What do you think of when you hear the words, ‘self-care’?
What does ‘self-care’ even mean?
From my experience there are many different understandings and levels of self- care.
I know I have always practised self-care in one way or another, even when I was not conscious of it being a ‘thing.’ The question is, “Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?”
As a child I practised the basics that were to shower daily, wash my hair and clean, file and paint my fingernails and toenails. I ate food that I thought nourished my body. As a teen I would take the time to apply my makeup and choose beautiful outfits to wear. I had little rituals like moisturising my lips and always doing some form of exercise so my body was strong.
As I grew into adulthood, I continued this basic level of self-care and added in some newfound practices of self-care as well. I became interested in eating healthy food, continued with exercise in the form of yoga and different styles of dance.
I was also living an outdoor lifestyle that at the time I considered to be a healthy way to live after having spent my first twenty years living in a house in the suburbs with a television on.
At that same time I also began to choose some behaviours that I now consider quite harmful to the body. Given that a lot of people around me were also doing it, they were considered normal. For example, drinking alcohol.
As time moved on I became committed to certain self-care practices that I lived religiously, like drinking a fresh fruit and vegetable juice every morning, practising strong yoga poses every day, and drinking lots of water. Other practices I considered healthy at the time were swimming in a cold creek/beach for my morning shower, drinking one cup of coffee in the morning and none for the rest of the day, having honey or maple syrup instead of sugar and not eating red meat.
Whilst these practices were important for me at the time as part of my self-care routine, I can now see that they were a counterbalance to the abusive behaviours. Although some of these so-called rituals that I had practised for many years were not what I now understand true self-care to be, they did in fact build a foundation for me to stand on and develop a deeper level of truly caring for myself. After attending a local Meditation Group a few times, where we practiced the Gentle Breath Meditation™ (presented by Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine), I started to develop a deeper connection with myself and my body.
In developing this deeper connection, the harmful behaviours started to drop away.
It was this deeper connection to myself that showed me very quickly and obviously that the use of caffeine or alcohol or eating certain foods was, in fact, harmful and destructive to my body and well-being. But after living more lovingly and making choices based on how I felt in my body, many of the so-called ‘self- care’ practices of the past also dropped away.
The level of ‘self-care’ I now live continues to refine and deepen. When I first started to feel a newfound love for myself and wanted to practice this in the way I lived through ‘self-care,’ I changed my morning coffee ritual to a morning chai (spiced soy milk low caffeine tea with honey). Less caffeine but something very yummy so I could cope with not having my morning cup of coffee, or liquid gold as I used to call it. At the time, this was definitely a more loving choice than the strong caffeine hit I had been assaulting my body with for over a decade (I continued to drink decaffeinated coffee in a café sometimes because I liked the taste and the ritual, although that also went after about 3 years.) After a year of morning chai, I woke one morning knowing that I could not drink another. The ritual changed to a cup of Rooibos tea with soymilk. Soon the milk changed to homemade almond milk. Then after some time, it became a herbal tea without the milk.
Now, some six years after the last cup of full strength coffee, I drink my two cups of warm water upon waking (which I have done for decades, as this has always felt like a loving and supportive way to begin my day) and I actually don’t need the tea at all.
So as you can see from this example, as my level of ‘self-care’ deepened, what was considered self-care a few years ago I can now feel as disregard. Now I almost never feel to have hot, sweet milky drinks. And if I do find myself wanting such a thing, I know that there is a reason I want it, which is to feel comfort from a situation, or that I am not wanting to feel something I am not willing or ready to face.
This is just one simple example. I have realised that self-care comes into every aspect of my everyday living. For me, I have changed and continue to change the way I move, the thoughts I allow in, the way I exercise my body, the work I do, the way I am in my relationships, the food I eat, my verbal expression, just to name a few. The more I deepen my relationship with myself and the more I feel the love that I am and feel my body responding to this level of ‘self-care,’ the more aware I am if my self-care needs further refinement.
So ‘self-care’ can never be about a set of rules and regulations that are fixed, because as we evolve and live with more clarity, we can feel the effects of all of our choices as they naturally change or drop away as we deepen the quality of our life. As the connection with ourselves deepens, certain things or behaviours do not match where we are at and can no longer be considered true ‘self-care.’
I had been heading for ‘purity’ (as I used to call it) since I was twenty years of age. I knew I wanted to live and feel clear and clean. I worked towards this from ideals and beliefs in my head and after ‘sticking to the discipline’ for a period of time, found myself always back to the destructive behaviours. It wasn’t until I listened to some interviews by Gayle Cue with the founder of Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon, about ‘true self-care,’ that I really understood how to make these changes sustainable in my everyday living.
What Serge presented was very simple. Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not. I simply started to make my choices from this place.
What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.
As soon as I had this realisation, I found that I could self-care from love – the love I have for myself – rather than from ideals. Therefore the changes became sustainable without trying or disciplining myself. This naturally led to living every day with a consistency that has deepened and brings me the love, joy, harmony, stillness and vitality that I now live with every day.
There is no perfection. I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’
To come from the exhausted, emotional, non-committed place I was at in my body and my life, thinking I was ‘self-caring,’ to the place I am at now, has been a health revelation that speaks for itself.
By Mary-Lou Reed, Bendigo, Australia
Related Reading:
What’s All the Fuss About Self-Care?
Self-Care and Learning to Respect My Body
Self-Care Myths
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
What a great place to make choices from, ‘Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.’
It is honouring ourselves and what feels loving and caring for ourselves, and this will be different for each person and where they are at, ‘ I have changed and continue to change the way I move, the thoughts I allow in, the way I exercise my body, the work I do, the way I am in my relationships, the food I eat, my verbal expression’.
Isn’t it interesting what we interpret self-care to be or even how it is interpreted around the world. For me I saw it as exercising, eating healthily, yet my body was signalling to me throughout that period that it wasn’t it.
Its only in the last few years that I am understanding what true self-care means, and like yourself, refining it as we realise. As the relationship with the body deepens, it requires more self-care and its amazing how the body responds.
Self-care to me is a personal relationship with you and your body, what works for one, isn’t of importance to another and the only way that discovery occurs is when we say yes to truly caring for yourself.
I’ve enjoyed this journey of self-care and looking forward to more; self-care is forever developing and deepening, it’s never stagnant.
That is so important in self-care, developing a relationship with our body and honouring its many messages, ‘ I started to develop a deeper connection with myself and my body.’
“Whilst these practices were important for me at the time as part of my self-care routine, I can now see that they were a counterbalance to the abusive behaviours.“ A great awareness to have, and something for me to look more deeply into, whether my self-care is countering other areas in the way that I live, or supporting me to deepen into more love and joy.
Its also good to discern where these pictures come from and if we are left feeling, not right, then we know that they are not good for the body. And at the end of the day do we need to have a picture of anything or how it needs to look like?..
“As the connection with ourselves deepens, certain things or behaviours do not match where we are at and can no longer be considered true ‘self-care.’” As each of us deepens the connection to our body and responds to what feels true for us, this shows that we cannot be in judgement or comparison with another with where they are at but offer inspiration or be inspired.
It is amazing that as we deepen our connection with our body we become more aware of what truly supports us at that point in time.
‘When I first started to feel a newfound love for myself and wanted to practice this in the way I lived through ‘self-care’. These 2 self-care and self-love are intrinsically linked. As the more we love ourselves the more we bring in or up the care and the more we care for ourselves we bring in or up the love and as you share they are both forever deepening and refining. I currently really feel a new level of self-care and self-love is needed in my life.
Self-care changes as we change. Simple. Listening to my body also simplifies the process. The mind is too complicated.
Yes to keeping it simple.
Our relationship with our bodies once we understand how we are all divine beings, opening us to being able to deepen in every aspect of life in the most self-caring and eventually Loving ways so we can reflect the true light of our essences / Souls.
Mary-Lou you make a very interesting point
That we can and do chose our behaviours based on what society call ‘normal’
I feel that currently ‘normal’ can mean anything goes as we are dropping our standards at such a rate. It’s now normal for children to watch pornography, have sex, drink alcohol, swear, be abusive, take drugs. Because this is now considered ‘normal’ because all their friends are doing it.
I love this conversation about the word normal – the difference between statistically common and natural. And yes the fact that we accept things as normal that are so not (your list above, Mary) simply because they are statistically common, is one of the madnesses of humankind.
The body communicates with us what is needed in terms of self care – hence learning to tune into and listen to the body is a great gift we can give ourselves, and this never ends in the capacity of detail we can deepen into.
Absolutely, a forever deepening relationship with our body, ‘The level of ‘self-care’ I now live continues to refine and deepen.’
The definition of self care deepens as we grow and there is a necessary adjustment to what once was self care.
Self care is forever deepening, ‘as my level of ‘self-care’ deepened, what was considered self-care a few years ago I can now feel as disregard.’
As we grow up society offers us some pretty awful reflections on how everyone is living and we just go along and follow the crowd. You could say we behave in many ways like sheep but actually they are more intelligent because if you filled up their water container with alcohol they won’t drink it.
I love your comment Doug. I can feel how the tick box of things to do is not present, all so easy in the world of self-care.
It is much worse for us to berate ourselves for doing something that is uncaring than the uncaring act itself. Honesty is one thing that we need to get ourselves back on track, but giving ourselves a hard time about our choices buries us further into our disregard.
Thank you Jennifer for this reminder. I have historically actually avoided honesty because I didn’t know how to do it without judgement and self-denigration. To accept and begin to learn that honesty is a gateway to learning, accepting mistakes as part of our learning makes such a difference.
A great reminder not to judge or beat ourselves up if we make an unloving choice, ‘I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’’
How we care for and tend to ourselves can be and is very simple. If it comes with effort – I have to, or I must, then it is not based on care.
I can see reading this blog how self care can be a whole way of life and not just some ‘good’ or ‘virtuous ‘ things to do to counter the not so healthy choices.
Well said Andrew, true self care comes from within and not from some tick box exercise.
The key thing with self-care is its not so much about what you do but more importantly the quality in which you do it. And this quality is governed by your own connection with yourself. No one or thing can offer you that. It’s only a choice. And it starts with saying no to what is not loving and honouring of you.
Yes and the intention behind it..do we do things out of guilt or to offset the bad or store up brownie points that we can later ‘spend’ on self abusive things? Or does it come from a place of deep care and honouring of oneself and ones body?
Love it Joshua – this is so true, for we can say that we have been for a walk and hence ticked the box of having looked after the body and giving it exercise, BUT the true question remains about what quality the walk may have been done in? Was the body exhausted and needed to rest but the walk was something we said we just needed to do to get it off our to do list? Or was the walk done in a quality that regenerated the body or were we walking with our thoughts and frustrations? Etc etc. So good to review how we do things as it is so easy to slip into habits rather than true impulses that the body sends us continuously.
True Mary Lou, there is no in-between, we cannot compromise in love for ourselves and our body. And we can feel when we try to. With every caring choice for ourselves the body becomes more clear and pure which makes the messages more obvious and less easy to deny. ‘Every choice is either from love or not from love.’
Self-care is continuingly changing and what we see as self-care today or next year could be very different. I love what the author has written about connecting first and then making the decision on self-care from feeling what is love or not love.
To make everything we do a choice, and to make every choice we make an opportunity for re-connection and deepening.
Ah, pearls Chris! I just wish that would stay with me and that I could be reminded of this every day 😉 every moment in every day is indeed an opportunity to re-connect and deepen. Thank you!
To explore our relationship with self-care, which I understand as the relationship with myself and the level with which I care, respect, honour and love myself, offers a huge insight into any baggage, pictures and/or beliefs we carry. This exploration is the first ground for us to develop and deepen our relationship with ourself which is the foundation of our relationship with others and life itself.
This is a great blog very practical and real. It is the small steps we take with self-care that supports us greatly in life.
“Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not” – thank you for this reminder. So simple.
Self care offers ourselves a deeper sense of empowerment, knowing and awareness of life. Our inner being, our spirit does not want us to awaken and reconnect to our Soul and hence why there has been so much focus to bastardise what self care means. The trick is in the fact of what sounds good and healthy and what you truly feel from your body. Whilst something may sound great, it does not mean it is in anyway supportive or loving for our body.
This is evolution in action, realising that its an ongoing process one step at a time and never resting on a particular way of living as being ‘it’…. our sensitivity grows, we access more, so its natural that the way we live should continue to develop to support that.
There is so much in releasing the belief that there is an end goal, right way or ‘it’ as you say… when I let myself consider that life is an always ongoing development, I get a strong wave of inspiration about our potential and the richness of learning on offer.
For me self-care is when we honour how our body feels after we either drink, eat or do something that no longer feels honouring or self loving, and when we feel the changes in our body we are able to feel into what it is that makes us crave certain foods, and we get the opportunity to change how we live which then negates the need for those foods, drinks or activities.
Great blog Mary-Lou, you’ve shown us that self-care deepens and changes as the quality of our connection with our body and ourselves deepens.
I agree that self care does not have to come from discipline or denial but from self love and connection with our inner most.
As we deepen self care with ourselves we also raise the bar on a level that we will not go below, setting ourselves standards which we simply won’t compromise on.
Within very thing there are options. For example, within alcohol, you have red wine and you have tequila. You may find people that say they take care for themselves and that is why they have red wine and avoid tequila. And, it would be no valid argument for them to accept that drinking wine cannot be consider self-care. That is why we have to understand the notion of self-care. In Spanish we have translated it by caring for the Being (‘cuidado del Ser’).
This eliminates from the self-care menu anything that does not start with appreciating our being and cherishing it.
