I had a completely different blog post planned for today at the beginning of the week. But given the events of the past few weeks (and months to be honest) I have been thinking a lot about self-care and decided to write about that today.

First of all, I want to get something straight. Self-care is not just pampering yourself. Yes, manicures and face masks and bubble baths are wonderful and can be incorporated into your self-care regimen, but it can’t exclusively be that. Self-care needs to incorporate actual practical things you do to keep yourself well and whole.

A good tool for creating a self-care practice is the Self-Care Wheel. You can google this and various images and websites explaining it will come up. But basically it’s a wheel that shows six equal wedges divided into Physical, Psychological, Emotional, Spiritual, Personal, and Professional well-being. The idea is that all of these aspects are of equal importance in caring for yourself.

• Physical: This is where your bubble baths and pampering come into play, but also ensuring you are taking care of your medical needs, exercising, eating well, hydrating, etc… My big thing for self-care this year has been hiking/walking with my dog and focusing on hydration. I know I do everything perfectly, but if I can get my 6-8 glasses of water and a few miles under my feet I’ll be in good shape.
• Psychological: This can be as simple as listening to music and writing in a journal daily or as involved as going to therapy or a support group. Earlier this year, before I decided to quit my job, I was using one of those apps to text with a therapist on a daily basis. It really helped me get out of a negative mindset and, for me, was just something I needed at the moment. These days I make sure to write in my journal daily and that has been enough for the day-to-day.
• Spiritual: Finding a church community, a spiritual mentor, focus self-reflection, or meditating can all do wonders for your spiritual health. One great thing to come out of this pandemic and social distancing is a lot of churches have gone online with their Sunday services. So if you are intimidated by showing up in person, right now you can log-in and attend church virtually.
• Personal: I may be biased on this one, but I think setting goals is a great way to tackle this one. See my post from Wednesday for part 1 of a series I’m doing on goal setting! But this can also be fulfilled by taking a class, reading regularly, creating a vision board, nurturing friendships, etc… I think this category is the most broad out of all of them in terms of what feeds your personal well-being, but think of it as permission to spend time every day doing something that makes you happy.
• Professional: Professional well-being should not be confused with professional advancement. This is all about finding breathing room with your work and creating space for you to be successful. AKA – setting boundaries! Eat lunch away from your desk, have a “quittin’ time” and stick to it, create a plan for your next career move that plays to your strengths, volunteer for projects that excite you, and learn to say no if you need to.

I think this year has highlighted the need to make self-care a priority. But it is important to think about it holistically. If you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed, run through the categories above and check in that you are putting effort into each section. Oftentimes we’ll find that one or more areas are being neglected which is leading to an imbalance. Make sure you are considering your whole self in your self-care.