I feel like I never even knew “self-care” was a thing until I had a child.
Every day, and every action was “self-care”… frankly.
Until I had a child, I started realizing exactly how important this is to your self and well-being. As a parent, you have this instinct to just sacrifice yourself.
You give away your last bite of your favourite food (usually cake) to your baby because he is looking up at you with seal pup eyes, and looks so darn cute…
You say “yes of course, my love” to your baby when he asks you to read The Nice Book for the tenth time (TRUE STORY, EVERYONE).
Then at the end of the day, especially if you are a full-time working mother not to mention an INSANE person to be also blogging daily like I am, you realize you are completely spent.
You’re exhausted, and unable to do much else.
From there, it snowballs. You skip outings to yoga, you skip going out for whatever reason, you have zero energy to go to the park with your son…. and you put on weight (like I have).
It is a pound here and there, but before you know it, your skirt is tight and you’re thinking:
OMG.
Is that.. a croissant shaped bulge on either the side of my body?
(Also a true story.)
So lately I have been trying to figure out what things make me happy. What are some “self-care” things that I do for myself, and maybe you can pass along some things that YOU do.
No more checking work emails, regular emails, posts, messages, what have you. TURN IT OFF.
Pricey habit as of late, but I have been doing IPL laser treatments on my skin for wrinkles, laser hair removal so that I can stop having to run a razor over my leg and underarm fuzz, and recently I have committed to doing monthly pedicures.
I have started to appreciate the small pleasure in looking down at my toes and seeing COLOUR! Pretty COLOUR!
You won’t believe how many MEN compliment my toes either. Who knew men were so perceptive about colour or pedicures?
I had a colleague tell me he loved this Essie dark magenta pink colour on my nails (in a non creepy way) and he is almost nearing retirement, ready to sail off into the sunset with his wife and 3 kids.
This only happens if Little Bun is safely ensconced at preschool and in safe, capable, patient and loving hands, and I am at home working remotely or taking a much needed day off.
I try and carve out time for this but during work it is HARD. I have so many meetings and conference calls that to squeeze even an hour and a half out is really hard.
It takes half an hour to get there, and another hour for yoga, and then another 15 minutes back.
Deep breathing does help. Lying down at the end of the class to rest after a good stretch, really helps. I feel much better and more grounded afterwards.
I’d also take a walk but I hate walking without a real purpose, even if the purpose is to browse stores along the way.
I even re-watch old favourites like “Castle” or “Seinfeld”. Anything that makes me happy, makes me laugh, and is familiar, is always a great thing.
Then, sometimes I (guiltily) sneak in a KitKat to eat while I watch these things.
I probably shouldn’t eat 300 empty calories each time I do this but… it does make me feel better. Chocolate over wafers, calms me down.
