care is Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do
When we hear "practice self-care", we often think of drinking tea, going on a walk, taking a bubble bath by candle light, and putting on a face mask. While these activities can be beneficial to the caring of ourselves, real self-care centers around doing things you don't necessarily want to do in order to make your future self more comfortable. Self-care can be a small sacrifice in the present that presents itself as a gift in the future.
Tip: to help these actions not feel like a chore, reframe your mind to say "it would benefit me to do this" rather than "I have to do this" or "I should do this".
My favorite example of self-care that takes work is Sunday prepping. I absolutely need to do laundry, grocery shop, meal prep, and tidy the house for my week to not feel like chaos. All these actions save my future self time and stress. When I am able to prep for my week, it frees myself to not have to worry about what I am going to eat, when I am going to do laundry, and when I will have time to clean the house.
In doing things we don't want to do to better our future selves, we are simultaneously attacking our negative mental disorders. Depression wants you to take things slow and remain unproductive. Depression wants you to see these tasks as climbing Mount Everest! By completing self-care tasks, we tell depression, not today!
Other self-care actions that may feel like work include completing school work or a project earlier than its due date, calling up a friend and asking to hang out, going to the doctor, and many more. What other ones can you come up with?
