words REVATHIE DHANABALAN

In 2020, the world has grown into an era of self-care and self-love as popular buzzwords. There are plenty of messages out there packaged with self-care to showcase a reason for transformation. We read in articles that if you follow certain steps, all your dreams can come true but there is a key takeaway - you have to believe in yourself. But self-care is not just taking long bubble baths to temporarily escape reality. In fact, actual self-care should be viewed as a process to find solutions. Solutions that help you to develop healthy habits in difficult situations in the long run. In doing so, you are indirectly using self-care to build on your self-love. But remember that different people have different definitions of what self-care and self-love means.

So, here are just some things that you would need to acknowledge before heading down the path of self-care and self-love. 

1. Effective self-care

Starts with the basics, which means to prioritise what is important to you. You spend time choosing to do things that you genuinely wanted to do. That can mean choosing to stay in on Fridays so that you can work on that novel you have been working on for a year. The point is to choose what matters to you the most. 

2. Realising that practising self-care and self-love is tedious - not just on you but for people around you.

That sometimes can come in ways where you would have to cut out a toxic friend from your life and this would cause conflict in your personal relationships. It can even be saying no to something that you are not passionate about and that could be your current job. Well, no one said self-care and self-love is easy. 

3. Understanding and recognising how much you are capable of.

There are only 24 hours in a day and you have to recognise your own limits. But there is a catch - even though you cannot help everyone in your life constantly, you also need to know when not limit yourself. Your potential is your own and that often is accompanied with self-love to see you are someone that is worthwhile.

4. Self-reflection comes into play with self-care and self-love.

Examining your decisions that you made the day before or for the year that allows you to learn from them - to recognise your failures and understand those decisions. Self-love is also learning to accept your mistakes or decisions. 

5. Instant gratification is just instant gratification.

Yes, these may momentarily distract us from our stressful lives, but cultivating healthy habits will improve your life overall. 

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To recap, the term self-care is to care for yourself physically and mentally, making sure you get the time you need to feel at peace. Practising self-care helps to refocus your brain and taking time to feel good in your skin. On the other hand, the term self-love is about paying attention to your intuition and accepting yourself. It means to unconditionally love yourself no matter what. It’s not enough to simply care for yourself. Self-care will promote self-love, so give yourself the freedom to experience self-acceptance and confidence.