It is interesting and I like the way that you have put side by side the changes and dedication to living a more healthy life-style along with drinking alcohol – because it was normal. When the two together do not really make sense, surely you are either living a healthy life-style which by all common sense would not include drinking alcohol, or you are not living a healthy life-style? I feel that the trick is in labelling what is healthy to suit our own needs – even when it is blatantly obvious what true healthy actually is.
When we do things from a functional motivation, we quickly run out of steam unless, of course, we then make the discipline of doing it into another way of getting recognition from others. It is all very different when the motivation is love and comes from within, though.
‘There is no perfection. I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’ This is how we do it on our return path back to Soul, just be open to learning along the way, and making the refinements we feel to make by listening to our body.
This blog shows that self-care can never be a recipe or one size fits all formula but has to be personal depending on where every person is at based on their own awareness of where their body is at.
Very true Andrew, we all seem to have different levels of self-care and the key is to honour what our body communicates to us and allow it to guide us in our journey of self-care. Also, to be open to continuously deepen and expand to the next level of self-care.
Serge Benhayon delivers truth and wisdom like no other – as he expresses there is a vibration that is felt within the body (if open to feel it), it’s like something being re-aligned and re-configured to that which is already known. This is the re-connection back to the innate innermost self and love… “What Serge presented was very simple. Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not. I simply started to make my choices from this place”.
Over the last couple of days I have made some quite significant changes to my diet, what I have had to admit to myself is what to most would be considered a reasonably healthy diet was abuse to my body, a constant daily abuse that I was and to some extent still am putting my body through. It is not until we get really honest about our choices and the way that we are living can we start to see all the pockets of abuse we live with and as we change one area to be more self loving another area of abuse shows itself to be dealt with.
‘The more I deepen my relationship with myself and the more I feel the love that I am and feel my body responding to this level of ‘self-care,’ the more aware I am if my self-care needs further refinement.’ This is a great reminder Mary-Lou that self-care is always evolving and needs constant refining to support us to live in line with our Soul.
When we are exhausted coffee does actually feel like a pick me up of liquid gold. I drank coffee and did shift work for years so I completely understand why people drink it. I also used to get an all mighty horrid headache if I didn’t have it and went into withdrawal – which sometimes left me thinking if not having it gives me a headache like this what is drinking multiple cups a day actually doing to my body…
I love this step by step approach. The way that a step towards self care now, can become redundant if we keep stepping deeper and deeper inside ourselves, becoming more sensitive to what our body needs, what supports it.
And doing it step by step means that it doesn’t come from any ideals, beliefs or rigid wellness plan but from the truth of looking after and caring for self.
The ultimate care for our self is the knowing that we are not a self but part of a grand stupendous whole of which that which we call ‘self’ must be cared for by virtue of it being a part of this.
This is a biggie – “As soon as I had this realisation, I found that I could self-care from love – the love I have for myself – rather than from ideals. Therefore the changes became sustainable without trying or disciplining myself.” So often our self-care, if we are honest, does come from a trying or a discipline (I have done that often) and I think this is the key as to why it is rarely long-lasting (unless you are a ninja at discipline). When our self-care comes from love, it is far more sustainable.
“‘self-care’ can never be about a set of rules and regulations that are fixed, because as we evolve and live with more clarity, we can feel the effects of all of our choices as they naturally change or drop away as we deepen the quality of our life.” Yes, this has to be about the body, come from and through the body not our head as a willed process. Building that relationship offers a foundation and a platform that ensures it is also constantly deepening and evolving rather that staying stuck and forced.
There is always something more we can do to deepen the way we care for ourselves when we learn to listen to and connect with our bodies.
The question is, “Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?”
I would say yes as I can feel how easy it is to abuse the body knowing that what I’m doing is harmful and is a way to sabotage myself this is very abusive and premeditated and an old pattern which has been exposed reading this blog.
It feels that the art of self-care is something that we can deepen in our lives, for all of our life.
Self-care has become a more populair topic also in the workplace. Lots of organizations offer their employees a healthy food choice in their restaurant, encourage people to move enough and sleep enough. But none of them consider the quality in which we do things and how important being connected to our body is, let alone that self-care keeps deepening.
I can feel how my current level of self care is no longer supporting me and that not deepening my self care is indeed abuse. It feels so lovely to have this awareness and feel how much we can always deepen the care we have for ourselves.
‘What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.’ yes and when it is bought to the simplicity of this it can easily be worked with, with an ongoing deepening awareness and refinement of our choices.
It’s quite a leap to let go of the information we have taken on about a healthy lifestyle to actually listen to the body. I was one of those people very up to date with nutrition and general health, however all the ideals and beliefs I have held have had to be let go of so that my body can communicate what it wants. It’s ironic really that we have so much external information about caring for the body but we don’t consult with the actual body.
A beautiful blog in showing how our level of self-care changes when our awareness increases and that it is forever being refined.
There comes a point when not considering others in everything that one does it is a lack of self-care.
Love this point Alex… a depth in this that shows a point of evolution where self care becomes about so much more than looking after oneself. It becomes about responsibility.
Important to expand our understanding of true self care and the responsibility that comes with it. It absolutely is not about us, but all of us and a moment of grace when we become aware of what our true purpose is.
Quite often the development of self-care is a gradual improvement from harming behaviours to less and less harming behaviours to more and more supportive and loving ones and so on. We identify and let go of the layers of disregard and restore a self-honouring approach and practice, in that process we also re-discover ‘self’, the true self, and the more we unveil it the more we can recognise what doesn´t belong and therefore is in disregard of our true being; that´s why self-care is forever evolving as it needs to be adjusted to us becoming more of the self we truly are.
Self-care is part of an ever-deepening relationship with oneself whereby the sense of self as well as the means of care are consistently evolving.
Agreed and it makes so much sense because we are discovering layers upon layers of patterns of behaviour that might well be a coping mechanism as opposed to a self-loving practice and this does not reveal itself straight away because it would be exposing and leave us feeling vulnerable. Ever-deepening is the tender and loving way to unpeel and discover those potential deeper layers.
Thank you Mary-Lou, what I once considered as self care, and it may have felt like it at the time, has now evolved and feels like it’s ever evolving based on what my body shows me. It might be the way I adjust my posture, move gently and with consideration to my body, or even skipping a meal if my body needs space from food. It’s not necessarily a set thing but felt and explored as directed by my body. It’s a bit like being a scientist and experimenting with what works and truly feels loving for the whole body and being.
Commitment to life has to begin with a commitment to self first otherwise we burn ourselves out. I am committing to all areas of life like never before taking myself to places and doing work that I would not have truly considered had I not come across Universal Medicine. What I am realising is that the newly commitment life can expose where I am at if I am not taking a loving approach towards myself but I know that what comes my way and I say yes to I am more than equipped to deal with unlike the uncertainty in the past which nudged me to avoid committing to life. It is a question of giving to me first and not to that which is outside of me in all that I do and wherever I go.
I love this blog because it reminds me how important it is to look at why we choose what we choose. I know this is something I avoid and I can see that instead of trying to avoid the foods that don’t support me I could focus on observing why I want these foods in the first place.
The ultimate form of self care is not purely about self at all but a knowing that the quality of how one lives has an impact on everyone
Yes Joshua, this is the essence, I know for sure the depth and beauty of the relationship I have with my client flows from the same love and care I have for myself.
I have always been “trying” to care for myself, but in all the trying, I seem to be putting myself into a low level of stress, which ironically is probably more harmful and constant than the things in life I have been trying to “avoid”. Lately, I am letting go more, observing life and rather than trying to be perfect, I am just being me, in this, I feel my self-care is actually the best it has ever been in my life, for although I am eating things I shouldn’t, staying up later than I know is right and doing things I know are possibly harmful, I am not beating myself up and I am actually allowing my body to indicate and communicate what it feels about every given situation, rather than my mind controlling the show from a knowledge of what I think is self-care.
I love what you have shared here Sarah regarding the approach of letting go of the control with self care. I can absolutely relate to this and feel like when I shoot for ‘perfection’ in making loving choices I am merely setting myself up for disappointment and self criticism when I slip up, rsther than simply allowing myself to observe and feel everything that is going on for me with understanding and by just being me, knowing that that is enough.
Yes, it is actually really challenging to let go of the image we have of “self care” and connect to its true meaning, which to me is allowing the body the space to communicate.
True self-care begins when we allow ourselves to live by the impulses of our Soul and not the impulses of our spirit. It is therefore fundamental to our evolution that we know and discern the difference between these two modes of expression. It is the ‘son of man’ returning to his/her rightful position as a Son of God and thus making the necessary adjustments to live accordingly,
To add to the above –
The spirit has its own version of ‘self’ that has very little to do with our true self that is our Soul. When we self-care, we need to be very aware which self it is we are ‘caring’ for.
Powerfully expressed Liane. The path towards true self care unfolds with many twists and turns beginning with simple, practical steps, deepening and becoming more aware as we go. What you share here is the ultimate understanding of the journey we’re on.
Beautifully shared Liane, and it makes so much sense that harmful choices ‘care’ for the spirit to maintain its waywardness and individuality. The true self care nurtures the connection to the soul and the ability to live from its love and truth everyday.
I agree, self-care is an evolving process, ‘ as my level of ‘self-care’ deepened, what was considered self-care a few years ago I can now feel as disregard.’ I have noticed the same as I deepen my self-care.
“…. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.” So true Mary-Lou, and as you mention later there is no striving for perfection either. Learning to bring ourselves understanding rather than judgement (which supports no-one) is something I am currently leaning when I mess up.
Thank you Mary-Lou as your story is one of the thousands of people who have started to walk upon the truth from inside them.
Self-care is not a punctual action, it is a pattern of movement you choose or not.
Self-care is much more than a few routines or rituals, they are just the outer manifestations (if they are) of an inner connection based on love, self-worth and self-appreciation.
When we love and value ourselves self care is a natural part of our lived way.
I agree it is a forever evolving process, ‘The level of ‘self-care’ I now live continues to refine and deepen.’
My self-care continues to evolve every day and what I thought was loving years ago and was in fact great years ago, is now things I would never do now. If self-care is ever put in a box, you know it is not true, it must continue to grow, as you grow.
Self-care and the new definition is a huge sigh of relief from the body…. Letting go of all the stringent rules and practises (that were always an uphill battle to achieve) and say hello to space and feeling what’s next, it is a lifelong experiment….. some things work, others don’t…… easy & simple.
Self-care is an aspect of life often overlooked beyond the normal hygiene, but as a continual development of tending to self it becomes a tool for being who you are in a world that often wants you to be someone else.
“The question is, “Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?” Wow, what a thought-provoking question to consider about our lives and how we choose to live them.
Thanks Mary-lou… And one of the best statements that you make is at the end where you say that you do not beat yourself up when you make mistakes… This is one of the great foundations of self-care and self-love.
Health is matter of option, depending on who you talk to and what stage of their life you talk to them in. The one constant I have learned about health, is that it is forever changing, self-love and care is a part of that constant unfolding. You beautifully paint your development through this descriptive evolution.
It’s great how you say that from instigating and developing a greater connection with you and your body and care for it that harmful behaviours started to naturally fall away – so rather than just tackling the harmful behaviour by using pure discipline to stop it you gave yourself a new foundation that unrooted the energy behind the behaviour.
I like the way you share your Self-care process here Mary-Lou, as it shows there is no perfection in it, but instead an ongoing exploration of what best supports you. In my experience I feel the same, there is no end in the deepening of Self-care in my life as well as there is no end in the love I can offer to myself. It’s amazing allowing ourselves to walk this growing path of self-honouring and self-respect.
I find self care is a forever deepening process that is unique to everyone and their movements. I find it’s a constant refinement of the way in which I move and also what feels right now for my body may change down the track; it’s all by how we feel and what is most supportive at the present moment.
‘With every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not’, life would look very different if that question was at the forefront of all my choices.
Its as simple as do I listen to what my body is telling me, or do I override it?
Yes, and what does overriding it, eventually cause in the body?
Self care is constantly unfolding, evolving and changing; what I thought self care was even as little as a year ago has completely changed in recently. It is a beautiful journey of exploration.
I love the open ended-ness with which you have presented self care; that it is not a set of rules that can be applied to all of us, or in fact ourselves, since it is ever changing and developing in accordance with what is going on in our days, weeks, months, general health. We therefore get to build a relationship with our bodies that lets us be guided by what is needed… always learning and super cool.
“Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.” I love the simplicity of this, I am going to take this into my day and see if I can deepen my awareness to make choices that are more supportive and loving.
I agree Alison, it’s so simple to ask if it’s a self loving choice and feel the answer in the quality our body holds. Self love is an amazing foundation to live from everyday, and each day presents the joy of the possibility of living more love.
Interesting how we sometimes pick and choose when we take care of ourselves and when we don’t – this is something I have observed in myself.
So true, there are times when I can be mean and abusive towards myself and then others (especially when inspired by others) I can be deeply caring for myself and it feels super lovely.
Self care takes constant refining as our bodies show us the layers of disregard that need to be discarded.
Life is never static – it doesn’t remain the same, even though it’s the same day repeating itself over and over again. So, since we are governed by cycles it makes sense that self-care and how we are with ourselves needs to be constantly revisited as we are always coming back to markers and points in our evolution that either still support us or do not.
I too have noticed this – ‘The more I deepen my relationship with myself and the more I feel the love that I am and feel my body responding to this level of ‘self-care,’ the more aware I am if my self-care needs further refinement.’- and when I refine and honour that this needs to happen I am blown away how special this relationship with myself is. How this is the foundation to everything and the ripple effect that this has on all. So deeply powerful.
True self care is by its very nature self-sustaining and sustaining of the all.
