Why Self-Care Feels Hard

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know how important self-care is. It has become, in many ways, another thing for busy women to add to their list of things to do. It has become something we should do.

Ugh. There’s that should word again.

I have no doubt that women want to have habits of self-care. You want to feel healthy. You want to move your body. You want to have a calm mind. But the should still stands in the way.

I should go to the gym today.

I should eat more veggies today.

I should start meditating/journaling/doing yoga.

When self-care feels like a should, it will always feel hard. BUT sometimes you follow through on the should, and you know what happens? You feel better! You have more energy! You feel more at peace. Your body doesn’t hurt as much. You feel joyful and alive…until…

Have you ever gotten a prescription for antibiotics that you were supposed to take for 2 weeks? You feel awful when you start taking them, but after about a week or so you start to feel better. That ten day mark rolls around and it was like you were never sick, but you still have medicine left. You think to yourself, “I feel great! I don’t even need the medicine!”

Yeah. We’ve all done this. This is exactly what happens with self-care too. We start to feel good so we stop taking the medicine we most need. I still do it, and I consider myself to be a self-care expert.

Here’s the thing, y’all – self-care is hard.

It’s hard to keep up with. It’s hard to follow through with. It’s hard to make it a priority.

I get it. You’re exhausted. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You’re stress level is through the roof.

The medicine you need is self-care. And this is not a prescription you can stop taking once you feel good again. THIS IS THE THING THAT HELPS YOU FEEL GOOD!

Self-care might feel like an indulgence - and some of it is! But self-care isn’t just bubble baths and massages. Self-care is the deep work required to feel the way you want to feel even when that deep work isn’t necessarily fun . You might not like going to the gym, but you like the way you feel when you do. You might think you have something better to do with 20 minutes in the morning than meditate and journal, but it makes a difference in how you spend every other minute of your day.

Until you start to make the connection that self-care is the very thing that helps us feel the way we want to feel, it will only be a should. It will just be another thing to add to the list that will never get finished today.

What if self-care became your non-negotiable? What would happen if you started to recognize that your self-care is the very glue that is holding everything else together and without it, you will never feel the way you say you want to feel?

When you make yourself a priority, you are showing yourself that you matter and that you are worthy. You are worthy of your own love and your own care, just like you would give it to your family and friends.

It’s time to take care, ladies. Take care of you, because you are the only one of you that we have.

If you are struggling to create and follow through with habits that you KNOW you need right now, consider signing up for a Deep Dive Session. You would be amazed at how much progress you can make with just 60 minutes of deep listening to your own inner voice. You can schedule your session here.