5 Guilt-Free Ways To Start Taking Care of Yourself First

As we all know, self care is the latest mental health and wellbeing focus for women. Everyday, more and more women are realizing how important it is to prioritize emotional health and develop (or keep) a love for yourself that allows you to nurture yourself regularly.

...and as you all should know by now (well, that is if you are tuned in to the All Queens Army Podcast) I am a huge advocate of self care because it is the foundation of overall physical, mental, and emotional balance and health.

Practicing daily self care routines is a commitment to loving and valuing yourself. It comes as a result of recognizing your self worth and having an awareness of your needs, feelings, and physical well being. It includes any activity that you do (or need to do) that keeps you aligned in the 3 Big H’s.

What are the 3 Big H’s?

Glad you asked.

The 3 Big H’s are Healthy, Happy, and Harmonious and the queens here in the All Queens Army use these as blueprints to achieving useful self care. Health is a key factor in our self care because when we don’t feel good, we don’t FEEL good. If your body is not well it causes you to feel fatigue, stress, or unmotivated. Happiness is important because it paves the path for goal achievement and fulfillment in life. When we are happy, we tend to think positive, be more energetic, more productive, and more easygoing. The third Big H is my personal fav. Being in harmony with oneself is such a powerful space to be in because it generates peace and tranquility. It provides us with the ability to maneuver through the difficulties of life with a balanced temperament and compassion for yourself and others.

Before we get into the easy, guilt free ways to prioritize your needs and take care of you; I want to explain our definition of self care. You may think this is unnecessary, but we can’t assume that everyone’s interpretation is the same as ours so just to be sure we are speaking the same language, here is what self care means to us.

Self care is the practice of consciously and consistently nourishing your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self. It is the ability to be in tune with yourself, provide for yourself, and care for yourself with love, patience, and compassion. It is, essentially, the act of putting LOVE into action, but for ourselves. While it seems very simple to do (and most people actually think they practice self care regularly) it is actually the first thing that women neglect when ‘life’ starts to make demands on us by naturally and unconsciously prioritizing taking care of everything (and everyone) else first. Our kids, spouses, jobs, families, friends, responsibilities, expectations, obligations, and extra curricular demands seem to slowly take precedence over what we need or want for ourselves. We push ourselves to do more, give more, and be more all while asking for less.

Sounds like a lot right?

Hell yeah it is!

But the crazy thing is we do it effortlessly… and gracefully. Only on the outside though. Internally, neglecting yourself to be the best for everything and everyone else takes a huge toll on your wellbeing and mental health. If you pour from your cup everyday filling up other people’s cups, eventually your cup will become empty. That’s when you experience total burnout. Burnout breeds stress, overwhelm, bitterness, resentment, depression, rebellion, and sometimes total withdrawal. Burnout also causes a breakdown in your physical health such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and headaches.

As you can see, you have to take self care very seriously. You have to start tending to yourself the way you tend to all the other people in your life that you love dearly. You have to become your own first priority. So many women are taught to put their kids first. But, you can’t take care of them if you’re ill. You can’t raise your kids, help your parents, love your spouse or do anything for anyone else if you are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually drained.

So, here are the 5 guilt free ways that you can start taking care of yourself FIRST.

1. Go to sleep earlier. We’ve suggested this one before because getting more sleep is always beneficial for the mind, body, and spirit. When your body gets sufficient rest, it allows you to think more clearly, make better decisions, and get things done more efficiently. Trying to squeeze more tasks into a day by shaving off minutes and hours of rest is completely counter-productive. Show your body that you love her by allowing her the time to rejuvenate and refuel. This is a great guiltless self care practice because everyone has to go to sleep at some point, you’re just telling your loved ones what time that will be for YOU. You’re not even forcing or asking anyone to do anything different, or to do anything for you so there is truly no inconvenience to anyone.

Another benefit of going to sleep earlier is that you’ll naturally wake up earlier. Waking up earlier in the morning is such a huge happiness, success, and productivity increasing hack! Early morning hours are completely magical and major power hours for getting things done! We talk about the benefits here(inset blog 6 link) if you want to learn how and why to use that time to create discipline and focus in your life.

2. Do something that you enjoy once a week. Think of something that you enjoy doing. Is it reading, taking a walk, watching a movie or your favorite show, talking with a friend, going out for coffee or dinner, cooking/trying a new recipe, sewing, crafting, getting a massage? Whatever it is, carve out an hour (or two) each week to do it. This is another guiltless self care practice because it’s only one or two hours A WEEK. You can certainly find an hour here or there in a 168 hour week. Oh, and one thing to add to this one is - when you do something that YOU enjoy, make sure that when you do it that you can truly focus on it. If you have kids that would interrupt your ability to focus on what you enjoy, get a sitter during that time. If your job interrupts, do it after work or take a day off. If your spouse interrupts you, tell them to back off! You deserve to have time to do something that nourishes your soul and allows you to relax and take part in enjoying something you love in peace.

