Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Rhoda Shapiro, author of Fierce Woman.
We’ve all heard it many times: Self-care is absolutely essential.
As women, we’re well aware of this fact. We put so much energy every day into jobs, tasks, responsibilities, and relationships; if we don’t replenish and nurture ourselves in the process, we’ll eventually get depleted.
Many of us put off self-care because there’s simply no time for it. Others feel guilty about carving out the time to do something for ourselves.
Right now, I feel like our definition of self-care is quite limiting, which is actually keeping us from engaging in it at a deeper level.
When we think of self-care, we usually think of making the time to do things like: schedule a massage, take a bath, go on a hike, or engage in a spa day. While these things are great, they’re not things we can partake in every day. Given our schedules and responsibilities, this kind of daily self-care would be absolutely impossible for the majority of people.
However: What if we started to look at self-care as something effortless, something that we can seamlessly integrate into our daily lives?
Then, self-care becomes an ongoing act.
The only way to do this is by engaging self-care in a deeper, more holistic way.
True self-care means knowing your boundaries, and not being afraid to say, “no” to something that doesn’t resonate with you. It means being kind and gentle to yourself on a minute-to-minute basis. It means letting go of all the tired expectations of what and who you should be. It means nurturing those positive relationships in your life.
Self-care is about loving and accepting who you are. And the opportunity to do that is available in each and every moment.
Our thanks to Rhoda for her guest post! For more from Rhoda Shapiro, read her article “Women: 3 Ways to Wake Up Your Badass Self.”
