Fridays are super busy for me. I promise to get over to check out everyone else’s Friday Self Care. I love new ideas for taking better care of myself. Thank you to the hosts, Fit Five Friday Link-Up with Darlene, Michelle, Renée, Jenn, and Zenaida.
1. Letting things sit
This is the biggest one for me. I have really, really had to work hard on letting things sit, not fixing everything, and just leaving things for another day. My family has not been as helpful as I would have liked during my surgery recovery.
I had an epiphany though. If they don’t want to help with the laundry, I’m not doing it. So, I went through the laundry and pulled out mine. I washed the towels and my clothes. I left everything else in the basket, on the floor, or wherever my family chose to leave their laundry.
You have no idea how proud I am of this one. I’m a fixer. I’ve been doing the same thing with the dishes. Washing my stuff, leaving theirs. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t even notice. They haven’t.
They will wash their clothes when they run out of clean clothes to wear.
2. Hair Therapy
Hair therapy. I don’t get my hair done all the time, but it is definitely a big self care thing for me. My hair is thick and long and expensive to get color, cut, and highlights. I splurged this month and got it done. I plan to start getting my hair done again regularly. It really made me feel so much better.
3. Exercise or not exercising
Making time for myself for exercise is probably the biggest thing I do for self care. Some days life is busy, and laundry, dishes, etc take over my exercise time. I’m pretty good about making this a priority and it makes a huge difference in my mental health.
Alternatively, I’m going to add not exercising as well. This year I’m not being a slave to exercise. If I’m injured or sick, I am showing myself love and kindness, and resting. This week was rough, stay tuned for my weekly rundown. I wound up in the ER Tuesday after work, and I had to let exercise go again for a day or so. I let go of the frustration from not being able to exercise and knew I had to take care of myself.
4. Meal delivery
I started ordering a vegan meal delivery service for work. It is time-consuming to make vegan meals for my work days. Because our work cafeteria has lousy options for vegans and I work 12-hour shifts. I need both lunch and dinner for my work days. I was spending my entire day off cooking for my work days. I started ordering meal delivery. I actually rotate between a few of them. It has really helped my life and made life easier. I don’t use it all the time, but while recovering from surgery it has been a Godsend. I just can’t stand on my feet for that long.
5. Massage
I used to hate massages. I had a major aversion to touch, and I still don’t like them very much for “relaxation”. They do however help immensely with muscle soreness and tension. You might need to look around to find someone good, but definitely something I do now somewhat regularly to take care of myself.
Thanks for reading my 5. It’s been a horrid week and I really wanted to participate in this week’s Friday Five. I’m so happy I managed to work in the time for this.
Making time for journaling and blogging is also a big self-care for me. This one is shorter than I’d have liked, but I squeezed in a little time for blogging this morning.
7 thoughts on “Self Care Ways to Show Yourself Love”
These are all perfect ways to show yourself love. Meal prep is time consuming when you work out of the house. I have a hard time letting things sit myself!
I think that most mothers have a hard time letting things site. Thanks for stopping by.
I find it really hard not to fix everything and being willing to let some things sit too! I really liked what you said about showing yourself kindness when you are sick or injured – sorry to hear about the trip to the ER!
I’m sorry to hear it was a tough week – so glad you made time to link up with us 🙂
Me too! I felt so much better just having come up with the time to write. Have a great week Michelle and thanks for stopping by!
I hope you are feeling better! I also hope your family comes through and helps out with laundry and dishes. I don’t mind it too much but then again I only do it for me.
Oh no! I’m sorry your week was so bad- I’ll be back tomorrow to hear all the details (hope everything is okay now.). i love all of these, but especially number 1. i’m laughing at the thought of your family realizing that, oh yes! If we want clean clothes and dishes we’re going to have to wash them! Not only does it make things easier on you, but it’s good for them to take some responsibility.
I also love number 4. GREAT way to solve a huge problem. Sometimes we just put up with these things, but we should really be thinking, “Is there a way to fix this or make it easier?”
I wish we had meal delivery here – or at least more options. We’re not super close to much, so it’s easier to just go pick it up for ourselves.