nimishaHow many times have you heard that you should spend time on self-care? Lost count, eh?
Okay, next question – what do you recall when you listen to the word ‘self-care’?
Spa day? Skin Care? Shopping?
Oh yes, all of those influencers, all those advertisements, all those articles – they urge us to spend time getting a nice hot water bath with scented candles, or visit a salon or try out night care/daycare creams because we are worth it. Because when we get a break, our skin should glow. Some of them even tell us to watch our weight and spend time post-office in the gym. I think I have even seen a wax-strip ad about self-care. To sum it up, everyone tells us to work on our physical beauty. Some are a little more creative and ask us to pamper ourselves with a glass of wine and/or travel.
Why?
Because they got to sell their products, and the best way to do so is to feed us the narrative we want to hear.
There are dozens of articles on self-care routines, starting from meditating daily to eating right, from saying no to people to saying yes to social life, from getting organized to getting a pet, from scheduling every day to reading a book on self-care (I am not making this up! You can google it!).
I am not saying that they all are wrong (except that skincare is not self-care; so stop marketing skincare products that way!). Some of these might even work for someone. Someone else might not want to do any of it. To each its own.
But do you ever feel, ‘Oh shit! I didn’t do ‘self-care’ today! Like I could have, I should have, but I just didn’t find time’? Or do you ever see someone’s self-care post on Instagram and feel envious of their lives?
I have observed is that there is a new pressure for taking care of ourselves. With people posting about it on their social media, to giving seminars on it, to even organizing paid workshops for it; I think it’s blown out of proportion.
It’s an added task on a to-do list. It is almost as hyped as passion. It is being oversold.
Things such as meditation and sleeping on time need to become a part of our lifestyles. Yes, it is for taking care of oneself, but it’s not something to be made a big deal out of. It should become more like brushing our teeth after waking up. No need to hashtag #selfcare for something so obvious. No need to see if other people loved it or not. No need to feel left out if we didn’t visit the spa this month or we didn’t try the new sheet face mask.
If reading a book brings us joy, then by all means we should do it. But should we let companies take advantage of our choice by selling it back to us as self-care?
Yes, we need to take care of our own self. And we need to do whatever makes us happy. But that should truly relax our mind and rejuvenate our soul, not make us more anxious.
We don’t need such innovative ways to burden our selves with. We don’t need to add another task to the many that we are already juggling with.
This kind of self-care being sold to us needs to stop, now!
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