You have shown a great level of commitment to you body Mary-Lou that has paid off for you! Our bodies respond to our care and attention in a very positive way.
Yes, I agree, I wonder what would happen to mental health statistics if every child was taught be gentle with themselves and their bodies?
The whole world would be transformed on every level, health included, if we were all taught self care based on whole body awareness and whole body intelligence. As it is health systems worldwide are struggling with the weight of a global population with 95% of people with one or more chronic health conditions. More knowledge isn’t needed, self care is!
Knowing that every step you take on the journey back to true self love is important, if we do not appreciate all the marks then we quickly return to unwanted behavioural cycle. The trick is, knowing when we no longer need the next crutch, when we out stay our welcome, a self loving choice quickly becomes a disregarding one. The beautiful thing is, self care is forever evolving and adapting.
I am finding that self -care is forever evolving, my body is constantly telling me to go deeper and it supports me and holds me in a loving way as I make the changes to support me.
Now that I have made self care one of my priorities, I am enjoying seeing how it continues to expand as I stay open to other areas of my life that need attending to.
I agree, Debra, and am often blown away by how attention and care in one area of my life has an impact elsewhere. For a super simple example, if I am well hydrated and dressed comfortably, I am more open and at ease in my interactions with others.
A commitment to love your body, love your whole self – invites us all the time to go deeper and rise in the belonging to oneself. An inner settlement of feeling the innate loving being that we are. We are to be loved by ourselves all of the time. Our body needs to be loved for who we are is inside it.
Self care is so much more than wearing a coat when it rains, self care is something that is forever deepening as we become more aware of the disregard that we once accepted as normal.
We can define self-care as a certain way of taking care of one´s needs and looking after oneself, actually very common sense and everyday things like sleep, food, exercise etc, but the really interesting thing is that it is evolving and hence very individual to a person´s development with themselves. The same activities then can be very different in the way they are done or what effect they can have. Or what at some stage was deeply caring becomes actually rather harming as it doesn´t serve the purpose of one´s well-being anymore like e.g. eating a certain food. Self-care is a constant refinement and not something stagnant that looks the same for everyone hence any comparison is not supportive but distracting from checking in with oneself.
Thank you Alex, reading your comment I could see how self care is a truly evolutionary process for each of us and everyone is at their own level and pace. Regardless of where we are what’s beautiful is the process as it’s a return to love, and each step, whether it’s the first or step number 1,000, is equally important. They truly can’t be compared, and the beauty of the process is there to be felt and appreciated for ourselves and others.
I think self-care is something that naturally evolves and can be continually re-tuned and refined, not from any belief about how we should be or things we should do but from an impulse inside of us and from experimenting with seeing what works for us (and what doesn’t!).
I totally agree, Fiona, and this approach has changed the dogma, rules and ‘success/failure’ mentality of the way I used to do things.
I agree Fiona, I have found it is a personal journey of discovery from within and listening to my body, rather listening to what was outside of me and apply that.
Self-Care, is forever unfolding and deepening so the path of return is opened by our commitment to life.
Whatever our ritual is, it is the intention behind the ritual that really matters. From coffee to warm water – same same but very different as the intention has totally changed from wanting to race the body into nervousness to clearing and nurturing the body before it’s day.
So many of us have ricocheted around the world of so-called self-care healing and many other practices… To find a foundation finally of true appreciation self-care and self-love is to start to build that deep and abiding connection with oneself upon which we can truly evolve.
Thank you, this has been a powerful comment for me to read today and perfectly timed! “To find a foundation finally of true appreciation self-care and self-love is to start to build that deep and abiding connection with oneself upon which we can truly evolve.” Our inner-most heart is the steady ever present love that is always there for us to connect to and live from. It’s the true rock we can lean on, ‘the rock of love’. 🙂
My body is a great marker and guide for what is and is not self care in my choices, as I deepen my connection with myself so my body trustedly guides me in my deepening care.
The more we answer the call of evolution, the more the need to revisit and fine-tune our level of self-care in order to create a body that works solely with the light of the soul.
Absolutely agree, it is a constant re-tuning and evolving process. As we evolve our way of living evolves.
Self-care to me is nurturing the body so it is able to serve society and bring through Heaven’s light on earth.
A great way to love ourselves is to be very very honest.
It is a profound awareness to understand that purity is something that we connect to within, rather than seek without. A true change happens when this fact is embraced.
Self-care is not something that is static and an end point to attain… but provides a basis upon which to build a lasting foundation and as such requires us to forever refine and re-adjust in line with what is needed at any time.
The expansion of self care is very beautiful, as it is never a finished book or set of rules to apply.
In developing this deeper connection, the harmful behaviours started to drop away. We are all so powerful and have absolute choice over how our body can be, and it makes sense that the loving choices we are making can and do change because when you feel that love you also feel that it has no bottom and it is only us who limit or hold onto how much of that love we will deepen into.
Sometimes self-care can feel too simple or irrelevant and yet it is those small acts of care – to stay warm, to eat a nutritious meal, to drink water or use the bathroom – it all adds up to a platform of selfcare we then live our lives from
Self-Care is one of the foundational things that makes me feel I am deeply worth loving and being tender. When I drop my basic self-care I know I have let something affect me in my life and by bringing back the basic self-care it often reveals what has been affecting me in my life too.
“What Serge presented was very simple. Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.” This is indeed very simple and is something that we all have the capability of doing. Ultiamtely it comes down to whether we choose to do it, or not.
Because we live in a pool of shared energy, nothing is static – in other words, nothing stays the same… everything, everyone, all aspects of life changes and either evolves or involves.
Self love doesn’t want to pee in the pool which is appreciated by all.
How true – we can choose to go with the natural flow of development or we can stubbornly hold back or go against it.
Self care, inspired by a care and developing love for ourselves, is self care that is sustainable and that will develop – building the respect and love we have for ourselves and so the cycle supports itself. As this deepens we have a foundation to live and express this care and love with others and out in the world and this has helped me see the purpose of taking care of myself.
‘In developing this deeper connection, the harmful behaviours started to drop away.’ – I am personally blown away by the changes that have happened by starting to make truly loving choices in my life and how amazingly my body actually responds to it, and equally, how loudly it speaks if I am ever dishonouring and overriding of what I feel.
Reading your words today Mary-Lou I am struck by how I have oscillated in life between withdrawing and cocooning away, and driving and pushing ahead in my own way. I’ve kept changing my mind and thinking that self-care truly exists in the other state. ‘I must need to rest and have time for myself’ or ‘no, self-care truly means committing to life!’. I can see now than these thoughts give themselves away as neither of them address the quality in which I live. It’s this energy that is truly self-caring not any particular task or activity on which I embark.
I absolutely agree that what could be Love before can be abuse now. This is a testimonial that there is no destination to love it is a constant deepening that has no limits. So in every aspect of our lives, we are deepening always if love is the purpose.
When we change our perspective of self-care as ‘something I have to do’ to something that I actually want to do, to nourish and look after myself, it suddenly becomes easy – the self-destructive behaviours start to drop away by themselves, the more we connect to what we’re feeling, and act from there.
It stops being a discipline and becomes an act of self love.
‘So ‘self-care’ can never be about a set of rules and regulations that are fixed, because as we evolve and live with more clarity, we can feel the effects of all of our choices as they naturally change or drop away as we deepen the quality of our life.’ Well said Mary Lou, that is truly evolving self care.
“Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?” Absolutely for as we increase our self care and build more love in our bodies of who we are we reveal the true depth of disregard and abuse we have allowed on our journey back to being the loving divine beings we are.
Listening to my body gives me the best marker that I have for what is truly caring and this is something that can be continually refined as you say. Universal Medicine has supported me to re-connect with the value of being aware of my whole body and listening to the innate wisdom that we all have inside of us.
Yes, I agree, and whilst I may still override the clear signalling from my body, it never holds back from communicating clearly and simply with me about the impact of my choices. When I do take care of myself my body is so willing to go to the next level of awareness and service in life.
I know my previous self care was an attempt to balance all the things I did that were not very caring at all. I have found that as our self care deepens, so our self esteem grows from the inside. It really does change how we feel about ourselves, we realise we definitely really are worth it.
In truth do we self care to maintain the function and outer beauty or do we self care to confirm our tender and precious, divine nature.
What I think or I hear the words Self-Care are very different from what I use to think of…I will be honest I did not really ever think about the subject or word. I cleaned my teeth, washed, got my dinner without a second thought to what I was actually choosing, it was just something I needed to do. However stopping for a moment a few years ago and being open to a deeper look at the words self-care got me realising that I had a lot to explore. If we make our self-care a priority our whole life can change and this is something that I have experienced. Words like vital, confident, calm, steady are all words that apply to how I am with myself and it is something that others often comment on. It works to explore these two humble, but magnificent words.
Your description of self care makes everything very simple. Instead of focusing on ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s or making a rule book, we can treat our body how we would treat something precious and introduce a high quality of love and care rather than ‘improve’ how we lived before.
Most men consider body maintenance is self-care. We shave, shower brush teeth, deodorant, clean clothes and out the door we go. When we get up late and rush to get out the door, there are items on the list that are postponed or skipped for the day. When we find self-care, we ensure our body is from the inside, is taken care of first, and the everything else that is required always has time.
Humanity is so held back by the misuse of word. What we generally call self-care is not truly self-care and hence should be called cover-ups or medications to manage the self-abusive lifestyle we are in truth living.
Self care comes into every aspect of my daily life, how true Mary Lou. Through this way of living, we deepen and refine our self care with our every movements.
Mary-Lou, I love the simplicity of this; ‘What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.’
I wasn’t even taught the basics of self-care. I literally taught myself to wash, and I had an impulse to keep my room tidy within a house that was usually a mess. We do have an impulse within us to care for ourselves. We just need to honour it.
I love this… a confirmation that taking care of ourselves is innate and natural.
Taking the time to be with me as I get ready in the morning and taking that with me to my day makes a huge difference to how I feel during the day.
The way I now start my day is a now an important part of my day. As you have said, Fiona, it does affect everything and one, in our day.
Self care is in the most loving things that we can do for ourselves, when we stay connected to our body and truly appreciate and care for ourselves from our inner wisdom and essence. And the expansion of that is s beautiful, as we live that love – and then everyone gets it. Its surely that simple your know 🙂
How can we care for others if at first we don’t care for ourselves?. and how important does this then make sel-love?
True self-care is that beautiful connection with yourself, when you just know in detail what your body needs and you truly honour it.
Once we meet a reflection of true self-care we can begin to make the same loving choices for ourselves. It tends to begin with caring for the outside and as we deepen our inner connection we begin to realise that there is something more – a sense of caring for the being who inhabits our body. Beginning a relationship with the being has allowed me to deepen my self caring and to explore the forever unfolding that my body offers minute by minute each and every day. Each day expands my experience of life and allows me to feel a greater connection to God and the Universe.
A great marker of self care is the internal dialogue of negative talking, which over time can also evolve into something more loving.
Self-care goes hand in hand with self-love, they are like sisters that help each other and work together. The more I honour and respect and appreciate myself the clearer I will know what is good and needed for me and what not. And the beauty about these two is that their love and care are forever deepening.
Self care is a way of caring for oneself, in a way that is caring for the whole being and preparing it to be the vehicle of love for other people.
“….like drinking a fresh fruit and vegetable juice every morning, practising strong yoga poses every day, and drinking lots of water” – i also recall drinking these too.. and detoxing the liver, having massages, though at the same time, i know it sounds incongruent, and it totally is, but i would still be drinking (reduced) alcohol, having chocolate, staying up later to watch a film when i needed to rest early. I wanted both my feet in both camps, but as per the saying “you cannot serve two masters”.. so often we (want to) live life like this thinking we are changing and at times looking like the change too, yet underneath and in time the falsity does get revealed as to the quality of our self-care.
Yes, it is very much a reward system in exchange for something else. We are willing to do this but want that for it instead. Or more so we are willing to do this but only because of what I can then have as a reward. So the actual motivation is what I get instead and not the sheer fact that it is truly good and/or beneficial for me.
Self care is something that I am only just beginning to realise the deepth and quality that is possible to live in our bodies.
The meaning of self-care can be defined in a very general way but it nevertheless is a very personal affair with oneself, an affair that has the potential to be a great loving relationship.
I agree. The building of a self caring relationship is a quiet affair with ourselves… a respectful listening communication with our bodies that then lived in our days supports our work, relationships and approach to life.
Self-care is a great discipline when we don’t listen to our body as perhaps only a minority do. Once we listen to our body it may not be the optimal way to be but, until then, it is one of the greater life choices we have.
A great question to ask ourselves indeed – ‘is this a self-loving choice?’
For every movement we make will serve us and others or won’t.
What this blog highlights to me is that we are constantly being offered opportunities to deepen and each new phase requires different adjustments and what we feel supports us at one point may not support us at another point- it is totally up to us to feel what it is we need in each moment.
Yes, hence any recommendations on how to be can not be universal.
Exactly Ariana. Without at least a basic level of self-care our business and industries fall very short of the mark of what we could actually be offering by way of products and services. Without self-care most people are struggling to get to work, let alone make it through the day without caffeine, sugar or other stimulating substances. The question is . . . what could it be like if we each took responsibility for self-care and set standards of working and relating that held care and integrity as the foundation?
The beauty of true self care and all it expansion from there is amazing so simple and makes sense . Giving oneself space in our day in moments really does change our lives and it is the consistency of this that makes all the difference as it is lived .
Mary-Lou I totally agree with you in that the more we connect to ourselves the harmful behaviours we have taken onboard naturally seem to just fade away, it is quite phenomenal actually and something I wouldn’t have believed unless I experienced it myself.
