Struggling with self-care? Here are some tips!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about self-care, what it means to me, and how my experience of it has evolved over time. I did a cute lil' reel about it on Instagram last week (click on the photo to check it out), because I think it's important to look at self-care as a practice, and here's why.

The truth is, when I used to hear the word "self-care", it would make me cringe. It always felt like another thing to add to my never ending to-do list.

It wasn't until I took a deeeeep dive into self-love work that I realized... self-care is actually a way we get to love ourselves.

We are already doing some default level of self-care, whether we call it that, or not. We do this by getting out of bed, brushing our teeth, going to the gym, etc.

And some may experience it more as self-neglect, if we are deliberately engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors that stop us from having what we really want.

But the bottom line is, the level of care we put into the way WE ARE in the world, helps to dictate the amount of love we have for ourselves. Period.

And it's important to acknowledge this because cultivating self-love takes practice. It is not something we inherently know. We are taught self-love from the environment we grew up in; our parents, friends, through the media, our culture, religion, etc.

No one sat us down with a manual when we were born that reads "THIS IS HOW YOU LOVE YOURSELF". And yet, we're all just expected to KNOW how to do it.

Well, if WE don't know how to love ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to? That is the real conundrum. But luckily, the easiest way to learn something new is to PRACTICE.

So, that is why I look at self-care as a practice, because each day I get to take small, consistent steps to build honor, trust and value in what I do for myself. Some days are better than others, of course, but that's how practice goes.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this and how you practice self-care in your day to day life!