Every year the topic of self care becomes more prevalent, but what rarely gets talked about are the self care obstacles that make doing the taking care of yourself much more difficult. So here are some of the barriers, and ideas on how to overcome them!
Self Care Obstacle 1: Making Everything Else A Priority
This is an important place to start because in order to start taking better care of yourself, you have to start making yourself a priority. This is super challenging, especially when you’re out of the habit of doing so.
The awkwardness, guilt, or shame that can sometimes come up when you’re about to choose yourself is often enough to make you change your mind.
This is where practice comes in handy because when you’re first reprioritizing, you’re likely so unfamiliar with the reward or benefits of prioritizing yourself that you don’t know why you’d do that over helping someone else, or accomplishing tasks. You have to be willing to try this again and again until you no longer feel guilty about choosing yourself in order to look at all the benefits you’ve gained by doing so.
Self Care Obstacle 2: Fearfulness
Fear is the next thing that swiftly comes up when starting to spend time taking care of you, and there are SO many fears we could come up with. Sometimes our fears come from past trauma or shame we felt: other people making you feel bad, or things “falling apart” when you weren’t there to hold down the fort.
These are legitimate fears, so don’t ever feel they’re not valid or are meaningless. That said, all fears are worth being faced as you feel ready.
Boundaries can help with fearfulness, and a little bit of courage can be a great start. Start small, and work your way up! This can include practicing taking time for self care around the people who will support you in this journey.
Self Care Obstacle 3: Self Sabotage
Whether it’s making excuses, procrastinating, or flat out actively choosing the opposite of what you’re actually desiring, self sabotage can be a real problem. When you’re self sabotaging you have to ask yourself, what is blocking you from choosing to care for yourself? Perhaps you’ll uncover some limiting beliefs around worthiness that are important to face in order to move forward.
Even while in periods where self sabotaging is coming up for you, it’s important not to let that stop you from trying. It doesn’t mean you can’t try again, or that when you DO take steps to choose you that they don’t mean anything. Sometimes you have to take it one step at a time. You can ALWAYS try again, and you should keep trying. Every time is practice your body can remember.
Self Care Obstacle 4: Your Expectations Are Too High
An all or nothing mentality can be just as damaging as any of the other self care obstacles. Having high expectations around self care activities, and then not having the time, money, or resources to do those activities the way you desire to can be enough to not want to do them at all. This is when you have to readjust your expectations.
This can be super challenging because you probably have big expectations for good reasons. In fact, as an astrologer, I know that for some people having nice and luxuries things can be a make it or break it difference in how they experience an activity. So, as you readjust your expectations, don’t start with the hardest things to let go of.
Let’s look at taking a bath as an example. Even if you don’t have the most ideal bathroom or bathtub, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy taking a bath on occassion. Maybe a little mood lighting, bath salts or essential oils will change how you feel! And if that doesn’t work for you then you could see if there’s any local hot springs that have day rates so you could still relax in the water instead of simply never doing it at all.
Don’t be so black or white with your self care expectations. It never has to be perfect. You don’t have to do an hour + a day in order for it to mean something- sometimes even 5 minute self care ideas are GREAT starters for prioritizing yourself.
Self Care Obstacle 5: Anxiety
When you have anxiety, or just worry from time to time, it can make slowing down enough to choose you super difficult.
Anxiety can cause you to skip out on taking that walk because you have an inbox you’d like to get through, or to ignore body cues like hunger, thirst, or to use the bathroom in order stay focused on whatever is making you feel anxious.
This one (yet again) comes down to practice and prioritization. Try writing a note to yourself in the morning with your commitments for the day: drink more water, take movement breaks, wear blue light glasses, pausing when others walk in the room to acknowledge them, etc. It should be tailors to your needs; things that will make you feel better and more like a human at the end of the day. Put this note somewhere you can see it and when you see it, if you feel the need to ignore it understand it’s the feeling of anxiety keeping you from choosing yourself- and DO it anyway.
That’s where practice comes in because if you’re struggling with obstacles for your self care, you have to understand it’s not going to feel familiar, comfortable, or possibly even “good” at first. But if you do something enough to work through the awkward parts- you’ll come to relax and hopefully begin to really enjoy the process!
I hope this has been helpful, and if you’d like to hear me expand on these items, including my own personal experiences with each of these then check out the companion episode on my podcast: A Bit From Within. Listen here below, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also share this post or episode with any of your family and friends you may need this message too.
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