I love what you have shared here Mary-Lou, that self care is an ongoing process. That what we used to do one day, over time may feel disregarding on another day, so it is allowing for this change to occur and be flexible and loving as we go through this ongoing evolution.
The process of self-care is individual and always evolving.
“Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not. “ This is a great quote from Serge Benhayon, thank you Mary-Lou. From here it is impossible not to care for ourselves more. Our care for ourselves deepens in direct proportion to our connection to the love for ourselves.
Self care constantly changes as we do. The line in the sand constantly moves as we evolve. This is the way is should be as “good enough” and plateau-ing soon enough become anti-evolutionary.
The body is constantly communicating when our movements and choices need refining all that is necessary is the commitment to our self care and to listen and respond.
This is a good point, Mary-Lou – “Every choice is either from Love or not from love.” A great reminder that there is no in between state, but that we are either choosing to love and honour our bodies or harming them by not listening to their constant feedback.
I certainly had not considered self-care a few years ago, but now, it is as natural as breathing air, it is part of my life, I will forever be refining and adapting this activity, know that I understand the amazing benefits of care, observing and actioning choices that benefit my body, life and the life of others.
A great reminder that we never arrive at an end point in loving or caring for ourselves- this is forever deepening and requires constant honesty and refinement.
Self-care is forever changing and evolving as it is the body that dictates what is needed at any given time.
I realised that I need to redefine self-care every day, always listening to, and feeling how, my body is responding to everything I do.
Agree Jenny, at each moment what self-care means for each of us is redefined. Great insight.
It is so interesting to see the changes in self care practices as we develop deeper in the relationship with ourselves. Certainly reveals how you just can not judge another on the choices they make in their life. Self care practices are an evolutional practice and uniquely personal to an individual.
To start with, just taking time to go pee when I really needed to go rather than holding it in, or wearing enough layers to keep warm was a small start to loving myself – but soon these things became the basis of care for myself that I couldn’t drop below – if i left the house not warm enough then something was up, and choosing to wrap up warm was not a big deal but an every day and so I needed to deepen and expand my self-loving choices.
Love the toilet stop and this is a common one – one that I too have incorporated as part of my ‘no compromise’ care for self ritual.
I agree – any yet so many people I know will push through needing to pee, or maybe feeling a bit cold or thirsty – I know there are days when I hardly register I am thirsty till I get home and have some water and end up drinking 3 glasses to try and make up for a day spent more focused on everything around me, leaving myself and my fundamentals of selfcare out of the equation
Self-care is speaking up and saying what is there to be said.
Absolutely and in doing so we are deeply loving another… indeed all others.
It is beautiful what Serge Benhayon presents, that there is a way of living where we almost naturally care for ourselves or are at least very honest and aware, and that there is a way of living that would not have us even thinking of caring for ourselves in this way. It really shows it is not about a discipline from our mind but a choice of energy that will make the difference in our life.
Beautiful blog about how we all know what self care is in essence, but also can corrupt a word so clear into doing things that our mind believes is good self care, but our body is saying no to.
There comes a time when we have cared for ourselves so much that we have less and less self and then it really comes to caring for our bodies, energy and what we are reflecting and expressing for the for the benefit of everyone else too.
It is true how we constantly evolve and how what was supportive even last week might not be anymore. It certainly makes life very interesting!
There is no end to self care, it goes on forever and the going into into the action of self care opens out into the expanse of universal love.
Self care is a very personal relationship we have with ourselves, like evolution, it is a very personal relationship we have with God. No one can tell us when to do what, as following rules when it is not yet a relationship we have developed may not be supportive. Self care has to come from within us as we start to feel the preciousness of ourselves, we stop making some choices and we start making other choices. Every one is different in their evolution and this needs to be something we totally honor ourselves in and not compare or compete with each other.
We can take care of ourselves because of necessity and reason or because of self-love. On the outside both will look very similar but the effect on and in the body is of great difference. When care increases self-love and self-love deepens the care they consistently build each other to become or actually re-ignite something greater – an abundance and celebration of love and grace.
It sounds delicious when you put it like that, Alex! And indeed it is, as we deepen in love and care for ourselves and the all.
Universal Law – a law that should be taught in schools and parented in our homes – “What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.” There is no escaping it only burying or detracting from it which is not love i.e. not harmony and dis-ease in the body.
Self-care the new revolution or evolution. Our bodies, our human frame is more than we are willing to accept. I recently went through a procedure in hospital. I had to prepare myself, my body and what I realised during and was confirmed after is my body is a master divine creation that belongs to the universe. It needs to be cared and loved for from the universal way or from universal medicine not the ideals or beliefs – “Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not. “
We can not truly self-care if we are not truly connected to our body and hence listening to what it is saying. True self care is giving power to the body’s wisdom first before what we hear from outside us.
With the rise of illness, disease general fatigue and depression its time for self care to become a normal part of our everyday living.
There is forever a deepening aspect of caring and loving ourselves offered and available to us and we will know this when we are connected and open.
There is no end point to self-care as can be understood from reading this. It is a process that changes as we let ourselves return further and further to who we truly are.
Mary-Lou, I love this; ‘There is no perfection. I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’ What you are sharing is beautifully simple and loving and stops the destructive, self bashing thoughts and allows us to learn from our choices and deepen our self love and care.
We can only care for others when we re-learn to care for ourselves.
‘I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’’ Learning not to be hard on myself when I do not like the choices I have been making has been challenging at times, although the more I build consistency with self care the easier it is to come back to this when I am challenged with the ups and downs in life.
Self care has transformed and continues to transform my life. The simple systematic application of self care has lead to me feeling levels of love in my body that I can’t remember feeling in this lifetime and what’s more I can feel that if I continue to apply the systematic application of self care then there is no end to the love that I will be able to feel for myself and therefore all others.
For years I would wake up with a cigarette and a strong black coffee then at 11am or so I would have a big fry up, I can’t see a lot of self care in that and still amazed at how well the body functioned for so long under such abuse. I have come a long way from those days but know the refining of selfcare will never stop and in the future will probably look back at how I am today as abusive to self.
Great point about how we can call abusive behaviours self-care. It is like having cake as a “treat” on your birthday or a bottle of champagne – not things the body experiences as treats.
“Every choice is either from Love or not from love.” I am familiar with this from some of Serge Benhayon’s presentations, but today this line jumped off the screen. It is a good reminder that I will take into my day, thank you.
“There is no perfection. I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’” Seeing it like this and questioning the self why did I chose something less than love feels more loving than self bashing, and also allows you not to be caught up in being a perfectionist.
“And if I do find myself wanting such a thing, I know that there is a reason I want it, which is to feel comfort from a situation, or that I am not wanting to feel something I am not willing or ready to face.” this is great to read, as i great to stop and reflect that might be things we are not ready to face and hence eating foods for comfort.
Drinking alcohol is as you say considered normal, to the extent that I am considered not normal because I don’t drink it therefore there must be something wrong with me? To the point where I was asked recently what is one glass of wine going to do to harm me?
I caught up with some old friends recently and a couple of them were trying to get me to have a drink but even my sense of smell told me that this was never going to happen because it smelt repulsive even from a distance.
It feels great when we no longer enjoy the taste of something that we once used to harm the body.
I am finding the more I care for myself the more refined ‘small’ things affect me. I’ve had beliefs of being ‘too sensitive’ but then I wonder where has being numb to my sensitivities ever gotten me? (or anyone for that matter) The more I ignore the smaller messages they don’t go away, only get louder!
It seems to me that for our self-care practises to change as they need to according to the steps we all make as we learn and grow and deepen in our awareness of what this life is about, what it is for and why we are here and who we all are, there needs to be a relationship with oneself that has a dialog that is based on honesty, humbleness and trust.
“Every choice is either from love or not from love.” Such simplicity. How our lives would change if we all followed this.
This is constant work in progress, the more we self care the more easier it becomes to see our choices being either from love or not from love.
In truth there is no self and so self care is really care of all others and as in truth there are no others, there is simply The All, then self care is actually care of The All That We Are. And as The All that We Are is God then self care is really caring for the God that we all are. We also need to consider the ramifications of replacing the word ‘care’ with ‘harm’ as so many of us harm ourselves way more than we care for ourselves.
We put so much pressure on ourselves when we ‘try’ to be perfect, which brings a lot of tension and stress and beating ourselves up when we get it wrong….. accepting our imperfections is a lot more loving for self and then for all others as we learn to accept others are not perfect either.
What a great point. Funnily enough some people find it easier to accept their imperfections than their awesomeness. On the link before you can find a wonderful free audio called: “Accepting your imperfections and grandness” which is a pure joy to listen to. http://www.unimedliving.com/the-way-of-the-livingness/who-we-truly-are/accepting-your-divinity.html
What we may consider self-caring one day may not be the next day. Self- care is a continual refinement and deepening dependent on listening to our body and responding to what it needs.
“Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not” Beautiful Mary Lou, to re-state Serge’s words. `The foundation of of self care flows from our connection to divinity and love. Without this innermost connection, we often choose patterns and cycles that are movements away from love. Our responsibility is to be constantly aware of where we are and our choices: standing still and seeking comfort is not the way to Love.
If we can’t truly self care for ourselves then the care that we take of others is devoid of true care.
It stands to reason that we cannot give to another a quality we have not yet lived.
So true Alexis, we are no reflection to others if we cannot take true self care for ourselves.
Amita if we can’t take true self care then we are still a reflection to others, as we can’t but be a reflection; the question is, ‘what are we reflecting?’.
An important point is reflected with the examples you provide, that as we develop and expand, what we consider acceptable or caring also changes. Something that confirmed the level of care we had developed a while back, in the light of an overall greater foundation of love, may even seem abusive now.
This means that we can never say we have reached the ultimate level of care, as with all of life there is always a deeper layer to unfold.
‘ What Serge presented was very simple. Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.’ i love the simplicity of this. When I brought self care into my life I found The Gentle Breath Meditation a huge support in connecting with my innermost self and to my body, my choices became alot clearer as to whether they were loving or not.
It makes sense to me that the deeper connection we have with who we truly are in essence and with our body the more aware we can become of harming behaviours that are counter to this and so from that place of connection it becomes natural to let them go and instead embrace more loving and caring ways. And so change comes from a clarity within us rather than just a belief or ideal about what we think may be good for us that another has told us or we’ve seen somewhere…
I love the practical description and examples of your own journey how you value them and show in this the unfolding forever enduring process of evolving and to feel the realness and truth in it it is really felt. Thank You for sharing. An amazing blog.
Yes, I agree. Beautifully written and very practical and supportive.
Me too, we can make life complicated and a struggle or we can choose to keep things real, simple and practical. This is one of the amazing things I have found about Serge Benhayon is, how he can present some of the seemingly most complex things yet make them practical and real, so we can apply them to our daily lives. Truth is something which is available and accessible to us all, the more we embrace it the more it comes alive.
Self care doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated… it actually can be very simple and easy and starts with just taking a bit of time for your self and feeling what your body needs. It can depend on the day you have had and can change at any point. There is no of rules.
Rosie that’s good to be remind of there are no rules and can change at any point, does not have to be expensive or complicated.
For me one of most supportive things I have started to do is find the space in my day to go for a walk.
On a slow day at work where I spend a few hours at my desk I can still rack up 5k walking, my top was 21k. I still find time for a walk for myself when I get home, even if it is only 10 minutes. It’s never about the distance it’s the quality we walk in.
Walking, even if just a short one around the block can change your whole day. It is so important to have some sort of movement in our day as it really can shift any emotions or patterns of behaviour that we may get stuck in.
Absolutely Rosie, great reminder indeed that self-care has no set of rules, no fixed agenda and it is not expensive at all! I love the fact that once we commit to self-care we become more creative and find sometimes a different way to approach the same task, or a different way to cook, to exercise…
Yes, there are many ways we can do things.. and it is great when we break out of old patterns that at times we are not even aware of.
The beauty of true self care is every evolving as once you start you are on an every evolving journey with the love and appreciation of all you are.
Incredible to consider that something that we consider very caring for ourselves and very supportive could one day actually become something that holds us back. Such is the nature of personal evolution and growth. It is not a straight line journey with some destination that we arrive at and then we are done but a continual deepening and expanding of our awareness and raising of our energetic vibration in our bodies which means a continual re-adjustment to what supports our vibration and what does not.
Mary-lou I too have had a health revelation from applying the teachings of Serge Benhayon to my life moving out of several long term health conditions. How I have experienced self care has certainly developed through the process.. always deepening.
Ruth I too can confirm “I too have had a health revelation from applying the teachings of Serge Benhayon to my life moving out of several long term health conditions”, if it was not for these teaches I could not image where my life would have taken me, as it definitely was not in a good place.
Yes indeed, Mary-Lou, the Gentle Breath Meditation was a complete game changer for me, in that it brought me back to the truth that resided in my body, which I could then no longer dismiss.
After reading this blog I have just noticed that when I was taking regular care of my hands and painting my finger nails, my daughter would get up in the morning and paint her nails too. Recently I haven’t felt like I had the time to paint my nails so frequently and as a result my daughter has lost interest in painting her nails.
Ideals and beliefs feel ridged, as what feels right for me one day does not necessarily feel right the next. At the moment I’m recovering from a cold and I really feel like eating soups which I would never think to do during the summer months but it’s what my body is asking for.
Self care and self love is a developing process always. When we are developing we are not there yet but choosing to be closer so what is there to berate ourselves about when we make a mistake, we are not perfect to begin with. But every choice we make when we return to that lovely warm place within the heart, we can only keep beholding ourselves through this process and choose to keep refining our choices.
