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How To Remind Yourself That Self-Care Isn’t Selfish

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Giving yourself the gift of consistent self-care is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself!

If you aren’t regularly making an effort to show yourself that you matter, and that your needs are important, then you can become affected in a number of ways. Practicing self-care serves as a wonderful way to nurture your relationship with yourself, and to continue to boost your own self-esteem.

One of the common misconceptions about self-care is that it is a selfish act! It can be easy to fall into a cycle of believing that doing nice things for yourself is a luxury. However, this is a thought process that you can work to overcome.

Today I want to share some guidance on how you can move past the feelings of guilt to truly embrace a meaningful self-care practice!

What Is Self-Care?

Before we jump into the great ways to remind yourself that self-care is important, let’s take a quick look at what I mean by this.

Acts of self-care are those positive things that you consciously do for yourself. It is any action that is done deliberately to take care of your mental health, your emotional health, and your physical health. It sounds simple, right? But often it is a difficult thing to allow ourselves the time to do.

julie montagu yoga self love

Taking care of all of these aspects of our health is essential if we are to continue to function as happy, healthy people — yet so often we begin to feel as though we don’t deserve to focus on ourselves in this way.

If you are unsure of how to get started, then check out my past post on How To Embrace Self-Care At Home!

Talk To Yourself

Understanding what your own needs are important is the first step to being able to meet them. Often this is something that we just don’t do — and this can be for a number of reasons.

You might find that it simply feels quite odd to check in with yourself, and to bring your thoughts and feelings to the surface. However, this can be a fantastic exercise in self-discovery.

Talking to yourself doesn’t have to be a conversation that you literally have out loud. It can be through thoughts, or even through writing things down. The important thing is to engage your mind to really concentrate on how you are feeling, and to try to understand why that is.

Kindness and patience should be at the forefront of all of the conversations you have with yourself. These should not be opportunities to give yourself a hard time, or to dwell on the negativities that may arise. Instead, use this time as a safe space to explore your own mind.

Visualise The Life You Want

It is natural to aspire to be happier and healthier, or to live a more fulfilling life. These aspirations can take many different forms, and will be unique to each of us, but can often be worked towards in a similar way.

thoughtful life positive change

When you embrace self-care as a permanent feature in your day to day, then you are helping to move into a life that is lived with more purpose. This is because you can begin to know yourself, to know what you want from life, and to know how to move forwards and achieve those goals!

Visualisation is key here because it encourages us to dream, and to let those dreams develop. When we visualise what we want our lives to look like in the future, then we can make realistic steps to working towards these dreams.

Journal On The Benefits

Writing a record of how self-care helps you to feel empowered and motivated is a great way to validate these actions.

You may often find that if you don’t take care of yourself in this way, that your enthusiasm begins to drain, or that your energy levels and your mood become inconsistent. These are all natural symptoms of not taking enough time and care to recharge your own batteries — and, as we are discovering, it is so important that you prioritise doing so.

When you keep a written record of how self-care is helpful to you, then you will see the countless benefits to this concept. You can also begin to see how you feel personally when you aren’t engaging in regular self-care acts, and this can also serve as a reminder to keep it up!

writing journal gratitude

Writing a journal can be a self-care act in itself, and you may find this time to be incredibly therapeutic.

Acknowledge The Balance

Acknowledging the balance that self-care brings into your life, and expressing gratitude for it, is a great way to remind yourself of its importance.

In those moments where you feel great and at peace with yourself, try to give a moment of thanks to the processes that allowed you to reach this point. Hold these things in your mind and encourage yourself to connect your present state with these self-care acts.

Get Inspired

Having additional support as you embrace these ideas is always helpful! This is something I aim to provide every week with my newsletter.

Click to sign up to my Get Inspired Newsletter and receive a weekly dose of inspiration and motivation to your inbox!

Create The Future You Want

As a final thought, I want to share just how important and achievable it is to create the future you want for yourself.

Can we really imagine the existence that we want into reality simply through positive thinking? It may sound too wild to some, but there are a growing number of people who advocate this way of improving your life.

Far from being able to magically manifest the life you want by spending a few moments picturing it in your mind, this takes a great deal of commitment and dedication. It’s not enough to simply dream of the life you want and expect it to appear. You must make a conscious effort to bring these things out of your mind and into your life.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Using mental imagery and positive thinking to instigate change and work towards your ambitions can be extremely rewarding. But, how does it work?

Be Honest

First of all, in order for this to be a success you will need to be completely honest with yourself about the things that you want in your life. Contemplate where you are in currently in the grand scheme of things and where you would like to be in the next few years. When you have a clear idea of what it is exactly that you want, you will be better equipped to work towards it.

Visualise Your Future

Secondly, remember that visualising your future and fantasising about unrealistic dreams are two different things. If you try to imagine a future for yourself that you know is completely out of reach, then you are likely to be disappointed in the long run. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t aim high! Simply that you should be sensible in your desires and your future goals for yourself.

Be Fearless

Finally, be fearless and don’t listen to the negativity of other people. We all know that change is scary but it is a necessary part of evolving as a person. If we all stayed still forever then we would have extremely boring and unfulfilling lives.

Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone

We have to step outside of our comfort zones in order to live the lives we truly want. So, if you picture yourself moving to a different country or quitting your job to follow your passion, then be sure to turn these thoughts into actions.

When you make a huge change like this it is inevitable that certain people around you will have a negative attitude about it. Don’t let them project their own fears onto you and simply let them know that you are making positive changes for the better.

Make sure to always take the time to check in with yourself about the progress you are making. Self-reflection is a powerful tool and when you combine it with visualisation and positive thinking techniques then there is no telling how far you can go!

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