Saturday self-care.


I had a lie in today. For the first time in months, I turned my 6.30am alarm off last night and I made the decision with myself to sleep for as long as I needed. Guess what time I woke up? Yep. Bang on 6.30am. But I went back to sleep and awaited my darling husband waking me up at 7.45am when he came home from work. Cheers babes.

And I thought, no… I am having my lie in. Less than ten minutes later, Macho Meow pulled my radio off the bedside cabinet, knocking a full pint of water onto me and the bed. By 8am, I gave up on the lie in, but at least I had tried.

This was an act of self-care. For months, I have felt as though I am coming down with something and haven’t given myself any time to slow down and focus on looking after myself properly. Because when we get ill or stressed or overwhelmed with life, the first thing we do is to stop looking after ourselves.

I’ve dedicated today to self-care. Smiley and I went on a delightful walk this morning (that ended with me having to wade through a river to get her ball because I threw the non-floaty one). I made myself brunch, with avo; what an utterly Millennial thing to do. And I’ve watched approximately 8 hours of back to back to Line of Duty in between kitty snuggles and doggo attacks. What a treat!

My last acts of self-care today will be eating a Walkers cheese and onion crisp sandwich for dinner (on pretentious bread, sacrilegious to the trusty ol’ white bread, soz), nailing a family sized bar of aero chocolate, watching a few more hours of Line of Duty and maybe even moving my self-care party into the bath. Woop, woop.

It is OK to give yourself permission to look after yourself. To slow down, stop, show yourself some love. To take a break from thinking about other people and to focus solely on yourself. It’s allowed. You can’t love and support other people if your own love and support resources aren’t filled up.

Recently, I’ve been trying to practise some kind of self-care every day. Simple things, like taking my vitamins every morning and taking my make-up off every night. So that when my spotty little face mocks me in the mirror each morning, I don’t have the guilt of knowing I could have avoided it if I’d washed my face the night before. I know that I have done everything I can possibly do to look after myself and accept that there is nothing I can do about the genetics of my skin.

Go and do something solely for yourself, right now. Run a bath, lock yourself in the toilet for five minutes, light a candle, have a wank. Look after yourself. Have that lie in, buy those shoes, have a leisurely brunch with coffee and the papers and take your time over it. Do whatever you need to do to relax, to refuel, to revitalise. And tell the guilt, that inner critical voice, to fuck off. You deserve this, you magnificent beast you. Take it.

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