The consciousness that pops up for me when I hear ‘self-care’ is that it is boring. I know other ideas that come up for people, is that it is selfish or time consuming. I have found over the years that it is none of these; in fact it is the opposite. I find it is selfish to not self-care, as the uncared for you is a lesser version of you at work and at home. Self-care takes no extra time, as it is part of how I am not what I do, and the support it gives me allows me to be more productive. Then finally, when I feel myself actually self-caring (not going through the motions), I love how every detail feels.
There is no one size fits all approach to self-care, this is a relationship we have with ourselves and our bodies and they will inform us what is our next step. “In developing this deeper connection, the harmful behaviours started to drop away.”
Wow love this blog Mary-Lou, I love how you have broken down something that many of us can get lost in into simple easy common sense steps.
There is a complete difference in self-care when it is sought from the inner heart as apposed to our mind which loves to go by beliefs and knowledge. The inner heart heals moving us back to love, while the mind harms and keeps us in separation.
You share that what we once consider self-care can feel like self-abuse at another time and I totally connect to that. It is an unpeeling unfolding process of taking away layers of protection to live with more delicateness and fragility and honouring that. Even the words I have used to describe myself were a long way from caring.
The question you ask is a brilliant one ” is this a self loving choice or not”? To take a moment to ask this question before acting is so very loving to start with, so the ripple effect and responsibility of what comes next couldn’t be missed.
The key to self care is to be genuinely guided by the body. The body is our navigation system back to love, our head is the pirate looking to lure us off track.
One aspect of self care is through what we eat. In the past eating an ice cream was considered self care because it tasted yummy, but was that more a form of self satisfaction? A treat? The effects of the ice cream in our body may be very subtle per ice cream, but eating dairy and fat and sugar in general leads to a build up of mucous in the body that leads to colds and sore throats and the sugar can lead to diabetes. So perhaps we only truly take care when the effects of not caring are seen. Exercising, for example, if we don’t see immediate results, we give up, but developing muscle strength takes time and patience and regular commitment and then the results are obvious. Why wait till it’s too late? ‘Can’t be bothered’ is a disease many of us suffer from. Caring enough to bother in the first place is where we need to start. Just taking a few minutes each day to feel our bodies from the inside – how is my stomach feeling, how do my lungs feel, how does it feel when I stretch my legs, move my ankles, when I open and close my hands – very simple moves.
Mary Lou you have presented the topic of self care in such a wonderfully simple and yet revelatory way. A brilliant expose on the topic of self care, which is much needed as although self care feels to many like an innocuous topic, it is not, as it often produces the very opposite effect of self care, which is of course, self harm.
Self-care has become a buzz word over the last few years yet what is generally presented in organisations cannot go deep enough. To develop a truly self nurturing and loving way we must come to understand ourselves through a connection to our body, and knowing our true nature as being love.
It is amazing that all we need do is to commit to take care of ourselves and choose listening to and honouring the messages and prompt life provides especially through our bodies – knowing that we are a precious, valuable part of the whole and taking care of ourselves makes a difference to everything. And when we do everything is revealed one step at a time perfectly to support us all the way.
I love your progression from coffee to warm water. There is no way you could have gone from one extreme to the other without going through the fazes in between. A lesson in accepting where we are at and listening to our own body first without imposing what we think we should be doing.
I remember when I realised I couldn’t drink decaf coffee anymore my body reacted like it was coffee, I experimented several times but it wasn’t accidental – my body just showed me that I could not handle any of the stimulation or even traces of coffee. As with alcohol it was when I hadn’t had it for a while and then had some that the impact was undeniable.
Thanks Mary-Lou – a great blog on the importance of continuously refining the quality of care for ourselves as our awareness naturally develops and our connection with our own bodies deepens.
we can refine our behaviours to strive for something ‘better’ or we can focus on bringing more the qualities of love and care into our life, which naturally refines our way in every aspect.
As self-care forms the basis of love in our bodies, and is a foundation for love for ourselves – it is ultimately loving to then allow that love to be for others. Once this is established this is also a foundation, and when we are not loving others it will feel like we are not loving ourselves.
A simple act of self care is to put cream on my hands every night but even that can be abusive if, for instance, I am rubbing it in hard. when I catch it and become super tender with my hands, my whole body changes.
It is not what we do but how we do it that counts.
Self care has a natural progression and expansion towards more and more loving behaviour.
In a way it seems kind of obvious that if we cant care for ourselves then how can we truly care for another… but this isn’t what we are taught from young, and clearly there are varying levels of care and numerous interpretations of what care actually means. Suffice to say that it is ‘true self-care’ as you mention here Mary-Lou that is truly inspirational and transformative.
It is important to understand that self-care is not a static undertaking but a continuous refining and adjusting.
With the increase in illness and disease we are seeing in humanity, an attitude of responsibility and self-care makes perfect sense. If we keep going the way we are, we will bankrupt our health services and be forced into an alternative approach. It seems to me our health services are not in place to take care of us but to support us to take care of ourselves, working in harmony with our choices. As ever the responsibility is ours.
If we do not keep up with our awareness we being irresponsible towards the gift – appreciation that is – we have been blessed with.
It is a great example from Serge Benhayon to connect to ourselves and the love we are, keep it simple and ask whether every choice is a self loving choice or not. The first thing that comes to me is the mind and thoughts, and how unloving we can be with negative criticism, before we even start any movement. There is no place for this when we are love.
When we choose to deepen our love, our level of self-care develops alongside it too. I realise not many people I meet truly understands what self-care means. I feel the more people who choose to live with a true quality of self-care, void of recognition, ideals and beliefs, the more and more people will understand self-care and self-love as we receive its true form by reflection and inspiration.
You make a great point here, Mary-Lou, calling us to examine our own self-care rituals to discern if they are truly supportive or adopted from a set of beliefs or ideals about what is good for us.
It seems that the key to self-care is really listening to your body and responding to everything it communicates to us and therefore it can never be fixed in time or a one size fits all approach because it will be a personal relationship that each of us has with our own bodies.
The awareness that our choices are either love or not love, no in between, is fundamental in building a connection with our true self and so deepening the love in what we choose and feel is loving, as you have shared with your journey with your morning drink.
The path of self-care is a constantly unfolding journey. The joy of it is in building a deeper and deeper relationship with our bodies, appreciating their sensitivity and responsiveness the more we listen, refine and honour what it is felt. What I am beginning to appreciate more and more is just how much building this relationship with my body has supported the quality of all my other relationships, as my sensitivity and awareness grows clearer and stronger. The love, care and attention we develop as a consequence have no boundaries.
I really didn’t have any idea what self-care was, I was more in self-destruct mode, so anything away from that was a step in the right direction. The redefining of what is or is not self-care is a never ending process that we will all get to in the end.
When we self-care and get to a comfortable point and start to coast, we are just in a different level of disregard. Self-care is not a task, as the daily chore of taking out the rubbish and putting it in the bin, it is like the Christmas ads about, dogs are not for Christmas, but for life. Self-care is always evolving and never ends and always enjoys a walk.
Your words Mary-Lou leave me reflecting how throughout my life I have constantly oscillated between driving intensely ahead and ‘taking time out’. I used to think this slowing down part was what self-care was about. But today I feel it’s actually any time I care enough to connect to me and live from that feeling. I look forward to this current understanding deepening as yours has done Mary-Lou as we all continue to change, live and learn.
It is true that we must care for ourselves in such a way and to such a degree that we no longer need to think about the care we take, in the sense that it becomes seamless with the way we move. That is, by focusing on the tiny details in terms of the way we eat, sleep, think, speak, act etc. we are able to come to a point whereby the same amount of care is taken in all that we do so that no one event in our day is of either greater or lesser importance than any other. For example, the way we brush our teeth is equal to the way we drive to work that is equal to the way we work, the way we eat, take a break, change a nappy etc. It is all one-life and therefore it is all one and the same expression in the sense that it is all coming from one and the same source, which is our Soul rather than how that part of us we know as our spirit likes to do things which is to compartmentalise life so we end up with various disparate fragments that do not sing in tune to the sound of the whole of which they are a fragment of.
Self-care is the beginnings of re-learning how to live in this way until such a point that there is so much regard for the human self, it simply dissolves back into the true self (Soul) that it first separated from. This is how we return to love and why it is said esoterically that in order to truly care for another, we must first get our self out of the way.
It is true, self- care is not the destination it becomes a way of responsibility we live with so that the ‘self’ is not interfering with our reunion with Soul. You explain this natural re-uniting beautifully Liane, it is in our every movement.
Self care moves us away from obsessing about relationships with others to deepening our relationship with self.
So true Kehinde, when we focus on caring for ourselves there is no need to look outside of ourselves at what everyone else is doing because our bodies are guiding us with exactly what we need to be addressing.
Interesting though is that when we connect more deeply to the essence of our being, the need for any substance we used to numb ourselves with. like sweets, alcohol, coffee and such, simply disappears and too, there is then absolutely not anything that would like to take any of these substances at any time. It is just the need for not wanting to feel something we encounter in life that makes us longing for those foods. But fact is that our our pure bodies do not need any of these and clearly knows what is good for us. so when we connect more deeply to this purity, we connect to the knowing of the body that exactly knows what it needs at any time of the day.
A beautiful and honest sharing of the evolving nature of self care. It has many layers, its essence being the deepening relationship we have with ourselves, not running to anyone else agenda. At one stage in my life, self care was paying close attention to and putting my financial house in order. It was steady process and over time I built the sound foundation and rhythm that lovingly supports me today.
Mary Lou thank you for sharing your experiences with self care – that is very inspiring. You have shown us a new way of living self care and the quote from Serge Benhayon: “Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.” made it even more transparent and helpful!
‘Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?”
It’s so important that we bring self-care from what our body is calling for and what truly supports it. Allowing our markers of self-care to move as we deepen ourselves is key. For when we have a list that is fixed of what self-care is then we are still in the doing and capping ourselves to whatever that limit is. Where as our body communicates with us to constantly expand our grandness and we can support that with how we let ourselves be with that and adjust as needed.
There are indeed so many levels of self-care, and in that each level is to be celebrated to the fullest. And once one level of self care is established and solid and unwavering, then it is time to bring on the next level of self care…There is never a dull moment in self care!
Fabulous and easy to understand explanation of why so many people are unwell despite the fact that they do the best they can to look after themselves. The body always reflects the truth of our choices.
“What do you think of when you hear the words, ‘self-care’?” – the beauty of self-care is its evolutionary aspect in that as i relate to my body more in a greater, deeper attentive way, towards understanding its working, its intricacies, communications, then my quality of self-care also changes accordingly.
My focus with self-care at the moment is the quality that I am bringing to whatever I am doing – allowing myself to let go and surrender more in my body. I have been aware of a lot of tension in my arms lately – almost like a tug of war going on internally, with my mind wanting to hang on to it’s ‘control’ and my soul gently calling me to surrender.
It is great how you point out the evolving nature of self care, which exposes how flawed it is to judge anyones self care practice… as it is only a process of evolution and refinement.
It’s interesting what we consider to be ‘healthy’. But when we really stop to listen to the body we can discover that some of the things we are doing are not healthy at all. Introducing gentleness to the body and our movements changes everything. If the behaviour does not match the gentleness then it is not serving the body at all.
Reading this I appreciate there really is no limit to the depth of love we can live and how self-care is both a natural, constantly evolving expression of this that both confirms and expands this connection and expression.
We need to connect to the body first to receive the messages from it what the body would like, before we know what true self care is, otherwise we think we know what the body wants to care for itself, but the mind fools us regularly. When we are connected to the body, it tell us when to eat and when to stop, what to eat and what to leave, when to move and when to sleep. It gives us a rhythm and living in that rhythm constantly refining it is great self care.
“It gives us a rhythm and living in that rhythm constantly refining it is great self care.” This feels like a key point to self-care. We have so many concepts what self-care is but unless we really put our body into the equation they remain ideas from the mind.
That is so true, the body has a rhythm and communicates with us what that rhythm is constantly, yet it takes a level of commitment to stop, listen and hear what the body is sharing. One of the founding ways to re-develop that connection is to build a relationship with the gentle breath meditation so you can feel the delicateness of who we all are as we choose to re-connect and allow more stillness in our lives.
Why chose something less than love? Great question to ask ourselves on a regular basis.
For me, the self care that I did not do as a child was speaking my truth.
Not a typical thing that you would call self care but because i chose to hold back me I have lived in contraction and fear that has taken a toll on my body.
However in the past 7 years I have chosen to re imprint this old pattern. Speaking up, not worrying about what other people think.
Gradually my body is releasing the tension that it has held all these years, the effort of holding all my amazingness in. What a relief!
Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for supporting me in this process.
I can totally relate Ken to what you have written Ken. The more I now give myself permission to speak my truth, the more free I feel in my body and the more open I am with others. I love the parallel you have drawn between speaking our truth and self-care as indeed it is. To dismiss speaking our truth is a lack of care for our body and its purpose to be a vehicle for our soul.
It is really simple- is this a loving choice for our body or not? The question for me is why do I still choose unloving choices at times? What am I avoiding, what do I not want to feel? It is in answering these questions that I will be able to go deeper with my self care practices. Such a practical sharing, Mary Lou- thank you.
Amazing the developments and changes you have refined, it seems the key is to be really open as too what works for your body or not.
Beautiful sharing Mary-Lou, I can relate to wanting to live clear and clean, the so called ‘purity’ and I did a lot of ‘healthy’ behaviours to reach this point of purity. The falseness of this ideal is there is no end point and we are pure from the day we were born, it’s just that we have to live in a way that supports us to let go of all that is not of our divine origin.
