Self-care For Women – A Luxury Or Necessity?

In counselling sessions with female clients, I see some common issues of how they feel worthless about their work; their expectations never being met, and they almost always feel neglected and overworked. While interviewing, it seems that they often feel very uncared for in their journey as caregivers. This chronic feeling of neglect adversely affects their relationships.

During the sessions, I try to bring back the focus on solution-building, where we work towards setting some personal goals to build resilience against the daily stressors to lead a fulfilling and happy life. It is essential to understand that since “we” are our primary resource of happiness, investing in ourselves should be the top priority for us. This sounds simple but doesn’t necessarily go down well with all the clients and may need some therapeutic nudging and a lot of homework. I am sharing some tried and tested tricks devised in collaboration with my clients that have been tremendously helpful in our journey of discovering this beautiful bounty called self-care.

1. Let us take pride in our occupation: Whether a homemaker or an office goer, taking pride in what one does is of utmost importance. What we do, is a result of our well-informed, personal choice, and we try our best to excel in it. If we do not respect our calling, nobody else will. This especially goes out for the housewives who, when asked “what do you do?” typically answer with, “I am justa housewife/homemaker” or “I was working earlier, but now I stay at home”. Being a homemaker means running an entire household and managing all the departments single-handedly, so we should celebrate ourselves for doing it so well.

2. Let us nourish ourselves: Our nutrition game is always on-point when it comes to providing the best to everyone in the family, be it husband, children or parents. However, when it comes to us, we adopt a very casual approach. Maybe it is because we are too exhausted or simply lazy. Since one cannot pour from an empty cup, we must keep ourselves fully charged by maintaining excellent eating, sleeping and exercising habits. On top of it adding a 10-minute meditation practice will work wonders for our mental health. It is simple to learn and inexpensive as there are many guided meditation apps and videos to choose from.

3. Let us delegate: In the quest of winning the ‘Superwoman’ crown, we at times burden ourselves with too much responsibility at home/office. This crown may seem like a big victory but is that even worth it? Eventually its weight may lead to severe headaches not just for us but everyone around, when we start feeling cranky and irritable due to overwork and exhaustion. This scenario can be corrected by adopting one simple habit – delegation. So like a true leader we need to divide the jobs among our team members(husband, kids, parents) effectively. Now ‘being patient’ is the key here, because at the beginning they might not be able to do their job as perfectly as we do, but soon they will be able to deliver. Don’t we all know that practice makes a man perfect!

4. Let us enjoy the me-time: Now that we have understood the importance of delegation and earned some free time in the bargain, let us do something that we truly love and make it our me-time! The only thing to remember here is that it has to be guilt-free. We have earned this well-deserved break due to our superb planning; hence it’s time for us to sit back, relax and enjoy!

5. Let us train the brain: Engaging in hobbies like reading books, solving crossword puzzles, learning a new language, etc. stimulates our brain to stay active and agile. It helps to keep our neurons healthy and reduces our chances of getting dementia as we age.

Taking care of ourselves not only improves our well-being and quality of life but also lays out a legacy for our future generations. To educate them, we ought to lead by setting an example and not just preaching. Therefore self-care is not a luxury but a necessity!

Chhavi Pant Pande Member since June 23, 2021

Loading + Follow Following

I am a professional counsellor and founder of The Counselling Cove. A member of the Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors Singapore (APACS), I have worked with children, adults as well as the elderly of diverse cultures with issues like depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, stress and relationships. My aim is to bring about a positive change in peoples’ lives through implementation of various counselling approaches to facilitate healing, personal growth and transformation. https://www.counsellingcove.com/

Contributor