What is Self-Care?
[This was actually written in April of 2025, but I had been waiting to publish it until the right time.]
What does self-care even mean? It seems like most of the articles I looked up were very much on the surface. Practicing self-care, as if doing a few face masks is going to help cure this deep ache in my chest. But it doesn’t. I exercise, take my medicine, eat healthy, have an okay-ish sleep schedule, and practice good hygiene. So why don’t I feel better? Why is it so difficult to find an article that reaches me?
I’ve been to therapy before for depression. While I served in the military, I experienced some of my lowest moments. I had almost taken my own life while deployed to Afghanistan. Before I could make any rash decisions, I’d gone first thing to behavioral health - in civilian terms: therapy. The resources were limited, but I’d continued going after getting back to the States, too. One thing I found redundant was when they told me to love myself. Except, how am I supposed to do that when it feels so foreign?
They tell you to practice meditation and exercise to boost your mood. They tell you to eat healthy and take your medication. It’s like the only recommendation is to care for my needs, but avoid a critical element. The ability to care about yourself. It’s one thing to do all the necessary tasks to care for our body, but what about the deep longing we feel for acceptance and connection? A lot of the items they told me to do felt like something a parent would do for their child.
Much of the time, those things are what parents are responsible to provide. They take care of all their child’s physical needs, but it’s important to also be mindful of their emotional needs as well. When the child doesn’t receive the emotional support they require, they begin looking for ways to supplement. Sometimes we over eat, we crave attention (either negative or positive), we acquiesce to the expectations of others to find that acceptance we crave, and we limit ourselves and put ourselves into boxes that make us more palatable.
But how does a parent care for their child’s emotional needs, when they avoid the reality of their own? The truth is simply that we don’t know how to emotionally care for ourselves. I didn’t. I’m trying to, now. For the longest time, I’ve searched outside of myself for validation, acceptance, and a love that’s undeniable, always accessible, and never lacking. I’d thought, for a very long time, that I’d find that kind of love in a romantic partner, like in the movies. This person that existed to love me and care for me, ‘til death do us part. Except, that’s not another person’s job.
This is not an easy pill to swallow. There are many great expectations that have been cultivated through our society. The idea that one good romance is all it takes to fulfill our every need. But it’s false. It’s a false perception. They’ve been selling us a story to romanticize the difficult parts of our lives, but leave us barren and lonely. For so long, I’ve looked outside of myself for love and connection without knowing that I’m responsible for my own self-love, first and foremost. Romantic relationships can add value to our lives, but we’re ultimately responsible for the task of caring about ourselves, which was not something that came naturally to me.
How does one do self-love? Love comes from other people, right? Except, it only does if you believe it does. It can come from within, too, but you must let go of the idea that you aren’t enough. You must accept that you are all you need and that you can fill those holes yourself. It requires us to be gentle, kind and nurturing to ourselves - even if it feels awkward at first. We get to be the loving person in our life that we didn’t know growing up.
This all sounds very mushy, and it still seems impractical. I would have to agree. For most of my life there’s been a mantra I’d say to myself whenever things got hard on the outside. A way to victimize myself and blame others for the pain that I felt. I’d say that “nobody cares about me.” A saying that would run deep through my bones with conviction, and has, up until a few days ago, still run in my subconscious mind. I’d pin the blame for the awful feelings I felt onto the ones I expected to love me the most. The ones that were supposed to care about me, because I’d never felt truly cared for. My needs were too great, and my emotions were too much.
I’d walk throughout life attempting self-harm and other reckless behaviors in hopes of someone noticing! Why didn’t someone notice? Why was it so hard for people to care about me? It felt like I was all alone in a world that wanted nothing to do with me. I had friends, I suppose, but nobody that ever knew me very well. I’ve gone through life interacting on the surface, because I felt like people never knew how to see past it. But the thing is, our perception creates reality.
People didn’t know I was attempting to self-harm, because I hid it from people. They didn’t see my behaviors as reckless, they probably seemed more detached like someone who wanted to be a loner than risking my life. People didn’t know me on a deep level, because I was afraid people would judge me, so I didn’t let them in. We have to be careful with the stories we tell ourselves. They shape our reality. Instead of experiencing something new and learning from the mistakes we make, we repeat our stories like a mantra. Continuing to use it to shape our reality and finding new ways to experience it. We use our past as evidence for our stories, without realizing that we’d used the story to make sense of the experience in the first place.
I walked drunk around my college campus and nobody came looking for me: “nobody cares about me.” Or, did no one know where I went, and they thought I left? Why is it other people’s responsibility to keep track of where I am? My lieutenant grabbed my dress uniform that I left out in our company area to teach me that I should keep track of my personal items, because anyone could’ve stolen it. “Nobody cares about me,” or was she just trying to help me learn without learning the hard and expensive way that personal items should be kept safe.
Our perception creates our reality, and if we’re not careful, we can create a whole life of experiences to back up our stories. Then, when we have enough “evidence” we use our stories to limit ourselves from further growth. “I’m stupid, I’ll never get that job,” or “I’m bad with money,” and constantly overspends, because they refuse to take any further accountability. (This was me a long time ago before I realized I was buying things to feel happy. Getting a splurge of dopamine whenever I’d be able to buy something new for myself, but then never having enough. But then, wanting to buy things or go out to eat, because I never had the money to spend consistently. A vicious cycle.) The story stops you in your tracks, and prevents you from experiencing something new.
You might be wondering what any of this has to do with self-care. Well, it has everything to do with it, because I believed that nobody cared about me. That also meant that I didn’t care about myself. I didn’t care if I harmed myself to get other people’s attention, which rarely worked. (And when it did, it was never the right person that noticed.) I didn’t care about myself walking around campus drunk in the middle of the night. There is a lot of evidence of the fact that I didn’t care about myself for much of my young life. And although I try my hardest to physically and emotionally care for my wellbeing, there was still a part of myself that didn’t care. Deep down. A kind of care that I’ve never known, because I’ve been so focused on what other people aren’t doing instead of what I could stop doing to myself.
My focus was on the wrong thing. I’ve been so focused on the people outside of me that I hadn’t paid enough attention to what I was doing to get their attention. I’ve been looking for love outside of me, validation, care, acceptance, but all of these things are possible to cultivate within. When we look at the stories we tell ourselves we stand a chance at finding real lasting change. Instead of using your story as an excuse for your behavior, look at why you believe it, and forgive yourself for your past. I’m going to be honest, that last paragraph was essentially channeled, and I have a lot to think about.
It’s important to look at the things we say about ourselves, because they’re not always true. You are more than your stories. You are more than your past, and your story can change in an instant. I love you so deeply. Please seek mental health professionals if you’re struggling. You’re worthy of a happy life, a happy existence, one full of self-care. Please be kind to yourself. Spirit always looks at you with loving eyes full of compassion, gentleness, tenderness, kindness, and care.