Yes Annelies I have been motivated by this ideal of purity too completely ignoring the fact that my origins are pure. Re-membering this, letting everything fall away from the body through our more deeply caring behaviours and re-connecting to this purity on the inside allows us to let our love shine and we feel ourselves again.
‘The level of ‘self-care’ I now live continues to refine and deepen.’ This has been the same for me although the changes have been so gradual it is great to take a moment and appreciate how my self care is deepening and how this affects all aspects of my life.
Yes me too. Being aware when I feel a tension is my body is a guide that I am perhaps ignoring a new level – be it of self care or depths in relationships or way of moving. I love the wisdom and whole body intelligence.
Great article, Mary-Lou, and I Iove your example about your morning drink, it shows how self-care always can be refined, – in absolutely all areas of life. In the end there’s the energy in which you drink your hot water.
I find that the more loving I am with myself, the more the desire for unloving choices simply falls away. There is no effort or discipline involved. Just the simply choice to be more love.
Indeed Richard, it is actually very simple, the more loving we are with ourselves, the more simple and supportive our life choices will be to our body and being.
Yes, Richard, I have found this too. Love begets love…and it is our true nature we are returning to, so no effort required.
Amazing unfoldment Mary Lou
Yes, it’s amazing how self care can evolve – what used to be a ritual or loving routine may now be something which makes us heavy? And what I like about this process is that life becomes simpler, it doesn’t become more boring but our ability to appreciate the details becomes grander – so what favourite ice cream or hot sundae or chocolate bar would be better than that?
“Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?” Absolutely Mary-Lou as the more love we accept for ourselves the deeper and more detailed our self care would naturally become.
It is interesting to consider that what we thought was self care was actually abuse – a hard exercise routine was never truly caring, we were just under the illusion that it was.
Yes and the markers of what abuse is constantly shift as the markers of self care adjust.
Self-care is one of those words that keep expanding the more we explore it. Once something is established as a foundation, then the next level of self-care (in this instance) begins to reveal itself.
And then something that becomes our normal and way of being – it just is.
Absolutely Vicky, this is the wonder of self care, each level reached, opens up the next to be explored.
And there is such a simplicity to this… sometimes hard for us to grasp, but all we have to do is open up to what our bodies tell us and then respond accordingly.
I love the openness that your approach offers… this is not about getting to a defined set of rules that = self-care and then it is job done… it is an invitation to ongoingly deepen our relationship with our bodies and refine the way we read the signs it offers, responding to each revelation fresh and willing. Thank you.
It is only through self-care and self-love that we can access our inner essence and begin to understand that we are so much more than the physical body. The paradox is that we need to tenderly care for the body in order to realise that the body and the temporal life isn’t it!
Our bodies are the bridge so we just care for them deeply if we truly want this deep inner connection with our grand wisdom that is multidimensional.
Through connecting to oneself with the Gentle Breath Meditation one is able to build a greater bodily awareness, the consistency of this then leads to appreciation which is the absolute bedrock from which true self care begins.
That’s a very interesting one to explore – that self-care can be used to counter self-abusive behaviour. The subtleties in each camp are infinite and well worth examining.
Self-care forever deepens when it is true and not based on ideals, beliefs or any drive towards purification or other such notions.
I realise self-care is very important but recently noticed that there are two forms of self-care, one is done with the energy to look a certain way, to seek recognition or based on ideals and beliefs, and the other is from love and true care. I couldn’t differentiate from the two before but now, I realise one is harming and one is healing.
It’s true that one persons understanding of ‘self-care’ can be very different to another, depending on the choices they are making in their daily lives. The more we choose to connect to what we feel in our bodies rather than overriding it, the more likely we are to naturally deepen the level of care we give to ourselves in each and every moment, rather than relying on our minds to tell us what to do.
True self-care does away with any rulebooks, diets or fads because it is simply a matter of listening and responding to the body’s cues and the truth of how we are feeling.
As we deepen the relationship with our selves and listen to the loving prompts from our bodies, any unloving choices naturally drop away. However, if we try to make changes because we feel we need to, to meet a certain image that we hold, it becomes a massive struggle as the more we deny ourselves the more we crave what we are wanting to stop.
There is no end point to the depth of self care we can bring to ourselves but always more, which is beautiful to consider, feel and lovingly commit to.
Yes, I love the endlessness and potential of having an open ended relationship with my body and life.
“Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not.” So simple and so true. Connecting with how our body feels is the greatest marker we can have for living what is true for us. And we will all have a different marker, depending on where we are at.
“The level of ‘self-care’ I now live continues to refine and deepen.” that is so true what I called self care used to be not drinking today its to the detail of how I am within the day, how much I am with myself vs caught up. There are so many levels of self care and what is amazing is exploring them to unfold each day with me, I also now understand the term “forever student” in new ways.
Self care has definitely been portrayed as something from the outside – a certain lifestyle that you can apply to your life to make it better. However to consider that self-care actually comes from the inside out, meaning that it is through a deep connection with your body and its responses and listening and learning what supports us and what does not. This allows a forever deepening and developing form of self care to be present which is not stuck in rigid rules or doctrines.
I keep being amazed at the ever-deepening refinement of life that occurs with the deepening of self-care and with that an ever-expanding awareness, understanding and appreciation of life.
“Could what was considered to be self-care in the past, now be considered as disregard or self-abuse?” – this is such an important question to ask because the understanding of what self-care is can change as you have shown Mary Lou. What comes first the chicken or the egg? As we deepen in our connection to our selves do we naturally make choices that meet what we need or the body requires or does practicing self-care whether by improving the diet, going to bed earlier or bringing attention to the way our body moves teach us about the value of self care in our lives and then we act on it? The big thing is to read the outcome of every choice and over time hopefully listening to the body will be the natural way and humanity’s aware of this will grow.
The missing ingredient for me around self-care lay in the education about energy. Serge Benhayon enabled me to have a tangible understanding of the difference between Loving and Un-loving energy, a quality I could feel in my body that has completely transmuted my understanding of self-care and indeed care of every one. Appreciating this fundamental truth has initiated a revolution in the way I look after myself, resulting a deep quality of health and vitality I never anticipated and one that will perpetually deepen for the rest of my life.
Mary-Lou, this is really helpful to read; ‘What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.’ This makes life and making choices very simple and clear.
I’m struck by just how simple things can be if we allow them to develop. We might see someone that inspires us and want to be that immediately, forcing sweeping changes on everything and turning our world upside down. Or we take that inspiration, get very real about precisely where we are at and then choose the next thing to change, and then the next, and the next…. building a different relationship step by confident step from our own starting point.
Love this comment Simon.
When I had first heard about self-care it was an alien concept, something women did. Men, just do general maintenance for basic function. I have also found the true meaning of self-care and as you have said Mary-Lou it is a never ending process.
When we do stop to give ourselves that moment to ask the question, is it self-loving or not, the answer is very clear and simple.
Thank you Mary-Lou, it’s a very simple foundation Serge Benhayon has presented to ask if every choice is self-loving or not based on the connection to our body and inner-most heart. It’s also a beautiful way to live responsibly.
Thank you Mary-Lou for this fantastic article on self-care. What I especially love is the way that you describe it as being something fluid which can change and evolve with us as we grow and change.
I know for myself that the simple act like cleaning my teeth daily became an act of self care because there was a time as a child when I didn’t clean them everyday and was in resistance to doing it . As I got older I became more aware that it made sense to look after my teeth, and so cleaning my teeth was no longer a chore but a move towards self care. Today I take much more care of my body than I ever used to but there are still pockets of disregard that show up as I continually evolve and deepen the choices I make towards self -care
So lovely to read as I do recognise a lot in what you share here Mary-Lou. We think we take care for ourselves from our head but at the end it seems to not be it. It is from the love we build in our body that true care arises, as this love does not allow, or will even makes it impossible to bring harm to the body in the ways I have done in the past I have found. When my mind thinks to like a certain type of food still, my body is clear and simply says no.
I used to look at every new diet or health fad and listen to others who had found something that they thought was great and do it myself, even when I would feel worse for doing it. There is still a million and one ideas out there on what is healthy and what is not but the best proof or knowing if something is right for me or not is my body. And my body loves being listened too and gee have I saved money too!
It is true Aimee that the world is awash with different ideas both in the conventional medical world and the complementary health self help world on what is good for us and what is not. Faced with this tidal wave of conflicting information many people understandably give up on self care altogether. However making it about listening to your own body and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly makes it very simple.
This reminds me of a time when I would go on crazy fasts and avoid food and only drink water, lemon and cayenne pepper… little did I know at the time that when you starve your body, one of the first places it takes fat from to produce energy is from the lining of the heart. Now why would you want to do that… I look back and think of all the crazy things I did, thinking it was healthy and that I was caring for myself and realise I was really just abusing myself.
My goodness I didn’t know that! Thanks for sharing Rosie. It does make sense that an unloving act and choice affects the heart.
Yes, you can look at it that way too… there is the physical aspect as well as the energetic consequence too.
Thank you Mary-Lou, I can feel in reading your words how you have built this great knowing inside you – a beautiful relationship with what is true. And absolutely, if we make a mistake or start to see something wasn’t what we thought it was – isn’t this actually great? It seems to me bashing ourselves up, is like focusing on the wrapping paper you don’t like and missing the real present given inside.
Thank you Joseph, your gift analogy is a beautiful way to describe embracing and going deeper with what’s on offer in our daily experiences.
Love the analogy, Joseph, also we can miss the present by being so enthralled by the attractiveness of the paper we get caught in the illusion that it is the present. When we discover the real truth of something it is a great learning and opportunity to evolve.
What a gorgeous analogy, Joseph …. and so true. I have learnt way more from my ‘mistakes’ than when everything is going well. Rather than mis-take, maybe the word should be gift-take – as that is exactly what it is, an opportunity to grow, become more aware and learn from what has happened, which in turn prevents us from taking the same path again.
I love your analogy Joseph, reminding us to appreciate the gift within us and not just focus on the outer layer.
Great analogy, Joseph, encouraging us to see the gift within all packages of learning.
There are many ways to do self-care and a huge number of recommendations from governments, books, family and many others. I found the best way is listening to the body together with an understanding of how the body works, i.e. medical knowledge. The combination has worked really well.
Sure Christoph, it is in rebuilding the connection with our body from the many angles that are available to us. So indeed listening to it, together with the medical understanding helps enormously in how to care and nourish the body in keeping it healthy and in support of our being
Imagine to awaken on this planet and have no preconceived ideas of what it means to be healthy, to live in care and regard for self would be a very healthy place. Because there is no doubt the influences that come to bear on what we choose as healthy are clouded by the ideals of society and heavily influenced by vested interests. There can be nothing more powerful than responding to our own body, taking stock of what we feel works, and recognising that nothing stands still, our self care is forever moving in terms of what we need for optimal wellbeing.
Transformational Mary-Lou what the true gentleness of the breath can bring forth – a new and vital way of being, living, working that makes a more true quality of life.
What is inspiring about your blog Mary-Lou is the recognition that self-care is different for every person, and can vary at different times for each of us too… there is no ‘one size fits all’ – we each have our own journey in life, we are all unique but part of the whole at the same time.
Yes Paula, I agree that self-care is very personal to each one of us and it’s super cool to see how it changes according to different stages of our lives.
I absolutely agree, its different for everyone.
A beautiful sharing Mary-Lou… it is very powerful when we connect to our bodies and what they are offering us – our body’s wisdom knows what is loving and what is not… and all we have to do is respect and honour this – and our life transforms as a result.
A love the word respect and applying it to our bodies can be really transformative… no more disregard, simply a respectful listening relationship with our greatest guide and support.
Indeed Matilda, our bodies are our best friends – they are with us 24/7 and always communicating with us.
Our bodies do so much to heal us without us even trying, when we respect and support our body by listening to its messages our bodies become a beautiful guide instead of the enemy.
Self-care is at different levels for each of us. When I was a child and up until about a year ago I never liked and ate very little animal fat trimming it off meat before cooking it, but then I read that a certain amount of animal fat was good for you and I began to eat it and really began to enjoy it. Recently I had a blood test, which included having my cholesterol levels measured and for the first time in my life my cholesterol levels were high. For me this was revealing how always to listen to my body for despite what may be good for others isn’t necessarily good for me. On the other hand other things that I used to really enjoy I no longer eat because I can feel the effects they now have on my body. For me I realise it is so very important not to let my mind and my taste buds dictate to me what is good, it is how I feel in my body that speaks to me very loud and clear when something doesn’t suit me any more, whether that is through food or any other of my movements. This is and will always be a continuous progression of refining and evolving. The body doesn’t lie and the main thing is to be honest with what we feel from the effects of what we are choosing, for what sits well in our body today may not tomorrow.
My self care was non existent when I first started attending Universal Medicine courses. I didn’t wear shoes, I rushed my showers, I didn’t put cream on my face, let alone my body and the list goes on… today that is totally the opposite… I love wearing shoes and protecting my feet, I enjoy taking a shower not just to get clean but to have a moment for myself and enjoy the warm water on my body. I put cream on my face daily… but still can be a bit slack with taking the time for my whole body…. still need a bit of care there. As I become more aware of my body, the way I care for myself changes. I still get to caught up in being busy and put myself at the bottom of the to do list, but that is work in progress.
Our willingness to self-care lies very much in our sense of self-worth and is dependant thereafter on the relationship we have with our body.
When we connect to the love we hold within it becomes natural for once abusive behaviour to drop away without any trying on our part, just a realisation and a choice, to be more self caring.
Deeply inspiring blog Mary-Lou Reed, what a beautiful sharing of your relationship with your care for yourself.
