Are You Practicing Self-Care or Self-Sabotage?

I came across an article on self-care recently that made me want to stand up and scream “HELL YES.”

As the author Brianna Wiest so beautifully expressed, “self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life that you don’t regularly need to escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others.

It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

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(Okay, I’m seriously standing and screaming “HELL YES” at this point.)

Her article reminded me of a point in my 20’s when all I wanted to do was escape.

Escape the job.

Escape my unhealthy relationships with men.

Escape my dwindling bank account.

Escape anything that didn’t feel positive and good.

I’d escape through self-sabotage like that third glass of wine, a trip I couldn’t afford, toxic friends, or avoiding what wasn’t working in my life.

It took me thirty pounds and a panic attack to realize that I was creating a life I didn’t want to live in, and it was time to make a different choice. (Tweet this.)

That new choice was to own and face every decision I had made up until that point (without shaming or blaming myself) by understanding WHY I had made them.

I realized:

I chose the job for security, not purpose or heart.

I chose unhealthy relationships with men because I had unresolved stories about being abandoned.

I chose to ignore my bank account because I made the number a reflection of my self-worth.

I grasped for the positive as a way to convince myself that life was good and fine and totally working out.

As I got to the root of WHY I was making these choices, a whole new world of possibility opened up. I realized I could make different choices. More intentional ones. Ones that supported my long-term dreams and well-being.

You can, too.

This is a lifelong journey, of course. And it all begins when we choose to face the thing that seems oh-so-scary. When we choose to look ourselves in the mirror, and ask:

What am I avoiding, and why? And how can I face myself today?

Face yourself. Embrace yourself. Love yourself through the process.

That, my friend, is the ultimate form of self-care.

xo
Amber

p.s. Where is self-sabotage masquerading as self-care in your life? Join us in the Wonder Tribe and share your story.

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