Self-Care: 8 Unconventional Ways To Take Better Care of Yourself - William Kabutu

 

1. Declutter. Making room for your life is an unconventional self-care method. What a gift to yourself to let go of things you don’t love and use while not only creating space but surrounding yourself with only your favorite things. If you aren’t sure where to start, consider these tiny projects.

2. Walk away. Not everything is meant for you. Even all the good stuff isn’t meant for you. Limit what you allow in. From email and social media to opportunities and opinions, if it isn’t meant for you, walk away. Usually, no explanation or response is necessary. P.S. When you are walking away from the stuff that isn’t meant for you, you are taking steps towards what is.

3. Stop Drinking. With the “rosé all day” hype and “mommy juice” memes,  you’d think drinking was a form a self-care. It has often been positioned as a way to take the edge off a long day and for a long time, I thought it helped me relax but once I stopped drinking for 100 days, I realized it only added anxiety to my life. Now that it’s been close to two years since I last had a drink (or a hangover), I realize that not drinking is an unconventional way I take better care of myself. This is why I stopped and how I did it.

4. Turn it off. The news, your phone, and any other noise that is compromising your mental health usually has an on/off switch. You have a choice. You can turn it off. Instead of waiting until you’ve had enough, schedule pockets of time in your day and week where you power down. Tune out so you can tune in.

5. Throw away your scale. What you weigh says nothing about you and science is showing that it doesn’t even really tell you that much about your health. If you (like me) grew up in the claws of diet culture, that’s hard to accept. If you’ve ever measured your worth by your weight or body size, or felt measured by others in a negative way because of it, you’ve been negatively affected by diet culture.

Even when I thought I had let dieting go, I was still weighing myself every day or at least every week and it wasn’t serving me. Living without the scale has allowed me to be happier and healthier in every possible way.

6. Give up being right. Amanda White, LPC says, “Give up being right around people who are committed to making you wrong.” A healthy conversation, even if you don’t agree with someone is one thing but when you are defending your point without purpose, it’s time to move on.

7. Do it your way. Let go of the pressure to be “normal” or to fit in or do it all or do it right. Instead, start checking your heart before you check Google or the opinions of others. Experiment, see what resonates and make decisions for your health and wellness that work best for you. You know you better than anyone else. Trust that.

It may feel like a relief when someone tells you exactly how to change and what steps to take but always remember, that’s a system that once worked best for them or someone else. It takes a little more work and awareness to craft something for yourself but it’s often far more effective. Listen to advice and recommendations, extract what works best for you and leave the rest behind.

8. Embrace Margin. Do less. Schedule less. Marvel over the space you create between appointments. When you stop measuring who you are by what you accomplish, you’ll begin to embrace hours, days and weeks with nothing on the books. In the meantime, resist the urge to fill your time with to-dos and give your thoughts, ideas, dreams and curiosity a place to unfold.

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