Treat Yourself Well with Conscious Self-Care

I want to start my article with a good question. What did you last do to make yourself happy? So when was the last time you spent quality time alone with yourself? I know you don't have time. There are bills you have to pay, presentations you have to produce. You are in a constant rush. You have time for everything in your life, for everyone except yourself.

It often happens to me when I teach stress management. When I come to the parts where I talk about the effects of our self-care habits on our stress level in education and say that we should make taking good care of ourselves a lifestyle, I hear sentences from my clients, "Mrs, you say very well, but I don't have time to spare for myself and do good things for myself." Most people constantly criticize themselves, lead a sedentary life, not eating healthy, not getting enough sleep. This list goes on and on. So most people have time to mistreat themselves, but not when it comes to treating themselves well. So why do you think this is?

The answer to this question may be hidden in our childhood. If we were raised by a family that often criticized us as children, did not approve of our existence, did not give us the healthy love we need, neglected our emotional and physical needs, it is not surprising that when we grow up we turn into adults who do not treat ourselves very well, moreover, do not know what self-care is. If your family did not give enough attention to your emotional and physical needs as a child, now you may not be giving yourself the care you deserve. You may see it as selfish in taking good care of yourself and taking time for yourself.

If you have had this type of childhood, perhaps the reason you are not taking care of yourself right now and saying “I don't have time for yourself” is related to your childhood. Yes, none of us can change the past, but now as an adult you have the power to change your present. You can also do this through conscious self-care. Conscious self-care adds the concept of “conscious awareness” to the self-care components.

Conscious self-care is the application of a person's self-care practice with conscious awareness. Some studies have revealed that conscious self-care practices such as breath awareness can protect students from the harmful effects of stress. Conscious awareness and conscious relaxation are practices that are at the center of conscious self-care. Conscious self-care is a self-repetitive process that involves conscious awareness and reviewing the inner needs of the person and engaging in specific self-care practices that will be good for the person.

Conscious self-care consists of the following categories: physical care (adequate consumption of water and food, exercise, etc.), supportive relationships, conscious awareness, self-compassion. and purpose, conscious relaxation and supportive structure.

You can start by making a self-care plan to pay more attention to yourself and your needs. Self-care is generally divided into five categories: physical, psychological, workplace self-care, social and financial self-care. Score between 1 and 10 in all of these categories to understand how well you take care of yourself. For example, what do you do for your physical self-care?

But what are the activities you do for your psychological self-care? In what category do you need to improve yourself? The path to true happiness and well-being is through the balance of all these self-care categories. All these categories are interrelated. For example, our psychological self-care while not paying attention to our financial self-care ultimately affects our psychology. So let's try to correct the imbalance in any category of self-care and really take good care of ourselves in every aspect of our lives. Again, let's make use of activities aimed at relaxing the mind, such as meditation or yoga, to bring the concept of conscious self-care into our lives.

You may not have received the physical and emotional care you needed from your family in your childhood, but come on, take care of your adulthood and start taking care of yourself in every way. Do your mental and physical self-care activities every day. Remember, if we have time to behave in a way that doesn't feel good to ourselves, we also have time to be nice to ourselves.