Self Care Isn’t Selfish, It’s Sexy
Hey everyone, Happy March & Women’s History Month! Thanks so much for coming back to my blog, sex therapist, sexual wellness coach, and holistic healer, Jackie here from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I want to talk about different self-care routines, tips, and why self-care is sexy for you! If you didn’t see my other blog on How The Power of Self Love Makes You Feel Sexy make sure to read this if you haven’t yet! These will be helpful tips from a therapist in Minneapolis that helps to recommend what to do in regards to self-care and self-love.
Self Care Routine
Creating a self-care routine is very important for our minds, bodies, and souls. What does this mean? Creating a routine that works for you, is going to be what’s best for you. What I do as a sex therapist, coach, and holistic healer in Minneapolis with my morning, afternoon, and evening self-care routines, may be different than yours. There can be multiple self-care routines as well. What you need in the morning to start up your day, may look different compared to winding down at night. Maybe morning is more energy-focused with winding up for the day and nighttime is a sleep routine of winding down for the night. Perhaps it’s a particular type of self-care that you want to incorporate and maybe it doesn’t necessarily need a routine, but more of exploration. For example, maybe it’s solo sexual self-care or sexual self-care that can be exploratory versus anything else. Don’t get me wrong, sex on the calendar is great, and maybe sometimes spontaneity doesn’t hurt either. Sexual self-care can be fuck it moments where we do what feels satisfying for ourselves, that does not harm another human. Sometimes we may just need those fuck it moments, literally ;) to slow down, do you, and then some too! It is important to understand the time of self-care during the day and trust your intuition on this. Here are some questions to consider for your self-care routines…
What time of day is it?
What is my mind telling me I need?
What is my body telling me I need?
What is my soul telling me I need?
What does my self-care routine look like now?
How can I create time for my self-care routine?
What new self-care routines do I need?
What does self-care mean to me?
What is my definition of self-care?
What areas of self-care do I need to prioritize more?
These are some great journaling prompts to understand what is best for your self-care routine to get started on something new today!
Types of Self Care
As a therapist in Minneapolis and coach who works with self-care often, there are so many categories of self-care and what they all mean. Here’s the thing, self-care is defined by you and what you want it to be. Self-care is a relationship on how to show up for yourself in many ways every day. Tune into that trust when it comes to what type of self-care do I need today? With your body, mind, and soul. One thing I will say, sexual self-care is not talked about enough. Be it partnered, partners, or solo, sexual self-care is this sex therapist’s jam to discuss. Make sure you come back for the next blog on sexual self-care cause you know this bitch is about to be writing that one real quick and this is an important type!! For now, just a brief snapshot of it below, and let’s get into the other different types of self-care categories, please be mindful a bitch can be forgetful and there could be 10 billion more before you get done reading this blog today, okay! Haha okay, this therapist will stop the overexaggerating and start with the self-care categories. Please note, these are my general therapist and coaching definitions on what self-care means to me. This therapist and coach in Minneapolis encourage you to write, explore, or reflect on your own definitions of self-care. *Disclaimer: Please know some links are affiliate links. A portion of the purchases come back to me and help my business and channel grow at no cost to you!
*Physical: Taking care of one’s body through exercise, movement, rest, or taking a sick day. Do we get up, take a shower, brush our teeth, go to the bathroom when we need to, feed ourselves, etc.
*Medical: Going to annual checkups, doctor’s appointments, dentists, and other medical health providers. Taking medications, creating a self-care routine and structure for appointments, showing up on time, and planning ahead. If you are seeking holistic healing, do you plan appointments with a Reiki professional, Chiropractor, Yoga Instructor, Natural Products, Body-Based, Nutritionist, etc. Other questions to consider when it comes to self-care, are do I like my care team, or is there anything else I need to prioritize?
*Nutritional: Balancing out that yummy junk food, life indulgent restaurants, with a blend of healthy foods in the mix. Make sure there are fruits, veggies, proteins, carbs, salts, foods that provide us us with energy and generally make us feel good. Learning how to listen to your body with Intuitive Mindfulness with Eating. Here are some resources I recommend with that: The Mindful Eating Journal, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, and Intuitive Eating for Everyday.
*Mental: Reflecting on your mindset, thoughts, and how these create effects on your day-to-day life. Noticing the thoughts, being mindful of them, and exploring how changing thoughts may be more beneficial when you are stuck in a cyclic thinking loop. Sometimes we may have to think about boundaries and how these affect us in our relationships. Sometimes self-care can play off other categories.
*Emotional: Talking about your feelings, emotions, and sensations. Discuss what is coming up for you, without shaming yourself and living a more compassionate life towards you.