I appreciated that you could look back on your previous ‘self-care’ choices and realised that they no longer support and with no self-bashing, or self-regulation, let them go, and then move onto the next deepening level of self-care for you. Only we know our bodies so well, and can know what is right for us at any given time.
Life is definitely about refining, I often notice this will happen quite naturally with something dropping away and something else coming in to support the phase of your life at that time.
Awesome. Evolution at work. People think it only happens in according to Darwin, but clearly we can evolve too as you have proven. And further, we can redefine and refine what we deem ‘healthy’.
Our relationship with self-care reflects the level of love we are able to live at any given point.
‘As the connection with ourselves deepens, certain things or behaviours do not match where we are at and can no longer be considered true ‘self-care.’’ The natural dropping away of that which is no longer needed is an aspect of the ever-evolving self-care journey that I particularly love. As you say Mary-Lou when you’re ready to let something go, it happens simply and sustainably. When it comes from an ideal, we can end up oscillating between asceticism and indulgence for years.
This is such a great question to ask ourselves “is our level of self care initiated to counter balance the level of disregard I also am choosing to live?” This was absolutely the case for me for many years. Until I was lovingly shown by way of reflection by presentations from Universal Medicine what true self care might look and feel like.
A wonderful reminder Mary-Lou that true self care starts with reconnecting to our body and making loving choices based on what our body is communicating to us.
This is a great example of how self care can and does develop when we allow our bodies to tell us what they need and equally don’t need. When we are so tuned in, true self care requires a constant refining.
What we called self-care 10 years ago may not be the same now. This is very true for me and is an indication of how I am evolving and making different choices based on a deepening relationship with my body.
What I am inspired by in your blog is you continued commitment. It’s a process and it takes time for us to evolve out of our old momentums and patterns so to read about the way in which you kept deepening and exploring and learning is super cool. You were listening to what your body was telling you; of course you may have made some wrong turns and of course we all sometimes need to be told things more than once before we hear them (I’ve been told things by my body dozens of times and still not listened!), but it’s super cool of you to keep on truckin’.
The first stage of true self-care is agreeing to listen to our bodies.
And the second stage for me has been to respond lovingly, gently and consistently. To build a foundation that my body can trust that I’m turning up with a quality and integrity that matches the exquisiteness of my innate essence.
I love the way you phrase this. It illustrates the truth that the exquisiteness is already there and all we need to do is build a body and rhythm that let’s it pour out. Noting more complicated than that.
Yes, even considering that choice is a great step forward.
This is the thing. Totally agree. The biggest hurdle that humanity faces is that very first one; dropping the super-thick veil of illusion that we are all under and seeing that there is another way. We are living a lie; accept that and the rest is easy.
What a beautiful blog about the natural process of eating, drinking and our bodies reactions to such behaviours we once termed as normal. It’s so beautiful that you have shared exactly what you have because others will read and be inspired to see the same.
“..I found that I could self-care from love – the love I have for myself – rather than from ideals. Therefore the changes became sustainable without trying or disciplining myself…” Once you discover the connection and feel that quality of love, you are right, self care is not a trying, ticking boxes schedule practice, it becomes a living relationship of love with yourself. Great blog Mary Lou!
The basics of self car are no longer enough – self care is a growing awareness that never stops.
Brilliant blog on Self Care Mary Lou, its great to read how you describe the fact that self care evolves, that the activities of self care are not a rigid, fixed ritual, but that they evolve as we deepen our relationship with ourselves.
Thank you Mary-Lou. I love it that you included ‘not beating yourself up’ in your self-care ‘regimen’, this is so important. Recognising that something we have chosen is not self-loving is one thing, but ‘abusing’ ourselves for it is another. I have come a long way in dropping the self-abuse and flagellation…and it is a wonderful and loving way of being with myself.
‘As time moved on I became committed to certain self-care practices that I lived religiously, like drinking a fresh fruit and vegetable juice every morning, practising strong yoga poses every day, and drinking lots of water.’ These thing we do can become a trap if we see the ‘doing’ as the answer, for nurturing is a quality first and foremost.
I notice that the more aware I become and the more willing to feel, the more I refine different aspects of my life. I might try to continue to get away with these outdated ways but my body eventually makes its point so clearly, that it is too much to continue that way, and change happens. Other times it is an easier transition, but what I definitely notice is that what gets shown is that what’s truly self-loving is what moves me away from the ‘norm’.
I loved reading this blog – the simplicity and clarity of the practical steps that naturally re-built a deeper level of self care are inspiring and expose perfection as being an unnecessary stress in our daily life.
There are definitely things I do that are self-caring. What and how I eat, my exercise levels, staying warm, having a massage. But looking at self care at this level is limited. When we add the quality of how we do all that we do, that changes everything. All of a sudden every single thing that we do, even opening a door, can be self-caring. This moves the gold posts and shows that self care is actually available to us in every moment. And from experience the more enjoyable every moment in life becomes.
I agree that self care is constantly evolving and deepening. Honoring this and adjusting to support myself as I evolve is very affirming of not only the fact of soul, but also the fact of having lived so far away from the souls beauty that self care was and is needed to remind me of its deep seated, unwavering way.
A great point you raise here Mary-Lou — What are our standards? If we keep our markers static from the past then we can settle for less than who we are because we are doing “better than before”. If we are inspired by our journey thus far and read our potential, and live to that, then it’s a whole different ball game.
Self care is a response to the body’s needs not a tick list of activities. This wisdom that has been brought to my awareness by Universal Medicine is life-changing and gives us the space to feel what we need in any given moment instead of the strait-jacket of expectations a list of supposedly self caring activities imprisons us in.
As we become more aware of what we feel, what is going on within and how that effects everything around us, the less we can get away with sabotaging or trying to avoid that awareness – thus our lifestyle continually needs to be evaluated.
It is interesting that what we see as self care one day can change into something else, and it feels important to give ourselves the space to allow for what ever is next to change – I say this because for years I would stay with the same practices i.e yoga, and would swear by it, and yet now I can see that the poses I was doing caused a lot of discomfort and pain in the name of being healthy. Also on the same lines was being a vegetarian – I became a very unhealthy vegetarian and yet would swear by its health benefits – now I would say it was abuse. So being open to look at all of our beliefs around what is supporting us, and just maybe what is not is a great place to start.
When we find ourselves reaching for a food we have not had for a while is this because our body needs it or because we are avoiding the responsibility of our new found level of care?
I have learned that self-care cannot come from the mind, as the mind has very little regard for the body. Self-care comes from what unfolds when we choose to reconnect to our wonderful body, then we can feel what it is asking for, and as we commit more to deepening our connection with ourselves so does the level of self-care being asked for deepen. It is a most natural progression with our body’s wisdom leading the way.
‘self care cannot come from the mind’ This is gold Ingrid. Our body is the master of what it needs and so to listen to anything other than the body is to be imposing our best guess on that which knows absolutely what it needs.
Really brilliant blog Mary-Lou. You remind me that there is no care or responsibility in following ‘rules’. All we need to do is listen to our bodies. We don’t need to push ourselves or make things difficult.
That is really key to not follow rules but to let our way of living evolve from what our bodies want for support. Rather than what the mind wants from its desires!
‘as my level of ‘self-care’ deepened, what was considered self-care a few years ago I can now feel as disregard’ – great point, Mary-Lou, it’s so awesome to be aware of this. We are always being pulled to be more of who we truly are, therefore, we are either resisting this loving pull, or continuously expanding and evolving – nothing stays the same, we are creating new markers of love all the time …..
I have found the level of self-care I apply, constantly changes as I change and develop.
I love how you share the way that you care for yourself has evolved and continues to evolve – that it’s not a static thing with an end point but more a continual refinement.
Exactly Fiona. And reading the blog reminded how important it is to appreciate every step along the day, something that I can take for granted sometimes.
I love how self care is a continued exploration throughout our lives and is an evolutionary path of movements that shifts and changes as we do. A great blog thank you Mary-Lou.
This is a wonderfully simple principle to live by, Mary-Lou – “As the connection with ourselves deepens, certain things or behaviours do not match where we are at and can no longer be considered true ‘self-care.’” I love how you have shared the ongoing refinement process in different areas of your life, in terms of what feels truly supportive for you and your body from one day to the next.
It is a progression of refining self-care. And the things I struggle with today may not be a stuggle in a years time. Beating myself up for where I stand now doesn’t take into account that everything is moving and can change course. And sometimes the struggles and pains of life come up because I am caring for myself more and being asked to continue deepening this care. So really giving myself a hard time isn’t worth it.
We have millions of different versions of what ‘care’ means across the globe, but what stands out from so many of these is that we aim for the bare minimum/lowest marker of ‘getting away with it’, or even just looking ‘good’, without refining our care to be the most loving and respectful quality we can make it to be.
I feel this is very true. “Care” is currently thought of as just that which is needed to get by. It is not considered by most to be the bridge to evolution. Until we see it that way, self-care will never deepen to what is needed and will only ever just be window dressing.
As we develop and evolve our foundation for what self-care is, is constantly being reset, but this foundation always needs to be re-visited and refined. What I used to call self-care I would actually now call abusive but that is only because I am now living a level of love that no longer sustains certain behaviours. There is no judgment here just an acceptance that nothing is fixed and that where I am at currently may be abusive for others who are more evolved or inspiring for others yet to arrive at the point at which I find myself. I understand that I am on my own journey with this and is not helpful to compare where I am at with others – just to know that if I honour myself and my body I will continue to grow in awareness of the levels of what is loving and what is not.
Sometimes we can think something is self-care, like taking a bath, when really it would be more caring and loving to go to bed or to go for a walk. So i guess it is also letting go of the stereotypes and pictures of self-care and instead start to listen, honour and respond to what is truly self-caring for us within.
I love the constant refinement we can do with self care as an example, but this can be applied to many things in life in the same way. It is great not to be standing still but to be forever developing as you describe Mary-Lou.
A great blog Mary-Lou. I’m sure we can all relate to this in one way or another. I love the deepening awareness you have described, and how you have demonstrated that it takes time to make true changes from the wisdom of our own body, rather than deciding from our heads what is right and what is wrong. A very different way of making choices and initiating change.
I can so relate to what you are sharing in this blog. I used to think 2 hours of yoga a day was self –caring, now I consider it to be very self abusive. When I stopped eating wheat and diary and ate gluten and diary free chocolate mud cake and chocolate mouse, I considered this, at the time, self caring ( and it was super yummy!!!) again this would be very abusive if I was to eat either now. I have learnt that self care is a continuous adjustment, what may be caring one moment may not be the next.
I have imposed many so-called self-caring ideals on my body over the years but it was only when I started to truly connect with my body as a result of practising the Gentle Breath Meditation that I was able to sustain changes and support my body in ways that have evolved as I have become more open to the dialogue with my body and what would support it.
Thank you Mary-Lou, it is important to look at what true self care is because as you say it is a phrase which is talked about alot in todays world. I know self care for me used to be a tick box exercise, as in Ive done x and y and z so I must be looking after myself but what Ive come to learn is it is forever changing and when I do not connect and follow through with my body I am no longer caring for myself but simply functioning.
Many associate self care with an allievation of tension. There is tension in all of us especially when we are not living who we truly are. Therefore true self care is not an allievation of tension per se as it many allow us to feel even more of the tension, but something that invites and supports the deep surrender to the love we truly are.
“What really has helped me is the awareness that there is no in-between. Every choice is either from Love or not from love.” So true and when I have tried to make it about the in between my body shows me loudly and clearly.
“To come from the exhausted, emotional, non-committed place I was at in my body and my life, thinking I was ‘self-caring,’ to the place I am at now, has been a health revelation that speaks for itself.” And an everyday miracle, as many others of us are also finding when we apply self-care and self-loving from the body.
What you illustrate beautifully here is that life is about learning and deepening. And that with every move more we make we can find out more about ourselves and refine and adjust our way of living.
Beautifully said Esther – learning from the body is a Joy!
“There is no perfection. I do not beat myself up when I make non-loving choices but instead just feel the consequences of that choice and look at ‘why’ I chose something ‘less than love.’ This is so important as beating ourselves up just adds to the poison in our body. Saying ‘oops’ is the name of the game – and not repeating the behaviour. .
I agree with you Mary-Lou when you say
“So ‘self-care’ can never be about a set of rules and regulations that are fixed, because as we evolve and live with more clarity, we can feel the effects of all of our choices as they naturally change or drop away as we deepen the quality of our life.”
And I have also noticed that what suits one person doesn’t suit another so that there should be no comparison, no should do’s and should not do’s. This comes from knowledge and not from the body.
The journey of letting go of caffeine is one many of us have been on in varying ways: decaffeinated coffee, barley cup, herbal teas, warm water. When it is a gradual weaning process it is easier to embody the changes, whereas if we make a rule for ourselves and try to stick to it with willpower, unless we are very strong-willed, most of us are doomed to fail. Making different lifestyle choices has to come from inside.
It’s amazing how the care we have for ourselves is always refining, as you say the more we fall in love with ourselves the more that care becomes natural part of daily life, and what worked last week, or yesterday may need a different approach today.
Thank you Mary Lou, and so true. The more we connect with our body, our tender grace and beauty, the more we are empowered to choose to lovingly look after our selves and in doing so, expose the quality of our previous choices. 11 years ago I thought that I looked after myself very well, but via the Gentle Breath Meditation, have come to realise just how off the scale that way of life was. What I have come to appreciate is that our bodies are so incredibly sensitive that drinking coffee is like a terrorist attack on our hormone system. Heaven knows what else my body has had to endure from all the other poisons I have pumped through it. Not only it is a miracle that I am still alive, it is an even greater one that today thanks to meeting Serge Benhayon, I feel immensely well, vital and committed to life as a consequence of honouring the simple things that cherish and honour my body to the hilt.
