The areas of self-care vary depending on the source. Most of my research and writings tend to focus on three primary areas: physical, emotional and spiritual. We will look at all three and how they are each important to overall health and wellbeing—in order for you to live your best life now.
1. Physical Self-Care
The physical body is the area most commonly associated with self-care. It includes anything that benefits the physical body and overall well being. This could be taking care of our skin, our muscles, our mind, our internal organs—the entire body.
Our physical body is what moves us through this life. From this stems our energy levels and ability to move about, to experience things and all 5 senses—sight, touch, hear, smell, and taste.
Physical self-care is the practice of actively or intentional taking care of your physical body. Broad examples of this would be the foods we eat, how we move our body, our sleep patterns, our grooming and how we exercise our mind.
2. Emotional Self-Care
Our emotional well being is also a crucial element in total body health. We experience some form of emotion every second of every day. To what degree and depth can vary. When not taken care of our emotions can spiral out of control and control us. We can get lost in guilt, self loathing, depression, or anger, judgment, resentment. We can become victims to everyone and everything around us.
When cared for and developed, our emotions allow to experience life as it is—to the full. We feel sadness and know joy. We feel hurt and know depth. We feel excitement and know boredom. We feel apathy and know compassion. We are able to moderate our emotions and know we are in control of what we feel and how we act to others.
The practice of emotional self-care begins with self awareness. Taking time to become aware of what you allow yourself to feel. What emotions come to the surface and why. How you interact with others and why. The ability and practice of setting boundaries. Tapping into your own intuition.
3. Spiritual Self-Care
The third and equally important area of self-care is spiritual. Spiritual self-care takes time and self focus. It requires us to slow down and look inward. To explore ourselves and all we know to be true. To connect with who we truly are and develop those qualities. It goes beyond the emotional to our very essence.
Our spiritual practice may be religious or not. In essence our spiritual quest is being in tune with our higher selves and how we relate to the people and the world around us. It’s connecting with our higher power and examining the true essence of who we are at our core.
If you were to strip away the influences of the world and learned behaviors, who are you really? At your core, are you kind and gracious and loving and thoughtful, for example. Where do you fit in the big scheme of things?
From spiritual practice flows gratitude, purpose, love, a sense of belonging and knowing.
This takes time and self focus. It requires you to slow down and look inward. To explore yourself and all you know to be true. To connect with who you truly are and develop those qualities.
To live in balance with ourselves we must approach self-care with a holistic mindset. That is a mindset of caring for the whole body as one. Each of these areas contribute to overall well being and if one area is out of sync the whole body suffers in some way. We know scientifically, as one small example, that stress of the mind and emotions manifests as physical symptoms in the body.
Each area works in harmony with the other. And taking care of your self is a critical element in living your best life now. We can only give to others and the world what we have and what we are. Your physical, emotional & spiritual state determines what you are giving and sharing with others. What type of life do you want to live? To share? To experience? It all starts with you—with self-care.
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