The day I realized I was neglecting my Self Care.

My self care had become non existent.

Do you ever just get annoyed with...existing? Like just waking up on some days is exhausting? Yea, that was me. I realized that my self care was non existent and had been for awhile. I literally would have to delete my Instagram app every other day because I found myself getting jealous over these influencers who were always smiling because, what the hell are they so happy about? I knew something was wrong with me then.

I had allowed myself to feel burnt out, overwhelmed & depressed from trying to accomplish every single goal I set for 2021, within 2 months. Overthinking, rushing, racing an imaginary clock.

On top of that, the police shootings, seasonal depression and still sitting at home during the panarama (pandemic). I am not one who is used to being isolated for long periods of time and I started to feel like I would soon need to be institutionalized due to the state of my mental health, as I had begun to have suicidal thoughts. I had to act, and I had to act now.

Creating my self care plan

I had 3 weeks of pto just sitting in my folder for who knows why, so I decided to take a week to focus on my self care and mental health. During that week, I refused to cook, as that was labor to me lol. I then set up a meeting with my therapist and a business coach to help me organize my thoughts around my business. I also made it a priority to actually not work my job (cause on my days off somehow I still end up working) & I focused on being creative. Then finally, I booked myself a hotel room on the beach over looking the water.

Taking a solo vacation for the first time while in a relationship felt a little off, but I knew it was neccessary. I needed to get back to myself and the best way to do that is completely focus on you. It's self care, not everybody care.

My realizations about work, self care and burn out

During that week of self care, I had several realizations about my life. Things that people subject themselves to allow us to become burnt out in the name of working hard for other people, which results in us not showing up enough for ourselves in our own lives. Thats how I had gotten to this point.

As a social worker, the majority of my time is spent helping other people with their problems and honestly, it didn’t give me enough time or shall I say, I wasn’t giving me enough time to focus on the things that would make me happy outside of work. I quickly learned after this self care week that I needed to work on my boundaries in my life and give myself grace; I needed to learn to take my time and to not rush through life, to take advantage of the little moments and to not beat myself up.

Making self care a top priority

The lesson I learned was that I had to allow myself to be OK with just BEING, resting and take time for myself. To not focus on other people and their needs before my own because I can’t show up for them if I’m unable to show up for myself.