I have found that what I used to think was self care now is just something I do and it would be disregarding to myself not to do it. Like going to the gym, my daily stretches and walks, making sure I am hydrated enough, eating well etc, etc. When we start with love as our marker then anything less than love is seen as abuse, whereas when we start from a place of despair and destruction then anything away from this is considered better. What I love about starting with the fact that we are love is that we are continually being asked to deepen back to what we already know so do not need to stress out or try to attain anything just simply and naturally do what is there to be done. And boy oh boy does the body show us when we ask it to!
Lovingly building an open, self reflective dialogue with oneself is extraordinarily empowering, our inbuilt potential to support our own vitality and wellbeing is gigantic, with mounting rates of illness and disease humanity will soon realise we are no victims of circumstance we are true players of choice.
Being disciplined is often mistaken for self care. Discipline is required to be self-loving but following a discipline because we believe it to be beneficial rather than it being nurturing is an imposition of an ideal and to do that is not caring or loving.
Love your blog Mary-Lou. It is beautiful how you allowed yourself to naturally flow from a strong coffee to now only tow cups of hot water in the morning. It sounds like a ver natural process and going of something that is harming to us in this way does allow us to stay loving with ourselves. Going ‘cold-turkey’ can be quite a challenging process and can cause quite a lot of distress if it is done only from and ideal or belief.
Mary-Lou, I can relate to what you are sharing about what we used to think of of as self care actually now feeling like abuse, I used to drink lots of orange juice because I had the idea it was good for me; practice a very hard core form of yoga where I would push my body into uncomfortable positions; I would push myself cycling thinking I was being fit and healthy – all of this at the time I thought was me being healthy, whereas now pushing my body in this way feels really unloving. I now love being gentle with myself and listening to my body and not pushing it like I previously did and I’m sure this gentleness and tenderness will continue to deepen,
I used to think that self-care was something that I had to ‘do’ but now I find it is more how I am with myself in every move I make.
“From my experience there are many different understandings and levels of self- care.” Serge Benhayon started to present on how words can have many meanings and I never truly understood that, yet what comes to me, more and more, is the truth of that, the fact that every word is currently out there in society with so many different angles on it that we have lost the truth of these words. The more I start to look at truth the more I see that words are being used so against their truth. Self Care is one such word has been taken to mean something far different from what it truly is, for many the answer to self care may actually be very unloving.
The beauty of self care is its evolution forever deepening our awareness love and care for ourselves naturally when we commit to being the love we innately are. The changes are subtle and gradually made from our bodies in all areas of our lives as is shared here in the details so simply with every choice being loving or not at that moment of where we are at.
Self-care is a world that is a bit tricky because we can fit so much in it that is not true but fed by means of images. We can say that eating whole grain bread is caring for ourselves instead of one made by white-refined flour. We can also say that we care for ourselves because we only buy organic wine or coffee. Or that we buy tobacco to roll up our own cigarettes. By the same token, we can say that we care for ourselves and that is why we run everyday for an hour. Etc. These possibilities/options made in the name of self-care, reveal that there is no clarity regarding what self-care truly is. In Spanish we did not translate it for ‘autocuidado’ (a literal translation of self care) but ‘cuidado del Ser’ (taking care of our Being). Our way of using the expression brings body awareness to the fore and tells us clearly that we are responsible to feel into the true consequences of our choices for us in a way that does not leave any piece of the puzzle outside. If the organic/whole grain bread still produce constipation, perhaps, this is telling me something that I would rather not look at but I have no other choice. Self-care cannot but be a door for true well-being.
Thank you for sharing this translation Eduardo – ‘taking care of our being’ feels awesome – as I read the words there is a deeper level of awareness of what true self care is.
” ‘cuidado del Ser’ (taking care of our Being). Our way of using the expression brings body awareness to the fore and tells us clearly that we are responsible to feel into the true consequences of our choices for us in a way that does not leave any piece of the puzzle outside”.
It is obvious how different self care is, when it is done from the body instead of the mind following instructions.
“…my level of ‘self-care’ deepened, what was considered self-care a few years ago I can now feel as disregard. ”
I like the simplicity in your sharing and how easy it is to support the body in getting deeper with self care.
Living from ideals of how things should be and what we should eat and not eat leads to rigidity and does not allow us to keep pace with the changing needs of our body when, given half a chance, asks us to discern evermore and refine continually what we put into it.
Very true, Gabriele, as self-care requires constant discernment as to what is required in the moment rather than endeavouring to fulfill an ideal.
Thank you Mary-Lou, I can relate to a lot of what you have presented here. How many of us have become ensnared in the trap of living life according to set ideals and pictures we are fed and that we willingly consume by way of chasing that allusive image ‘out there’ rather than simply reconnecting to ourselves in a very simple, honest, genuine and caring way and allowing the love within us to guide us forth?
It is an important point you make that.. “‘self-care’ can never be about a set of rules and regulations that are fixed”. Our relationship with our own bodies and what is true for us and our development requires an honouring from the body.
Caring for ourselves is an ever changing process. This makes complete sense if we are committed to growing and evolving. As what works for us one can easily slip into becoming a comfort if we are not prepared to refine our ways.
Thank you for this amazing blog, Mary-Lou. I too ‘tried’ to give up things, especially certain foods, from a place of discipline rather than love -and I used to pride myself on how disciplined I was! Of course it never worked long term. I find now that if I start slowly, by first cutting down on things, then gradually over time they fall away. But if I go back to ‘trying’ I am back on the Ferris wheel going round and round in a cycle of cycle of giving up/going back…which is also a cycle of beating myself up/going for comfort…
Time to jump off that Ferris wheel and feel the freedom of doing so!
This is a great point…self discipline vs self love. One will always guide you on your true path rather than the path you desire.
Self care can never be a set of rules as what is self care for us at one time may be self abuse at another time. Self-care is an evolving process so as we evolve so too does our practice of self care.
The moment self care becomes a set of rules then it is no longer self care or let alone loving. And as you say the more we deepen the level of love with ourselves the more we need to honour and respect this level of love.
Great point Elizabeth. I have found that when I made rules about certain aspects of my self-care, it capped me from moving on to the next level of self care and also became almost like an excuse to not take the time to feel into my choices from my body in the first place (where true intelligence comes from anyways) and instead I was living from some ideal or belief. This is really limiting our development and many times lead to me breaking the ‘rules’ as those choices did not come from my body but my head.
A very relatable explanation of what self care can mean to us all. What is self care for one is different for another, as we are all different in what we need and where we are in our lives. It is really interesting to observe behaviours drop away, often unnoticed until we look back and see how much has changed. So true also Mary-Lou that the foundations we build make all the difference to the next choices we make.
Thank you for this extensive exploration of what self-care is, and the fact it requires constant refining to remain self-care and not become self-abuse. Even just to say that sounds crazy but once reading your blog, this makes perfect sense.
It makes so much sense to connect with our inner most and make self loving choices from there rather than following rules or regimes blindly without considering what is right for us.
Everything in this world is constantly in motion. So what makes us think that we can make fixed rules and regulations that we stick to through thick and thin? I can see from what you share here Mary-Lou that it gives us a great comfort to think these things are always there or that they operate like a sequential chain. But what I feel today is there’s nothing in this world we need to do accept for make our movements about Love and keep feeling what’s true to do.
I really enjoyed reading this blog and clearly seeing the difference between self-care that comes from love and discipline, habits or ideals posing as self-care. You are absolutely right that it can only come from love or ‘not love’ and although we may be able to fool ourselves, our body instantly knows the difference.
What an incredible article on self-care, Mary-Lou, thank you. I love how you take us through your journey and share on a very practical level what supported you in your ever-deepening development with self-care and the letting go of things that no longer supported you.
I love the practicality of this blog in naming how we can be sold an image of what self care in the masses taking on board a new wave of eating, exercising and living that may be sold as the ideal but our body registers something different.
I love that in deepening the connection to ourselves, the unloving behaviours seem to fall away naturally… exposing the disconnection that abounds in society in light of all the unloving behaviours we turn to to cope. It is deeply beautiful that we need not focus on the behaviours but rather just on connecting to and loving ourselves…for the choices we make from there will guide us to what is true.
I so agree there is no perfection. The way we care for ourselves just shows what value we are choosing to live by, and especially when I slip and allow something less than loving in the way I care for myself, it is just showing what is going on in the rest of my life. “Connect to yourself, your innermost self and feel the love that you are – that we all already are – and with every choice, ask if it is a ‘self-loving’ choice OR not” – so simple.
A great reminder of our need to review our self-care rituals and listen to our bodies and Looking out for the subtle changes we need to make.
I more use to do or have an idea of good and bad things to do with my body. So I use to try and do more good things for myself then bad and if a day when to far one way then I would compensate the next day. For example if I over did the bad then I would be extra good the next and if I over did the good then I could spoil myself the next day. This was how life was, I thought it to be normal when I looked across my world. It wasn’t until a true self care was introduced to me that more things made sense and in place of trying to balance good and bad along came simply the truth of how I was feeling. In this article it was described as a flexibility to feel each moment and allow things to go that you truly feel no longer support you. When a living and naturally flexible self care approach was applied or walked in my life a number of things didn’t make sense and actually some wiped me out of life for days. I didn’t stop these things, they just no longer made any sense to how I was feeling and so they just dropped away. It wasn’t a choice of having them or not, it just didn’t make sense in my life and so it’s like it no longer exists.
That difference between wanting to stop some pattern of behaviour, as opposed to it dropping away because of the connection we can build to how we are truly feeling. That is huge – its chalk and cheese, and one way works very simply and effectively, the other (in my experience) just has me playing a game with myself where I often end up feeling bad for not being able to ‘stop’
Very true and you ‘out live’ things, whether it be behaviours, patterns or anything really. The feeling becomes the only voice and in that anything that doesn’t match that true feeling or disrupts, interrupts or brings it down falls away. It’s not a choice of doing or having or not it all comes back to a feeling and as is said if it doesn’t match the great feeling you live with then it’s no longer for you.
What a conformation, that until we get to the root cause of our lack of self-care, we simply look for replacements as I did in the past, until it was felt in my body.
I too had a similar path to yours, thinking I was healthy and realising that it was not really and over the past 8 years I have let go of more and more behaviours and refined my self care. I used to have the coffee, then the chai etc… these days, no coffee, no sweeteners, no milk just a herbal tea is great for me and I can actually taste the sweetness of liquorice tea for example. Same with foods, as I have become more aware of the food I eat and how it affects me, I have made quite a lot of changes and my body can’t tolerate pizza or greasy salty foods anymore as it just leaves me feeling sick.
There is a natural and beautiful flow to what you have shared here Mary Lou and being open to expanding what is true is at the core of this. Our body is communicating with us all the time from a deep well of never-ending wisdom, never imposing but waiting patiently for our re-connection to this to strengthen, reflect and confirm us. Returning to who we truly are can be a gentle process as you have described or for another it may be to just jump in or another it maybe to engage ‘Delay’ but whatever one chooses the love we are is never extinguished and always waiting to embrace us.
You have shared much here to discuss and contemplate. The first one being what does self-care even mean to us? Great place to start.
Its always good to question ourselves and feel if what we have done in the past, that suited us well at that time, is still the supportive thing to do according to where you are now. Life is constantly evolving – hence we can not sit still and continue the same, we have to refine all things in our life.
Self-care from love rather than ideals is turning the one’s world on its head, or rather putting it right-side-up.
Mary-Lou than you for such a wonderful and wise understand of the true evolution of self-care. It is a forever expanding and deepening awareness that is always being presented from our body. When approached with love, tenderness it can naturally unfold what is next and is super simple. It is only when the ideals and beliefs that are held in the mind that any resistance to the bodies choice can be felt. Then we might introduce complication to justify staying stuck in discipline.
I used to treat myself roughly, there was very little self care apart from the basics. My relationship with self-care has altered alot over the years and I completely get the fact that what can seem like care can actually feel like abuse as we deepen our awareness. There are many example for this, be it food, drink, warmth, preparation, space, how I move. I am forever deepening my relationship with self-care and observing what my body shares.
I see the self abuse now of how are used to self care many years ago, by approaching it as needing to fix myself because I didn’t feel good enough.
And it’s a natural progression. It’s awesome to be able to look back and see how we change over time, how what used to support us, no longer does and how we are continually refining our way of life.
I agree Elodie, Mary-Lou well describes the bodies deep knowing of how to support its true vitality for each and every cycle.
There are varying levels of self-care, and this will always be the case – the deeper we go in deeply loving ourselves, the deeper our self-care becomes as well. Not bashing ourselves and hurling self-critique is pretty foundational – otherwise we can lap up the assumed self-caring actions while we poison ourselves with destructive thoughts.
So true Katerina, I find it interesting how many people including myself don’t understand what self-care really means. I do now and I am appreciating my level of self-care may be different to others and that self-care is something to develop and refine. Also, to be aware that the energy in how I care for myself does matter greatly.
Thank you Mary-Lou for this great reminder of self care, listening to the body but also the fact that there is no perfection. That we are here to learn and hence mistakes are not mistakes so long as we turn them into learnings!
The Gentle Breath Meditation is very powerful in awakening our ability to listen to the body and hear its communications which are very often based on self care and how to deepen this for ourselves. When we listen to the body the next steps are given by the body as to what is needed. This is a phenomenal form of intelligence that we all have access to any time that we should choose it. Now the challenge for us is to listen to this and heed its call, and then from there learn if we have heard the pure voice of the body or a muffled version we have tuned into! 😉