3. Eat more fruits and veggies. The type of foods that you put into your body is so underrated. If you love yourself, one way to demonstrate that is by nourishing your body with food that is alive and not dead or processed or created in a lab. Consume life (fruits and vegetables) and you’ll feel alive. Consume death (animal products) and you’ll feel well, you know. Enough about that. You get the point. And NO, it’s not easy. I still eat meat. I don’t eat nearly as much as I used to, but when I do eat it, I feel lethargic and icky. When I stick to my fruits, vegetables and other clean foods I feel energized, healthy, and happy.

4. Journal. In almost every podcast episode, journaling comes up as a solution to whatever challenge we’re discussing so it’s no shocker that it’s coming up again. Journaling is soooo guiltless. It’s like taking an emotional dump to download your thoughts, feelings, frustrations, fears, etc. in a notebook so that you can clear it from your mind. You can take 30 minutes a day or 30 minutes a week to write in your journal. There is no right or wrong way to do it. And what makes this practice guiltless is that there is no time taken away from your responsibilities, family, or job to do it. Journaling is my all time favorite self care routine because it has huge benefits and immediate results. Some people do not look at journaling as a form of nurturing the self but it is!

Here’s why:

• It provides an intimate and sacred place for you to release your innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions, secrets, desires, hopes, and dreams. Getting these things out of your head and onto paper is like transferring all the stuff so you can free your mind of the clutter, pain, frustration, or anything that is overwhelming. Your brain and your heart can only hold but so much before it starts to breakdown, so journaling allows you to download it all.

• Writing (or typing) allows you to go back to what you wrote and reread it at a later time. Reading what you write, about how you feel or what you want, allows you to experience YOU. It’s like having a conversation with yourself about yourself. This is a form of self awareness. You get to know you. You start understanding yourself more. You start creating a healthy relationship with yourself and identifying your areas of opportunity. You start to feel more comfortable speaking positively to yourself, congratulating yourself, and celebrating your victories. Bottom line, journaling gives you an insight to what’s going on inside of you and promotes self healing, compassion, and self love.

• It helps you to get organized and get things done! To do lists, budget lists, food diaries, gratitude, writing out plans or goals are all forms of journaling. If you get in the habit of writing any of those types of things down on a daily or weekly basis, you can live a life with intention and be extremely productive. You’ll start to get clear about how to hit your goals and achieve them faster. You’ll start feeling more confident because you are getting things done that you need and want to do. You’ll start manifesting more of the things you want and less of the things you don’t want. You’ll learn how to hold yourself accountable and become more patient. I could go all day about the benefits of journaling, but I’m sure you all get the point.

5. Take a day to pamper and groom yourself. Taking care of yourself physically is just as important as taking care of yourself emotionally. When you make yourself a priority you are proving to yourself that you are worth being cared for, catered to, pampered, and groomed. So, take a day, or as I like to promote, schedule ONE day every two weeks to focus on grooming and pampering yourself. That could be an appointment to the spa for a massage or facial, going to get your hair, nails, or toes done, going to get your makeup done, going shopping for a new outfit or shoes, or treating yourself to something that you’ve been wanting. The act of focusing your time, energy, and/or money to look good for YOU will psychologically speak to your self worth and confidence. It says “I am important and I deserve this!”... and when you start thinking and speaking this way to yourself about yourself, the rest of the world will start to follow your lead. Remember, how you treat yourself sets the standard for how others treat you. How you feel about yourself sets the standard for how others will feel about you. You have to SHOW the world what you deserve because then, and only then, will the world comply and give it to you.

Keep in mind that self care practices and routines are as different for each person as a fingerprint because we all have different emotional needs. But, these are 5 ways that you can incorporate taking care of yourself that does not take a substantial amount of time from your daily schedule or responsibilities.

Remember, self care is all about taking care of yourself similarly to the way you so easily love, care, and nurture those around you. It’s all about creating a relationship with yourself. Think about what you do for others to show them you love them, and then make it a priority to do similar things for yourself. A few examples of how we love others are:

• Spending quality time.

• Doing things for them that you know they like/love/enjoy.

• Expressing your feelings to them.

• Showing them affection (hugs, kisses, hand holding)

• Talking to them and listening to them.

• Giving them small gifts.

All of the above (and any additional that you practice that are not listed) displays of love need to be turned inward to be given from you to YOU. That’s self care.

Ladies, start paying more attention to yourself. Treat yourself like someone you love. Care for yourself like someone you cherish. Provide for yourself the way you would provide for someone you find valuable. Nourish yourself with the creme de la creme. You are worthy. You deserve it. Start today, begin now… and the world will follow suit.