Self-Care or Self-Punishment?: A New Approach to Self-Care

Ilana Pilcz, MHC, MA

Self-care. It conjures up images of bubble baths, meditation, exercise, long walks, and stress…? Well, at least it used to be for me! Follow me here and see if you resonate... I am fully aware of the importance of self-care, meditation, exercise in living a balanced, and healthy life. So much so that I put “meditate for 10 minutes,” “yoga for 30 minutes,” “breathwork,” “journal,” etc. on my daily to-do list. The sheer amount of self-care on my daily to-do list would take me all day, and every time I did not check off the tasks, I felt terrible about my inability to take care of my Self! My perfectionism showed up to set an unrealistic, unreachable bar for something intended to be loving and caring. Pretty much the opposite of the point, Ilana…

Luckily, I belong to a women’s group filled with inspiring, brilliant ladies, and our monthly theme was around discipline vs. devotion. We explored self-care through this lens and it helped me to realize how self-care had become punishing in my life, and that I needed to create a new relationship with the entire concept. I realized that I was robbing myself of the opportunity to be in dialogue with my system, answering the call of what my Self needs in the moment, and was not allowing for each day, each moment, to be a new adventure! Some days my system needs to slow down and be reflective with reading and quiet, and other days I need to be enlivened by movement. I was so inspired by this conversation and these realizations that I went home, deleted every self-care task off of my to-do list, and created what I call a, “Self-Care Menu.” And that, my friends, is my gift (and challenge) for you! How do you approach self-care? Is it loving, kind, and balanced? Is it punishing and just another task on a long list of to-do’s? How can you connect with your inner world and answer the call of what your system needs at any given moment? I created a template for a self-care menu as a jumping-off point for you. Fill in your favorite self-care activities and see what it is like to ask yourself, “Self, what do you need to feel cared for today?” and to answer that call…