How to Make Self Care Yours
During my first few months as an intern at MTSP, I have learned many lessons. Learning how to best practice and maintain my personal self care has been one of the most enlightening of those lessons. I have experimented with different self care practices, routines, and schedules, and have found (and am still finding!) perspectives and practical applications that are effective for me.
Self care may seem trivial, but especially in a helping profession such as music therapy, it is crucial; both to general well-being and to clinical practice. I have found that when I take care of myself in a way that is thorough and intentional, my focus, empathy, and mental sharpness all increase in my sessions. Alternatively, if I am not putting an adequate amount of time into my own well-being, I am less present, more distracted, and more stressed during sessions and throughout my day.
There are five different types of self care: emotional, mental, physical, social, and spiritual.
Emotional self care is the practice of actively tending to your emotions with goals of processing or simply taking the time to feel. Music is inherently emotional, and so as music therapists, we are confronted with the emotions of our clients all day, and are encouraged to put our own aside during sessions in order to best serve our clients. Sometimes unknowingly, our own feelings about sessions build up and stack themselves on top of our feelings about our own lives. After a while, there will be no space for other emotions to exist if we do not take the time to intentionally release. Being intentional to practice emotional self care will help to mitigate this. I have found that on days where I am intentional to feel my feelings and process them, I can be more present for myself, but also for the clients and responsibilities that I have the next day. It can be easy for me to ignore the way that I’m feeling, but taking even a few minutes to acknowledge them makes all the difference in the world.
Mental self care can be defined as gently putting your mind to work in order to get out of a mental rut or spiral. This can be putting your brain to work with simple tasks (home organization, games) or sifting through and writing down your thoughts on a difficult situation. I have discovered that engaging in mental self care helps my very busy mind to slow down and realize what is actually happening inside of it. Being in control of small things, even simply keeping my personal space clean, can make me feel like my thoughts are more stable and balanced.
Physical self care is putting healthy intention into your body. This does not have to include an intense workout or doing anything strenuous; this will look different for everyone! Taking the time to care for your body is directly linked to the health of your mind, so doing whatever feels good and natural for you is enough. This can be physical exercise, eating a good meal, or even just brushing your teeth or taking a shower. Having a steady skin care routine has been a great way for me to engage in physical self care because it is a sustainable habit that in turn allows me to feel good about myself.
Social self care involves recharging with the energy of those around you. Your personality type will likely determine if and when social self care works for you. Introverts are more likely to value spending time alone as a way to recharge, whereas extroverts recharge from spending time with others. You may also find yourself somewhere in between! I consider myself an “extroverted introvert,” meaning that I love to socialize with people but I also value and need my alone time. This category of self care can include spending quality time with loved ones, socializing with a new crowd, or simply spending time in your own company. Each can be fruitful; there is no right way to be social.
Spiritual self care is intentionally tending to your spirituality and soul. This does not have to be a religious practice; it can be any kind of intentional “soul work.” Everyone has an inherent spirituality to them, and this can be tended to through time in nature, religious practices, or meditations. I find this to be the category of self care that sustains me the most in both quantity and quality. Tending directly to my roots makes the other areas of my life feel tended to as well, because they are all connected to this.
Sometimes, choosing from even these five categories can feel overwhelming. Especially when we feel emotions that are uncomfortable, it can be hard to know exactly what we need. Below, I’ve designed a flow chart to help in the self care decision-making process. I’ve created four additional categories of self care, each with an indoor and outdoor counterpart. These are meant to aid in the process of deciding how to engage in self care by deciding the kind of atmosphere that you need. These four categories are sedentary self care, creative self care, active self care, and contemplative self care.
Sedentary self care is the most relaxed of the group. This is self care for when everything feels overwhelming, even small tasks. All that is required of you here is to just be.
Creative self care is the next level of engagement. This involves putting your thoughts and emotions into a creative project, such as a song, painting, or story. Creating something can act as a means to process your emotions and may help you to sort through them.
Contemplative self care requires the most mental energy. This self care can be used to identify emotions and figure out where they are coming from. This can include talking to a loved one or a therapist, journaling, or verbally processing out loud in your car to yourself.
Finally, active self care requires the most energy. This is self care for when you want to actively engage with the world and your surroundings, whether by yourself or with others. This can include hanging out with friends, being physically active, or just engaging in any kind of stimulating activity.
A self care “breakthrough” came for me with a shift in perspective: the purpose of self care is to fill your cup to the point of overflow, so what you are giving to others does not pull from your actual cup. In many helping professions it is so easy to want to give all that we have. Our compassion and generosity are noble traits that we should not turn off, which is why taking care to overflow ourselves with self care is helpful. This way, we are not teaching ourselves to become less of who we are, but rather providing for ourselves in a way that allows us to give to others without the feeling of depletion.
This being said, what we need to fill our cups to the point of overflow changes every day. Sometimes, choosing the wrong form of self care is just as harmful as not engaging in self care at all. When we do this, we are actively denying ourselves what we really need, spilling out our cup on the sidewalk. There have been times when I have chosen a different form of self care for myself than I needed, for example, spending time alone when I wanted to be seen by others or vice versa, and I find that this only results in more energy spent for me to replenish later.
Self care is important for everyone, and is especially crucial for those in helping professions. We give so much of ourselves to the people we work with that it is imperative we tend to the part of ourselves that is constantly giving emotional support. Remember to feed others from the overflow, not directly from your own cup. Self care is what gives us this overflow, and will ultimately lead to a better practice, better mindset, and better life.
References:
7 Types of Self-Care and Why You Should Practice Them. (2023, January 3). Onlinesocialwork.vcu.edu. https://onlinesocialwork.vcu.edu/blog/types-of-self-care/
