Topic Tuesday: Self-Care

“Self-Care for Others” (By: Maci Hughlett)

Self-care is an integral piece towards maintaining a healthy mental state. Every person, no matter their story, deserves to take time for themselves to rest and recharge doing something they love. Self-care takes on many different forms with no wrong answers. To be able to help others, we must also help ourselves.

In recovering from a relapsed eating disorder and, thus following, a season of depression and anxiety, my Mother decided to push me into a new form of self-care. While reluctant and angry at first, this new way of caring for myself has become a very helpful and personally healthy way for me to stay in recovery. She suggested that on top of going to weekly therapy sessions that I should spend the same amount of time giving back to others in unique ways. My Mom’s thought process was if I want to continue moving forward in a healthy division, I needed to be moving and what better path to be walking along than the path of another brother or sister in need?

Thus began the shaping of a new perspective on what self-care is capable of becoming. It was an idea which boggled me at first but proved to be one of biggest steps in recovery I have ever taken. Something about taking your eyes off of the worries of diet, exercise, triggers, and the way others perceive you is beautiful in that you begin to see that you are not alone.

You are not alone in the struggles and temptations of this world. Your path, while unique, has the capability to interlace and ignite the path of the community around you. Whether it is helping other men and women around you with eating disorders or something completely different – taking your self-care for the care of others creates a beautiful bond which cannot be shaken.

I still attend therapy even after finding recovery and staying there for almost two years now. I still take time to read interesting books and get lost while hiking. But the added element of self-care from the shoes of another is the best treatment I could have ever have. This may not work for everyone, and if you need to stick to your personal self-care methods, that is amazing! I am so proud of everyone who has found a way to care for themselves mentally. It is one of the biggest challenges to truly care for ourselves, a mountain with an amazing view once climbed. Don’t stop reaching forward to care for yourself, to care for others, and to care for the world we were given.