Take Care of Yourself

neon “love” sign

I have decided to take a small break from attempting to keep up with the plethora of news out there right now because let’s be honest. It’s takes me a full day to process that something has happened, and another full day to react and write something. Then another day for editing. By the time you see my blog post, it’s been a week and a million and a half other craptastic things have happened since then!

I have decided I don’t want that to be my main focus all the time. If we’re gonna make it through this strange period of time in America, it’s time for some radical self-care and some radical self-love. We have to take care of each other too! We cannot go this journey alone, especially  while fighting the tyranny and oppression of Trump and his cronies.

I’m not going to tell you self-care tips you already know in the context of “go do these tips and you’ll feel better.” That’s not how it works and I know that. I figure that you know yourself best, so you know what works for you. I just want to encourage you to take those steps to feel a little better because it can help get you through the hard times. 

That means doing what you need to do to survive, first of all. Going to doctor’s appointments. Going to therapy. Going to church if you’re into it. Cooking food and eating. Trying to get the amount of sleep you need to function well. Being social. The everyday stuff makes a big difference too, you know?

I have a “morning motivation” playlist that motivates me to live, to be perfectly honest. Music gives me hope. It makes me want to dance around in the mornings when I’m in the mood to listen to it. Gets me pumped for the day!

During the COVID pandemic, I found full-body relaxation meditations to be really helpful in managing stress. I use the app Insight Timer, found at the AppStore on iTunes. It has a timer and lots of good guided meditations. I think now is a good time to start that back up again.

I find just being outside for a few minutes (I’m actually writing this outside yay!) a few times a day really helps me feel better. I used to hike and love being in nature. It’s good for my soul, maybe yours too. Idk go outside for a half hour, see if it helps. Go find some nature.

Playing with our two dogs, Odin and Oliver, is always fun for me! They are my big lugs who love to give kisses and wag their enormous tails, which sometimes knock things off of our coffee table. But that’s okay! We love having dogs as part of our family! They are so funny and keep things light, even when we are both being very serious. Odin and Oliver love to cheer us up when we’re sad, and will often cuddle with us on the couch and give us kisses.

Writing has been super-therapeutic for me, and I am happy to be doing that nearly every day, for this blog and for other things. Something about working with words makes me so happy! Writing was always a stress relief for me, and I used to journal faithfully. As a kid, I’d write stories and songs and poetry and anything else on my mind! I missed having that kind of relationship with writing and I am glad to be getting back to it.

I love books! Especially the “banned” ones. F*** you if you think you’re going to keep me from a book! LOL! In all seriousness, reading helps me a lot because I love learning and as long as I’m doing that, I’m okay. Libraries and bookstores are my happy places. I could spend a whole hour in a used bookstore and be happy as a clam. My only problem with libraries is that I have to bring the books back, lol! I love libraries and they provide a public service to our communities.

I love to get my body active and not like officially “work out,” because that makes me think of all that dieting and negative body image nonsense. I’d rather be overall more active than ever focused on being skinny or something. Being someone else’s version of me is not something I care about because bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and mine is fine the way it is. So is yours. I once ran a 5K with my Dad. We trained together, using the app Couch to 5K (C25K). I think it would take more than that app to get me to run another one of those. The will is there, but the ability is not at this time. Guess I’ll start with walking!

Spirituality has been something I’ve chased for a long time after being raised Catholic and falling away from church entirely in my mid-20’s. I had been clinging to it like a lifeline after some personally devastating events and it, in all its Christian and Catholic forms, forsake me when I needed a church (and its people) most. I gave up on it at that point and figured if there was a God, that being had way more important things to worry about than me. I just figured I’d have a life without spirituality and called myself agnostic.

Honestly, I just went about my life for a decade and some change without any sort of spirituality, trying to navigate the ups and downs by myself. These days, I am much more open to the possibilities of a higher power and intelligent design. I believe that love is all we have, and we should cherish that and each other because that is the opposite of the hatred and tyranny going on right now on the national stage. Hey, Jesus said to “love one another,” so if you’re doing the opposite, you’re the problem.

I’m no self-care guru, I just try to do a few things every day to keep myself sane while the world is going haywire around me. You can do that too if you want to, but with things you like doing. Keeping yourself grounded and trying to lower stress levels are good things, and you have to find out what that looks like for you.

What self-care practices do you use every day? Which ones are you thinking of using to help you cope with life right now?