Getting Back to my Self Care routine... (My Story)

Hello, Dolls
Autumn is my favorite time of the year! To me, it's the most beautiful season! I love the coziness of autumn, the warmth of a cozy sweater, the leaves turning into the most beautiful colors, apple cider, coloring in my autumn adult coloring book, and every single pumpkin spice latte and frappuccino that I can taste! I was scrolling through Instagram, and I came across this post. Since I love autumn, and I desperately need to reignite my self care routine, I thought this would be a great challenge to try.

My definition of self care is the simple, continuous act of taking care of your needs (without feeling selfish or guilty), whether it's physical, mental, and emotional so that you can feel your best, handle the every day demands of life, and take care of the things you need to do. Think of the saying, "you can't pour from an empty cup". If your cup is running low or empty, it will be very hard (if possible) for you to function, much less take care of others. Self care, to me, is filling my own cup up, so that I can properly function, and give of myself to others in the best way possible. I also think self care involves removing anything or anyone that is toxic to your mental health, and prevents you from being the best version of you.

Self care is a topic that I'm passionate about; but, I've been neglecting my own self care! Crazy, I know! For the past few weeks, I have been spreading myself too thin and exerting myself in several activities. While I love to work and get things done, I push myself too much. I've been told several times that if you keep pushing yourself, your body will give out. I will admit, I never really believed this...and then it happened, my body crashed. To be exact, it crashed this past Monday. There's a certain level of tired that I function with every day, but, this tired was like a dead, comatose, tired. I thought about just going to work a few hours late, that way, I could catch up on some sleep, but, I just couldn't do it. I called in. That day, I was able to catch up with some much needed rest. In between naps, I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw a post on the very thing that I was thinking about...self care! Not only was I neglecting proper rest, I was neglecting my own self care. My life has been so busy with activities that my "me time" and "mental health" time was seriously lacking; which is the reason why I wrote this post.

I plan to try several of the suggestions in the autumn challenge post, some of the things that I also plan to include in my self care routine are:

-reading more, especially inspirational and self care articles
-journaling my thoughts, challenging the negative thoughts
-adult coloring
-creating a vision board with inspiring quotes and affirmations to recite to myself
-taking a walk outside (being outside helps me think clearer)
-establishing a cut off time for social media
-treating myself to monthly pedicure
-schedule at least 15 minutes a day to do absolutely nothing

I would love to know some of the things that you do to practice self care, leave them below. Here are a few Instagram pages that I follow that feature great self care ideas:

-@positivelypresent
-@dr_mimi
-@poisetoshine
-@thegmichelle
-@thebrooklynbeauties
-@unleashfierce

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