Where Bloggers Live: How I Do Self-Care at Home
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Welcome to this month’s edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives? Every month a group of seven bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts. It’s been so interesting over the years to see the different ways each of us interpret the topics.
July’s prompt is “How I Do Self-Care at Home.” I’m probably on the very VERY low end of the spectrum when it comes to self-care. I’m not a “product” person. I don’t meditate or stretch or do yoga. I don’t consistently eat particularly well. I have no particular health and/or beauty routines. I don’t brush my hair a hundred strokes before bed or roll an icy roller over my puffy face in the morning.
Wikipedia defines “self-care” as “…the process of establishing behaviors to ensure holistic well-being of oneself, to promote health, and actively manage illness when it occurs. Individuals engage in some form of self-care daily with food choices, exercise, sleep, and hygiene.”
Perhaps the three areas in which I do practice some degree of self-care, are: 1) reward 2) escape 3) naps. Ha.
I am big on rewarding myself for small and large accomplishments. You survived that test? You get ice cream. You adulted? You don’t have to speak to humans for the next 24 hours. You got yourself to Korea? You get to stay two nights in a fancy hotel. Etc. I learned long ago that no one else is necassarily going to NOTICE my (what I consider) accomplishments, let alone reward them. So at some point I just decided that was my responsibility and I’m pretty okay with that. I realize that “reward” might be slightly outside the recognized scope of self-care…but not for me 🙂
Escape can take many forms: not leaving my room, cancelling plans with a human, skipping class, sleep. Just like the dog who has his crate in the corner where he knows he can go to escape noisy family life…I take comfort in knowing that I, too, can escape life when needed. When “out there” and “they” just get to be too much…and my anxiety and stress levels are SUPER HIGH, I don’t always have to push through. Sometimes I can hide out at home or with a book or a nap. Sometimes you just need a little break.
And lastly, naps. Ahhh, the glory of a nap. I think naps fall into both of the above categories: reward and escape. Few things feel as luxurious as a nap. The ability to just lay down and close your eyes when the rest of the world is being productive and fulfilling obligations, woohoo, that is heady stuff.
Reward, escape, and naps may not typically fall under the umbrella of self-care, but…I firmly believe that these things make the difference between Bettye Who Can Get Through One More Day…and Bettye Who Curls Up in a Ball The End. And isn’t that what self-care is?? Taking care of yourself so you can continue doing this life thing?
Please make a visit to my friends’ blogs as well, to see how they do self-care.
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Sally in St Paul
YES! These are perfect examples of self-care. I don’t do as much with rewards as I could…that’s something to ponder!
bettyewp
We all deserve more reward. All of us. All the time. Ponder, Sally. Then reward yourself for pondering.
Susan Sommer
Bettye,
These absolutely qualify as self care winners! Also this is my favorite blog post you’ve written so far. ❤️❤️❤️
bettyewp
Haha, is that cuz it’s the shortest?? 🙂
jodie filogomo
Rewards?? I love that idea and maybe that’s why I shop so much? Of course, for me that’s turned into an addiction which is the opposite of self care, right? Ugh.
Naps are wonderful. I may take your advice and have one today.
XOOX
Jodie
bettyewp
Oh, for sure have a nap!
em d
Naps! Dang, I do more self care then I thought I did?! I am absolutely likewise not a product person…I don’t even moistureize on a regular basis…so I was sincerely in a quandary about if any of the stuff I did “qualified” (I know what a stickler you are for enforcing the topic rules, hahaha). I definitely do rewards…all the time! I also have to set boundaries, because I am FAR better at enjoying the rewards than earning them….
bettyewp
We could all do with more reward 😉
Daenel T.
Naps!!!! Yes! That’s the perfect form of self care. I used not be able to nap, but one day I took one and became a convert.
bettyewp
A Life-Changing Nap, I love it!
Leslie Susan Clingan
I like you more and more. I once fell completely apart over the prospect of baking cookies – cookies!! – and going to a cookie swap with friends I worked with. Totally lost it. There are many days when I just can’t be sociable. In person. It is exhausting for me and I need at least one or two days a week that I am mostly at home to decompress. And to be happy. Because running all over and being an extrovert is very hard.
Love that you reward yourself. Yay, YOU! Adults don’t get the gold stars and stickers that little kids do. And many of us really need some little carrot or carat for running a good race, for hanging in, for doing our best. For just showing up.
Naps. I love a good nap but usually don’t want to wake up from them. My mom was the queen of taking a 20 minute nap – just enough to refresh her. I need to start trying to cat nap like that and see if that doesn’t help me through tough days.
bettyewp
Oh, yeah, no, I like the lost afternoon kind of naps…when you say “I’m just going to close my eyes for ten minutes,” but in ten minutes you pull the blanket up over yourself and get cozy…and you wake up later, in the dark, confused about what time and day it is. THAT’S a nap 🙂
And yes, about needing time (LOTS of time) to recover from being with PEOPLE. Being with more people just exhausts me. There have been very few people in my life who have energized me, and left me feeling better than I did when I met them. Sigh. Mostly you just need to hard schedule recovery time for yourself.
xoxo Bettye
Iris
Oh, I love the nap escape – I’ve never been good at daytime naps, but sure enjoy trying them. I also LOVE your ice cream on a stick. Now, that’s taking care of yourself.
Iris
bettyewp
Now, if I could only figure out how to combine napping with ice cream, I’d be golden!
Jaynn
Phooey. I keep checking in, hoping to see you, assuming life is life-ing for you, hope you are well and ok!
bettyewp
I’m trying to come to the surface. There will be a “month in review” post in a few days!