Self-Care 

Be your own best friend, your own parent, your own support. 

An inner healing journey takes immense energy to sustain. As you journey inward, you are asked to directly confront your own fears and shadows. This requests that your energy be redirected to this process—often occurring without your conscious awareness. As a result, you’ll find yourself feeling drained, tired, fatigued, or exhausted. Common side effects include loss of appetite, loss of motivation/desire to function, and headaches/migraines due to the malnutrition. 

To overcome these problems, it’s important that you find solitude as much as possible, and prioritize self-care. You have to learn to (or continue to) put yourself before others. This is hard for some of us people-pleasers to learn to do—myself included. Throughout this process, I have slowly learned to raise my own self-importance to at least that of others. It’s taken a lot of time and effort to do. I’ve always been the supportive, caring person who always dropped anything to help friends or support them in any way I could whether they asked or not. I’d consider their well-being in any situation over my own. I would hesitate to do anything I thought would be rude, a burden on them, or disrespectful to ask of them. This had me silencing myself even in times where I was uncomfortable, or being disrespected myself. 

How did I overcome this? I have had to learn how to be mindfully present of myself, my boundaries, and my state of being in every situation. I learned from a rather recent experience around a month ago—I’m ashamed to say—to the fact that although I had made much progress in overcoming this shadow, I hadn’t yet learned to assert myself when I was in an uncomfortable situation and not being respected. I wanted to leave, but thought it’d have been rude to make the person take me home. I wound up being taken home in his accord, making me lose an entire night’s sleep, and draining what felt like a week’s worth of energy. It took me over a week to recuperate to a functioning energy-level. I learned in hindsight what my mistake was, what I need to do going forward in order to avoid these situations, and that I once again needed to re-evaluate my attention to self-care. 

I’ve given this subject a lot of thought over the past month, and looked at all aspects of my life where I still needed to improve my self-care practices. 

I came to realize the true source of my two-year long bout of fatigue and lack of energy: malnutrition. 

See, balance is important. When you heal the spirit and the mind, you also need to ensure you’re equally attentive to your physical body (mind, body, spirit). 

The loss of appetite I was experiencing from the beginning massively shrank my consumption, in turn shrinking my stomach, and leading to a daily calorie intake of around 1000 calories for the best part of two years. On top of that, the energy deprivation had me feeling unable to cook, and as a result, I have largely eaten either take-out/fast food, or cup noodles. I had bought vegetables and other healthier foods, but had rarely had the energy to cook them. I was extremely malnourished. I knew all along that the above things were happening, but it hadn’t occurred to me that this was malnutrition and was the source of my energy deprivation and fatigue. Yes, I shook my head at myself for this failure to see the obvious. I had even lost 30 pounds in the beginning. 

After coming to this realization the other day, I have decided to put more care and attention into my nutrition. I’ve tried to force myself to actually cook the vegetables I bought, and yesterday I ordered multivitamins and two herbal energy boosters to get myself back on track. I only wish I had noticed this sooner, so I could have been more capable of focusing energy toward my passions. 

Overall, my advice is to really put yourself first as you take this journey. Don’t put yourself in the position I found myself in. Pay equal attention to your physical health as you do your mind and spirit. Maintain your balance. You are taking a harrowing, but worthwhile journey, and your well-being must be your highest priority. Learn from my mistakes. 

Here is a list of some self-care practices you may consider: 

• Solitude: Yes, you MUST pull back and spend time alone with yourself and your thoughts. 
• Water: Water is soothing, calming, cleansing, and purifying energy. Make sure you find time to immerse yourself in water. Take more baths, sit in the shower for a few minutes longer, drink more water. 
• Treat Yourself: Whether it’d be a Korean face mask, a mani/pedi, a facial/massage, a dinner from your favorite restaurant, a bottle of wine, etc. Show yourself you’re special, that you love you! 
• Sleep: Make sure you’re getting adequate sleep, according to your own needs, not the opinions of others. Heck, I lay down at least 12 hours before I need to get up most nights. 
• Nature: Get outdoors. Spend time in nature. No one loves, supports, and nourishes you better than Mother Nature herself. Go for a walk to ground your energy and relax. It’ll silence the mind, help you find stillness. 
• Drink Hot Tea: My personal go-to. There is a tea for everything. 
• Music: Listen to higher vibrational music. Listen to what brings you happiness. Listen to what makes you calm and peaceful internally. You can find answers and messages in music. 
• Be a Kid Again: We are meant to experience a life of wonder, magic, and adventure. Fill your life with everything that entices your inner child! 
• Healthy Boundaries: Leave situations that make you uncomfortable, or don’t resonate with you any longer. 
• Trust Your Own Intuition and Inner Guidance: In any situation, it is imperative that you make decision based on your own inner guidance, not others’ opinions. Everyone’s divine timing and inner clock ticks at a different rate. Follow your own. Don’t seek validation from others.