Ellie Curry - Journey to Self Care
I remember standing there in front of the mirror, wishing for a different outcome. I had struggled with acne since I was thirteen, and it was something I beat myself up over constantly. At this point in my life I had not yet heard about the concept of self care. It wasn’t even apart of my vocabulary, I was just trying to make it every day without breaking down.
Self care has become a big buzzword over the past couple of years, but what does taking care of yourself actually mean? Do I really have to take care of myself? Do I even have the energy to take care of myself?
What Is Self Care
There is an assumption of self care that it means to “treat yourself.” However, I take a different approach to self care. Self care is learning how to love yourself. It is learning how to become your own parent. It is learning how to tend to your needs.
In the beginning for me that meant actually taking the time to wash my face, even though I didn’t feel like it. It meant learning how to treat myself and my body with respect, even if I didn’t love my body or how I looked. It goes deeper then getting a massage or going for a jog. It is about how you talk to yourself. It is about becoming your own best friend.
How To Start Taking Care of Yourself
Flashing back to standing in front of the mirror. I knew something needed to change. I had horrible habits that were destructive to my self care. It was a time in my life that I was miserable and the thought of taking care of myself was laughable. Maybe you can relate, maybe you are at a point in life where it is overwhelming. Here is how I started to take care of myself.
Pick One Small Thing: Start with something small. Maybe it is putting one dish in the sink everytime you walk by. Maybe it is washing your face at night. Maybe it is making sure the gym bag is packed. Then I celebrate that moment as if I achieved my goal.
This is how I got myself to start going to the gym. For a whole month packing my gym bag was succeeding at going to the gym. This taught me two things, it got me comfortable with starting something new, and it taught me how to celebrate my life.
Where Do I Feel Deprived: The next step after starting with one thing and building momentum was to build awareness in the other areas of my life. When I was starting on my self care journey I needed to learn about where I was feeling deprived. This is where I started monitoring my mind. I started to become aware of the thoughts that were driving my negative actions. I started to understand where I was not respecting myself, and how horribly I was talking to myself.
Compassion is your way through. Learning compassion is one of the greatest gifts I gave myself. It took me a while, but I started to learn how to catch myself when I was going to beat myself up and instead I encouraged myself. There is that old saying “you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.” With self care you will accomplish so much more encouraging yourself then beating yourself up.
Become Someone You Can Trust
I decided to become a self confidence coach for this reason. I didn’t trust myself. I had lost the trust I had within me to make choices that supported what I wanted to accomplish and instead was making choices based out of fear or feelings.
The more I was able to make small choices supporting my self care, the more I started to trust myself. I had to relearn how to trust myself. I had to start with the small things in life, before I went for the big dreams. Over time I learned how to support myself.
Self care can mean so many different things. The acts of self care will look different for everyone. But through those acts is where the true self care lies, learning how to respect, trust, and love yourself. For me it all started one day looking in the mirror and deciding to wash my face.
xoxo,
Ellie Curry
About Ellie: Own Your You was founded with the mission to help women learn how to love themselves. Founded by Ellie Curry, a certified life coach. she built Own Your You to coach women on self confidence, self care, and creating a life you love. After struggling with depression and a very difficult period of her life, Ellie made a promise to herself that she would never feel that low again. She embarked on a personal development journey that changed her life. She now has a passion to help other women change their lives.
Website: https://ownyouryoucoaching.com/
