🧖🏽‍♀️ This is why your self-care routine isn’t working

Hi friends,

We’ve been sold a version of self-care that looks amazing on Instagram, but leaves us feeling just as drained as before.

Skincare hauls. $200 activewear. Exotic retreats. Candles that cost more than your grocery bill.

It’s not that these things are bad, but if that’s the whole routine, it’s like decorating a house with no foundation. It looks cute… until the first storm hits.

REAL SELF-CARE

Real self-care is often unglamorous, unshareable, and sometimes even uncomfortable.

It’s not the highlight reel. It’s the work you do behind the scenes so your life actually works.

FOUNDATIONAL SELF-CARE LOOKS LIKE THIS

If we strip away the marketing, self-care isn’t about the things you can buy, it’s about the habits that keep you grounded when life gets messy.

Here are a few examples of what that actually looks like in real life:

(1) Financial boundaries: Saying “no” to impulse purchases so you can pay rent without stress and have savings in your emergency fund.

(2) Sleep hygiene: No doomscrolling in bed, dim lights at night, and a consistent bedtime and wake-up time (yes, even on the weekends).

(3) Nourishment: Eating food that fuels you, not just what’s convenient when you’re exhausted. Whole foods, mostly plants (or all plants if you’re vegan like me hehe).

(4) Mental health check-ins: Therapy sessions, journaling, or simply asking yourself, “How am I, really?”

(5) Digital boundaries: Muting or unfollowing accounts that make you feel less-than. You don’t have to be on social media just because everyone else is. You can create your own rules here.

(6) Saying no without guilt: Protecting your time so you can protect your energy. Working on establishing healthy boundaries in your life is the best thing you can do for yourself.

(7) Movement you enjoy: Not punishing your body with workouts you hate, but moving in ways that make you feel connected to yourself. Investing in preventive health to avoid injury later.

(8) Keeping promises to yourself: Following through on the small habits you’ve decided matter.

(9) Clear communication: Expressing what you need in a respectful way (while staying true to your feelings) instead of avoiding uncomfortable conversations.

(10) Creating margin in your schedule: Leaving pockets of unplanned time so you can actually breathe. Your life is not just your work. You’re so much more than that.

If your self-care routine leaves you feeling financially stressed, exhausted, or disconnected from yourself, it’s not self-care, it’s self-distraction.

The best routines might not get likes, but they’ll give you something better: peace of mind and the energy to live your actual life.

Talk soon,
Veronika 🤍

P.S. I’d love to know: What’s one unglamorous self-care habit that’s changed your life?

P.P.S. This part below contains an ad but only because I think it might genuinely help you too.

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