Self-Care Corner: A Letter for Me and You

As Mental Health Awareness Month comes to an end, I really needed to remind myself and maybe you too that caring for yourself doesn’t have to look perfect to count. Now I say as someone who really struggles with this idea that for something to count it must be for x amount of time and that progress needs to be visible. Truth is life demands a lot from us so of course more times than not what falls at the wayside is caring for ourselves. However, I’m trying to remind myself that I’m allowed to come back to those goals and aspirations for self-care later.

The truth is showing up for yourself isn’t linear, and honestly, why would it be? Life isn’t linear. Yet we carry this expectation that if we start something, we must do it perfectly, consistently, and successfully. But we don’t expect perfection from anything else in life, so why do we expect it from ourselves?

For example, one of my goals this past year to show up for myself was to work out five times a week and I’ve been able to stay consistent which is amazing. However, it’s been far from perfect. At the beginning I thought every workout needed to be a full 60-minute sweaty session to “count.” But over time, life continued to do what it always does which is change and I realized I needed to as well. Some days that looks like an hour-long workout, and other days it means doing a 10-minute workout while my toddler watches Daniel Tiger and we had leftovers for dinner. Both still matter. Consistency does not mean perfection and if being perfect is stopping me from showing up at all, then what’s the point of it?

The other part of my self-care has looked like embracing that "rest is productive". There have been many times I’ve convinced myself I didn’t need a rest day either because of a temporary burst of energy or guilt over not doing "enough" during my five workout days. Stepping back to remember that rest is a vital form of self-care has helped me reframe my approach and just remember that I AM STILL SHOWING UP FOR MYSELF.

Self-care isn’t supposed to be perfect. It’s supposed to support you through life. So as Mental Health Awareness Month ends, give yourself permission to be human. If you fall off the track, you can always get back up, read this letter for you, and jump back in. You deserve it.

As Daniel Tiger would say,

Ugga mugga! (I love you)