- by Vika
Paradox of selfcare Instagram won't tell you about
After spending previous weekends doing things that wasn’t entirely up to me or of my choice for that matter, but were necessarily and an important part of what otherwise I’m crazy in love to be doing, I’ve spent my Saturday and Sunday binge working! Ummm...I did have a bath and some quite, gadgets-free unplugged time tho.
Paradoxically it doesn’t sound like a selfcare and totally unkind to myself, right? Which led me to a few thoughts on defining what the frog they talking about when they say all that gloom about selflove?
1. Right here. Right NOW.
The practice of selfcare MUST be in the vicinity of things you want to do at that given moment. In the words of Fat Boy Slim ‘Right here. RIGHT NOW.’
Just because last Tuesday you saw an Instagram post about a magical formula, what sounded then like a panacea for your troubled with a deadline mind, - pot of matcha + book + horizontal in bed all day = #bliss, it doesn’t mean it will be that inspiring (or useful) once you finally got the chance to try it for yourself.
I felt inspired to sit in front of a computer and do shit (till 3 a.m., with cereal straight out of the box...well I might utterly confess just as well) that has this bizarre quality to it. It makes me feel challenged, daunted, excited (of course, otherwise why the hell I’m doing it?!) and provoked to get better...all at the same time.
Totally not a beauty sleep...ummm let’s call it a placebo effect, shall we?
2. Social media sucks.
Meaneaness scrolling through undifferentiated traffic of social media is not the same.
But come’n you just said do what you want, you might object. Yes, but social media is your default settings when you’re bored out of your skull. And it’s so easy too!
Does it add magic to your life all that endless scrolling? Does it challenge you?
Does it make you learn knew and provoke you to dig deeper? You haven’t finished reading that number one above, have you? I thought you would skip it. There it is again.
Challenge, provoke and basically kick your ass...hard!
3. You're a babe, but treat yourself as if you're a baby.
Because of number two I have to mention number three.
Giving in to all vices possible and curse it a selfcare is one single the most unintelligent thing you can come up with (please note masturbation never belonged in The Big Vice List, it’s an ultimate selflove indeed).
Like a parent who should become brutally insensitive to child’s tantrums for sweets and late night Elmo episodes (gosh, the creature creeps me out so bad), you should never fool yourself (the easiest person out there to fool by the way) with an assumption that working through a bottle of red is pretty much like working out - it’s good for you. It’s not.
But there’s a good use of ‘binge-therapy’ I’ll tell you all about one day in my next post.
4. Motivation nation.
Motivation is everything. Why do you want to do that thing that you want to do? Build that chicken shed out of salvaged planks from a tip shop, finish reading that book, have a bath?
Is it to take Instagram worthy picture that happened conveniently to fit in with selfcare hashtag? Is it all your girlfriends finished the book and you kinda feel the peers’ pressure? Do you really want the chickens or is it you envy ideal/sustainable (read preaching/righteous, and you know it) miniature farm of your close friends?
Ask yourself what is the drive that makes you get up and commit?
Do you feel that if you don’t you will fall short of their approval? You think that they will find you dull?
After all look at your mediocre social media feed - you didn’t manage to have a soak in a pristine, like-snow white bath tub in a dim light of an outrageously expansive candle, with floating rose petals and a bottle of Moët.
You think they will find you boring because well, what possibly could you have in common or how could you sustain a five minutes conversation if you never read that book (based on TV series) everyone at your office raging about? What was your honest opinion about the series? Who the fuck gave them the money to make it, it’s so about nothing?! And the book, any good? Who give a fuck, it’s so boring?! Ummm...I think you might need something stronger than a pot of green tea if you’re still up for a challenge to finish that engaging storyline.
And the damn chicken shed? You want to feel accepted and approved at your ‘greeny’ friends’ next gathering, bringing a plate to share of Mediterranean dish of free range eggs from your back yard, radishes, tomatoes and oregano of heirloom Italian variety?
If only they give you one month prison time penalty for every plant you’ve killed in your adulthood, you would’ve have to spend behind the bars a life sentence fivefold.
I know darling we all want to be loved and belong. We’re social animals and wired to look for connection.
But you’re not a teenage boy’s penis. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Being patient and merciful with yourself is an ultimate selflove. Practice that. It’s ok to be odd and not like things everyone else loves, or in fact love things that would score rather pathetically on everyone else’s bucket list, and take small (yet incremental) steps to be better.
The sum up? You define your selfcare and it will be unique just like you. xx
