7 Days of Self-Care

 If you’ve been a Cutie follower for some time now, you’d know just how important self-care is to me and my philosophy of living a healthy and positive life. While I can list the reasons as to why taking care of yourself first isn’t selfish, I’ll admit I also spent the beginning of 2019 not taking care of myself myself. Essentially, I was going through the motions with my gas light ON; and as we all know, you can only push farther for so long until the tank is empty and you roll to a stop. 

I’ll be honest, when that happened to me this past February, it was a scary feeling that I’d never experienced to this capacity before. However, I knew it was something I didn’t want to feel for a moment longer… so I woke up one Monday, took a page from my own book, practiced what I preach, cleared my schedule, and took one week — 7 days — to take care of myself. For someone like me, a true challenge in itself. After taking that step back, and finding a new perspective, I realized just how much time I spend improving every other relationship in my life, and just how little time I spend improving the relationship I have with myself. Now I am incredibly fortunate to have a work/school schedule that is flexible enough to create my own hours; yet, since my ‘hiatus’, I’ve actively been altering my daily routines based on what I learned during that week, and have thus compiled this list to share just how simple and important it is to take care of yourself amidst life’s busy-ness. I hope you are able to take pieces of what you read here and find that with just a little effort, you can give the world the best of you instead of what’s left of you.

Day 1: Monday

I truly believe that “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. So, on day 1, let’s set up to succeed!

• delete social media

Yep — the thing I always knew I probably should do, but just never did. When I finally did, I was shocked at just how much more time I had. I’m a Gen-Z, so this was shamelessly incredibly difficult at first. I found myself wanting to scroll and double tap every free moment I had simply out of habit. But by completely eliminating the temptation, I came to realize that I was also eliminating a lot of self-comparing and negative thinking that happened while scrolling. My ’24-hour Delete Social Media Challenge’ towards a mentally healthier me turned into 7 days without these toxic apps, so you can infer how great I felt without their influences!

• overhaul clean your living space

Don’t make it a chore. Make it more of a step towards success and have some fun with it — turn on your favorite throwback song, some old pjs, and go to town! A clean space promotes a clean mind…as simple as that!

Day 2: Tuesday

• get your hair or nails done

I got my hair colored on this day, and although I had no intentions of going out or showing it off, doing something to make myself look good made me feel good. I think of it like this: life is a battlefield. Confidence is an indispensable weapon to carry with you into that battlefield. No matter your economic status, life schedule, or mental state, remember that; because investing in beauty services isn’t shallow or a waste of money, it’s empowering!

Day 3: Wednesday 

• DIY spa day

This has to be one of my favorite ways to de-stress, especially when that stress shows up as unwelcome red dots all over my face…It’s also one of the easiest ways to incorporate self-care into daily life. Draw a bath and set the atmosphere to be a time and place where it’s impossible not to relax! Sprinkle in some bath salts, light a candle, put on a sheet mask, and cue the Himalayan salt lamp! Lather yourself in some hydrating body lotion post-bath and watch some Netflix while it all soaks in. 

Here are some of my self-care-night-in favorites:

1. TONYMOLY Sheet Masks from Urban Outfitters

These are also typically 2 for $5 in store so I like to stock up! Pick the ones that cater best to what you need, but my favorites are definitely the ‘I’m ROSE’ Vitalizing and ‘I’m REAL’ Hydrating ones!

2. Bath & Body Works Lavender Vanilla Aromatherapy Gift Kit 

3. Enchantments NYC Rose Candle & ‘Magickal Bad A$$’ bath salts

 This little shop in the East Village is NYC’s oldest occult shop, opening in 1982. Let me tell you, finding this gem made me actually want to take care of myself! Their mission is to heal and empower people through their products, and although their wide selection of candles, incense, books, and bath products are no frills, there’s something about them that is just so appealing. I mean, c’mon, their bath salts are all-natural, fragrant, and called ‘Bad A$$’. Can’t really beat that!

Unfortunately, their website does not carry every product in their store, but you can most certainly call and order anyways! However, if possible, I definitely encourage making the trip here because you will not be disappointed!

4. Himalayan pink crystal salt lamp

  Day 4: Thursday

• make a delicious dinner

Plan a dinner you love, or do what I do and look up a recipe to try on Pinterest! 😉 (I made this taco bar for 1!) Go to the grocery store with a list, get fresh ingredients, and come home with a plan! Get into #ChefMode and make the task of cooking this dinner the most important thing in your life at this moment.

Live in this moment and enjoy the process of making the food just as much as you will enjoy sitting down to eat it. And when you are eating it, do so slowly and attentively, as if it’s the axis on which the whole world — your whole world — revolves. Enjoy it thoroughly and don’t rush towards the future. Only this actual moment is life!

Day 5: Friday

• use ‘friend time’ wisely 

You’ve made it to the end of the work week! After a week of putting a lot of energy and time into yourself, getting dinner with a friend or S.O. on Friday night is a great way to unwind, yet also a time to put all you’ve worked on personally to the test…Believe it or not, after what I’m referring to as my ‘hiatus’, one of the biggest things I realized was that I most certainly was not optimizing my time with my friends. After learning so much about myself, being intuitive about my thoughts, and noticing how my positivity was breeding more positivity, I wasn’t going to stop the high I was on. 

When sitting across the table from your friend, focus the conversation away from negativity. Don’t gossip about that girl-you-don’t-like’s most recently-posted Instagram pic (which you probably liked anyways). Instead, take advantage of this time to catch-up, talk goals, aspirations, achievements, and to tell your gf/bf about that delicious dinner you made last night! 😉

Day 6: Saturday

• wake up & be active 

Yes, it’s the weekend. Yes, you should still set an alarm for an AM sweat sesh. Pushing forward and not letting everything go simply because it’s the weekend will do just that — move  you forward! Keeping it as simple as pulling up a video on YouTube and following along in your pajamas in the living room is enough to get the endorphins flowing! Personally, I like to sign up for a class to hold myself accountable. Purchasing a boutique fitness class is my kind of #treatyoself! SLT, AK classes at StudioB, and Switch Playground’s Cardio Circuit class are my faves! I like to think a morning workout is a lot like breakfast: it kickstarts your metabolism and makes you happy! Even better, when it’s over, you can enjoy a real brekkie!

Day 7: Sunday

• reflect 

If you’ve made it all the way here, and done so without allowing negativity to cloud this personal journey, a well-deserved congratulations is in order! In all honesty, self-care is HARD. It’s hard for many reasons, but hopefully you learned that it’s something that, although takes effort, is not selfish. It’s important for so many reasons, but mostly because you deserve the love, respect, and attention that you give all else in your life. So today, sleep in, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and find peace and pleasure in having no obligations. Reflect on the week you just had: 

How do you feel? How is this feeling different from the beginning of this week?

Hopefully, you now feel a newfound sense of clarity and confidence, as I did. 

Hopefully, you now realize that happiness truly is something we manifest within ourselves. 

And hopefully, most of all, you take time to practice some more self-care in your daily life; because, at the end of the day, you are far more capable than you ever dreamed!

XO,

the Cutie Foodie