What the self-care franchise seems to miss

Whether it be through scrolling Instagram posts, Google, Pinterest, or magazines, self-care is preached everywhere. It’s recognized as an absolute essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle now more than ever. The idea of adding a bit of regular “me time” for a breather. So much so, that it’s almost become a universal capitalized market of its own.

The self-care market emphasizes the idea of loving yourself. Before I go any further I want to iterate that I am not against self-love or making time for yourself. Loving who you are and taking care of yourself is an absolute essential foundation before you can start feeling fulfillment anywhere else.

But, I don’t think that this stereotypical self-care advertise really honors the true meaning of self care itself. It shifts its focus towards using concrete items(i.e face masks, skin care, etc) as a primary way to take care of yourself over becoming more conscious of your own needs and inculcating that in your lifestyle. Like many people, I became convinced that instilling a “Self-Care Saturday” with clay face masks, would help me to start loving myself more. This obviously was false. I only started to become more frustrated as to why I wasn’t feeling better. Self-care ideas had been showcased in pink and glitter constantly to the point where it felt like it was being shoved down my throat, especially during this pandemic. I felt more annoyed than ever by the end of 2020 scrolling through my Instagram feed seeing the same old fluffy blankets and journaling prompts blowing up my phone.

“Jeez I can only take so many of these baths with fancy salts”.

It wasn’t until I spoke to a spiritual mentor did my beliefs change. She gave me game changing advice that helped me see self-care through a different lens:

Self-care isn’t just about going to the gym 5 times a week or meditating 5 minutes a day. Self-care is about being able to show up for yourself everyday and coach yourself.

This to me made a lot more sense.

How you begin to take care and love yourself starts internally. The term in itself “self-care” equates to how you care for you. Thus, I decided to get creative and experiment with what would actually help me. I sat down on my couch with my phone turned off and began to ask myself important questions: “Why am I not feeling good? What parts of me need extra care? And how can I address that to make myself feel better and lighter? I wrote down a list of answers in a notebook. This was my time to be as real as possible. I ended up identifying a certain conditioned mindset that I wanted to break in order to improve my confidence. I’ve always loved talking in front of cameras. Thus, one of my ideas I wrote down was to open up my camera and make a video diary every time I would find myself feeling triggered and becoming pessimistic. Thus, I would have a way to directly face myself and become my own coach, just as my mentor advised. Through this I became a lot more aware of my patterns and needs. And this part of individually addressing what the mind and body desire is what I wish the profited brand of self care would add to its colorful franchise.

For me, the self care market started to feel a little narrow in how I should be addressing my own needs. Indeed journaling prompts, care packages, and spa days are a great way to take care of yourself. But from my experience, relying on these sole methods wasn’t what actually yielded results. It was truly listening to my body and being authentic in how I cared for it. Self-care is more of an internal journey that expands beyond its current media label. It’s a lifestyle more subjective than shown. And I want to encourage anyone reading this to take that extra step, get creative, and delve into your own unique way of caring for you.