Dear MDECOE Community,
As we find ourselves at the end of a great marathon from the past academic year and graduation ceremonies, this is a good time to recommit to healthy self-care practices. But first it’s important to be intentional about what self-care actually involves. In a blog in Psychology Today, Dr. Ilene Strauss Cohen Ph.D. states, “Taking care of yourself means compassionately accepting yourself for who you are instead of burning yourself out trying to be everything to everyone all the time. It’s living your life in a way that doesn’t leave you needing to check out..” Below are a few key points that she makes:
- Self-care is allowing yourself to be normal and average, instead of always pushing yourself to be perfect or exceptional.
- Taking care of yourself means compassionately accepting yourself for who you are instead of burning yourself out trying to be everything to everyone all the time.
- Self-care is not about believing that being super busy is a badge of honor and making yourself so exhausted that you self-sabotage in ways that aren’t actually good for you. It’s about taking time to take care of yourself because you truly know that you aren’t broken and don’t need fixing.
- When you take care of yourself, you become the author, not the victim, of your life. You create a life you truly enjoy, instead of one you might need recovery, or even therapy, from. It’s not creating a life that looks good on paper, but one that fits well with who you are.
- It’s not looking to others to meet your needs; it’s meeting your own needs.
- Self-care means doing things you initially don’t want to do and making the choice to do what’s uncomfortable. It’s facing your problems and unresolved issues head-on, instead of avoiding them and then trying to distract or soothe yourself later.
- Self-care is living a life that’s meaningful and being true to yourself. It’s knowing that massages and green juices are great ways to enjoy life, not escape from it.
To read more, please go to
For a list of other self-care options, please see our COE self-care website for resources for faculty, staff, students, and the community at:
https://www.csun.edu/eisner-education/self-care/articles-information-self-care
May we all find authentic ways to engage in self-care.
Warmly,
Shari