Self-Care Is Not Selfish

Self. Care. Is. Not. Selfish.

There's a fine line between self-care to take care of yourself and self-care that is 24/7 and takes away from your relationships. I know that there are people who may be either extreme, but I also know that there are many people who do not hear this enough: You are important!

You are important and your mind is begging you to give it a spa day. That may mean a hot bath with candles or turning off your phone for an hour. It looks different to everyone, so it should be impossible for people to judge you on how you take care of yourself. Of course, there are always those people who will judge, but if you're taking the time to take care of yourself, then it shouldn't matter to you.

When I first started setting aside time for my mind to recover after a long week (or even just day LOL), I felt guilty for putting myself first. This was stemming from the years I had only cared about myself and once I changed, all I could think was, “Put yourself last, put yourself last, put yourself last.” However, I became friends with people who dealt with similar struggles (shoutout to queen phe and tootsie who taught me so much about this stuff) and they encouraged me to make sure my mind was willing and able to give out the love and compassion I wanted to, because if I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t be able to give people all the love I could.

Once you refresh yourself, you can give yourself to others, but remember this is a never-ending occurrence. You will feel drained again, so then it’s time to refresh—and now you can pour yourself out again, and so on and so forth.

Every single day you are facing situations that are hard to handle. You know yourself better than anyone, so only you can make the judgement call of when you need to take some time to yourself. Your mind is bombarded with so much and it is never ending, so if you don't take the time to reset, you'll feel drained.

For me this happens pretty frequently. I have become very emotional in the last few years, due to hard stuff, but it has carried over to the rest of my life now. I often cry when I have had a hard week, get hurt by something very minor, or even just an adorable puppy video on YouTube. This used to embarrass me. I never wanted to be "that girl" who cries all the time, but I eventually got to a point that I didn't care what people thought if they saw me crying. Random strangers, friends you aren't super close with, or maybe even family members don't know what you have gone through and why you're crying—heck, you might not even know why you're crying. (I've been there, sister!!)

All this to say, you need to take care of yourself, so mental breakdowns are not your norm. By taking away pieces of negativity in your life, little by little, you can adjust your mind to the changing waves of life.

**I saw a quote that I wish I could remember exactly, but it went a little like this: "Instead of taking away from your plate, maybe just start adding a little goodness to it each day."**

There are many simple ways to get started with your self-care. These are a few of my favorites:

• doing a face mask for 30 minutes
• reading a chapter of a good book
• turning off my phone and/or deleting social media
• calling my mom/dad/sister
• spending alone time doing homework or driving to a nearby lake
• (this is my favorite) retail therapy :)))

I hope that you, you special human, can begin to take care of yourself so that you can keep giving people the love you always give them. You are important and wonderful. Never forget that.

xoxo,

Sarah Cay

Remember this.