Do Future You a Favour
Photo by Anatoliy Sadovskiy; arranged with text by author in Canva Pro.
One of the best things we can do is take expert care of ourselves — and thereby increase our capacity to help others. Here’s how you can make self-care a snap, especially when you need it the most.
What is self-care?
Did you know that puttering about can be a form of self-care? Same with organizing a cutlery drawer. Or deleting email.
This is because some people need visual quiet to feel rested.
The opposite is also true. Meaning, making a big mess of things can also be a form of self-care. Splatter painting. Digging in the dirt. Shredding paper.
This is because sometimes we need freedom from constraints to feel creative, motivated, or autonomous.
These are just two examples of different kinds of self-care. There are many more. Below are the four basic types — these are the ones that are the most common across many models.
Physical self-care
This is all about your body and what it needs to function well. This could relate to rest or activity, to sensation or the absence of. This can be whatever you need to do to release stress and take care of your physical body, including eating, exercise, or sleep.
Social self-care
Social self-care is about bonding with others as well as about creating boundaries or distance. From planning events to attending them, or even opting out, social self-care is all about the things you do to create the capacity to have meaningful relationships with others.
Reflective self-care
Sometimes referred to as psychological, spiritual, or mental self-care, this is all about giving yourself time and space to think and make sense of the world you inhabit. This can include journalling, meditation, prayer, study, or whatever else your mind needs to feel at peace.
Emotional self-care
Emotional self-care is all about understanding your own feelings, processing any negative emotions, engaging in self-expression, and generating empathy for yourself and others. Emotional self-care can include everything from finding ways to laugh, to creating art, talking with someone, or whatever else you can think of to process the things you’re feeling.
What do you need right now?
When you’re in a place where you need some self-care — of any kind — you don’t always have the energy to figure it out. That’s why you need to create yourself a Self-Care Menu.
The Self-Care Menu is a list of organised options you build in advance, based on what you typically enjoy. These are the things you can do to give yourself the gift of comfort, calm and energy replenishment.
Future you will thank you for it.
How to create your own Self-Care Menu
You can make your custom Self-Care Menu by creating a list with several columns, one for each type of self-care.
Next, fill in each category on your list with any relevant activities that you already know generate feelings of calm, joy or energy for yourself.
You may find that you have a tendency to lean heavily toward one or more types of self-care. This could be beneficial for you in some circumstances, but perhaps not what’s really needed in others. A better option might be to ask yourself:
What do I actually need right now, and what would be the best way to meet that need?
Stretching yourself to answer this differently can lead to new insights. Similar to a restaurant menu, if we always opt for the same thing we may miss out on what else is on offer (and could truly fulfill us).
Once you have some options listed for each type of self-care, you’re ready to start using the list. It’s ok if the same activity applies to more than one category; for example, talking to a coach can be social, reflective and emotional forms of self-care all at once!
When you are feeling in need of recouping some energy, refer to your menu of options to see what might feel good. You may be surprised at how useful this menu is. Having the list handy makes things easy. You don’t have to think. You just do what feels good.
Questions to ask yourself after any self-care activity
There are a few questions you might want to ask yourself after doing any self-care activity. This will help you gain further insights about the effectiveness of your routines.
Was this activity useful?
Was that what I needed right now?
Is there more I need to do here / Am I good for now?
You may also want to ask yourself if your routines are balanced or if you’re leaning too heavily on one particular kind of selfcare (and perhaps neglecting a different aspect of your wellbeing).
The Self-Care Menu is a living document; it’ll change over time as your interests and needs do. You may come up with new things to try or remove activities that no longer serve you well. This is all part of the process.
The key thing is to be looking out for Future You. When you need the list, you’ll be glad it’s there.
I’d be curious to know…
What are some of your favourite self-care practices and what type are they?
Which area do you tend to lean toward and why?
Let me know at coaching@witten.kim and I’ll pose a thought or challenging question to help you make self-care even easier.
