Self-Care: Build a Relationship with Yourself

Self-Care sounds easy but it's a challenge. How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 - 10? If you had to put a number on how you feel about yourself, and how well you know yourself, what would it be? If you feel you know yourself very well, but are on the lower side of how much you like yourself, then it might be time to start thinking about self-knowledge, self-care and how you can build a better relationship with yourself, and the next pages will be exploring how to accomplish this.

Table of Contents

Stop Focusing on Others

There are many distractions out in the world, but some of the worst are those that comes from spending too much time focusing on and critiquing the lives of others. It can be extremely easy to fall into the bad habit of spending your time concerning yourself with the actions of others, and you may even spend time discussing these things with others, but it's important to note that while you’re focusing on others, you’re avoiding work that you can be doing on yourself, practicing self-care.

Another side of this, is that it might be a manifestation of insecurities that you feel towards yourself due to constant comparing. The person who is aware of the nuances of how you feel would be you, because people can’t read the minds of others. If you feel as though you are constantly scrutinized by others, it’s important to remember that they might not even be aware that you feel any discomfort at all. Most of the time, people are primarily focused on how they are seen by others.

Examples of Self-Care

Examples of Physical Self-Care

Eating healthy
Exercising
Going for a walk
Drinking water
Sleeping enough
Going for naps
Having a cup of tea
Sitting in the sunlight
Taking a shower or bath

Examples of Mental Self-Care

Practicing mindfulness
Taking a break
Playing video games
Listening to music
Reading a book
Listening to a podcast
Reflecting on things you are grateful for

Examples of Spiritual/Social Self-Care

Praying
Calling/texting a friend
Connecting with nature
Meditating
Engaging in self-reflection

Learn to Forgive Folks

It’s really hard to love yourself, to make a better relationship with yourself when you carry a lot of baggage from past dealings with people. Things sometimes happen that can make your feel a little bit sour about having relationships with others but it’s important to remember that you don’t need to hold into these things. Let them just be things that happened and move on. It’s been said that forgiving people is more about self-care, being healthier for yourself than the person you’re forgiving. This is because holding onto to anger and pain will only cause you to feel negatively about a lot of other things in your life.

Once you have forgiven someone completely, the part of your mind that has been holding onto those toxic thoughts and feeling will be free to focus on better things. You can use that brain power to think of ways to put good things into the world around you. There are a lot of ways to spread positivity, and the best ways involve doing something for others.

Take Time to Help Someone Else

There are few joys that can compare to the feeling you get when you help someone who really needs help. When you’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on yourself in unhealthy ways, a really good way to break out of that is also to help someone else. This puts them in the forefront of your mind for a time, and this can help you to appreciate the situation that you have as well.

There are a lot of programs that involve helping the homeless and elderly, and both are in constant need of volunteers that can help dilute the strain placed on other people who are already busy in the community. You might be surprised by the outpouring of gratitude that comes from people who haven’t been used to getting the help that you’re helping to provide. This can create connections and inspire the future success of people who might not have had the opportunity otherwise.

Write a Letter to Yourself

Part of achieving self-care and getting to the deeper parts of yourself is taking time out of your day to put your thoughts on paper so that you can read them back to yourself. Sometimes it takes this kind of exercise in order to be able to get a sense of what is truly on your mind. You might have doubts about recent decisions, or you might need to see your thoughts out in front of you to make those final choices. Whatever the case may be, this will help you to begin to prioritize your feelings and thoughts about things. Once you’ve drawn some conclusions it’ll be easier to make real changes based on the information you have about yourself.

Practice Constructive Self-Talk

After you’ve taken some time to think about the things you wrote down to yourself, make some effort to replace anything negative that you said to yourself with something that is positive. Talk about your talents and abilities. Tell yourself that you can accomplish your goals. The more that you repeat these things to yourself, the more possible they will become. Sky's the limit...go for it!