*Psychological: Exploring if you experience any mental health symptoms - eek you’re human, so you do, sorry not sorry to burst your bubble here - and planning psychological testing, seeking out therapy, or counseling services to explore mental health more is a form of self-care.
Resources that talk about this that can tie in mental, emotional, and psychological self-care are, The High Five Habit, Self-Compassion Workbook, The Happiness Advantage: The Secret to Better Work, Untamed, Burnout, It Didn’t Start With You, The Body Keeps The Score, Conquer Negative Thinking Workbook, The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook, & more!
*Sexual: Oh gosh, this is so many things it’s hard to come up with one type of definition for sexual self-care. Sexual self-care can be solo, partnered, or with partners. Sexual self-care can be in the form of pleasure points exploration, reading erotica, shopping for an outfit that makes you feel sexy, giving yourself compliments that make you feel good, masturbation, trying a new sex toy, position, and more. Here are some of my fave books and resources talking about sex! Come As You Are, Getting Off, She Comes First, Bang! Masturbation for Every Body, Sex Yourself, The Ultimate Guide to Solo Sex, 365 Sex Moves: Positions for Every Day of the Year, Exploring BDSM: A Workbook, and more!
*Social: Spending time with others, having intellectual conversations, or just turning your brain off and being with the people you love and it doesn’t matter what you do. Seeing friends, family, chosen family, or loved ones is definitely a part of our self-care because as humans, we crave and need connection. Setting boundaries with others like we talked about with mental above.
*Relational: This one can be broken down more intimately to if you’re in a relationship or relationships, how often are you seeing those people. Relational can also mean time with yourself, recharging your batteries, having a hobby you like to enjoy, and taking that well-deserved me-time. Setting boundaries with others like we talked about with mental above.
*Spiritual: Attending a church, being outdoors, spending time in nature, living your life in accordance to you and the values you set for yourself. Maybe this is meditating, connecting with crystals, oracle cards, tarot, or any type of activity that connects you with your soul.
*Household: This type of self-care relates to cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, and basically getting shit done around the house. Even if something breaks or goes wrong, can it be fixed? Are you doing something to fix it? Maybe there’s a new household project you want to work on like a garden, painting a piece of furniture or remodeling that feels like self-care.
*Financial: Yesss all the money honey! Of course, this is an area of self-care, but one that doesn’t get talked about often. This can be creating a budget, knowing your bills, having different kinds of savings accounts, maybe master savings, and a fuck it budget where you get to do whatever you want with that at the end of the year, or quarter. Financial wealth is health and affects our self-care.
*Creative: Allowing yourself to draw, listen to music, write, journal, read, create something new that hasn’t been done before, and more! Let that creative spirit soar!
#treatyoself to “fuck it,” self-care don’t care moments! Let’s talk about this one. This is what we literally think of with self-care. Let me grab that one extra item or it’s an add-to-cart kind of day, and purchase something that makes me feel good. Sometimes folks aren’t great at spending money on themselves and giving gifts to others. It’s okay to have that once in a while spa day, package at your door, or coffee run. Just know that this is temporary self-care, it will serve a monetary purpose, and self-care is more than just buying things for you.
It may not always be easy to set boundaries, plan self-care of what you need, say no to others, but nothing is worth sacrificing your happiness and the life you can create for yourself. Self-care is sexy because others see when we put ourselves first, that’s confidence, and people respect people who are confident about their abilities to show up for themselves in the world more.
Self-care is showing up for yourself every single day.
Self Care and Mental Health
There’s no doubting that self-care and mental health are intertwined. As a therapist in Minneapolis, a lot of the time folks think Sex Therapy is for folks who aren’t having enough sex or there’s a problem with their sex life. Self-care, mental health, and sexual health go hand in hand. Realistically, sex therapy is at the surface level, underneath is self-care, depression, anxiety, burnout, stress, medical, and physical symptoms that may arise as it is related to mental health. One relates to the other in ways we may not realize, but in therapy, those moments come up. If we are anxious, depressed, stressed, or burnt out, are we really going to be having the best sex of our lives? No! We’ll probably seek a sex therapist near me to understand more of the dynamics that are going on that we can’t always see in ourselves.
Self Care Tips
Self-Care Isn’t Selfish.
Self-Care IS SEXY!!!
Trust your gut, it never lies, and do what’s best for your self-care.
Listen to your mind and heart, if there’s a discrepancy on what you need for self-care, take time to reflect on this and explore more of what’s best for you.
Not everyone is going to like you setting boundaries as a form of self-care, and they have to respect it. If they don’t, fuck ‘em, they were never your friend in the first place.
Self Care Matters, take care of yourself because if you don’t, nobody else is going to.
This therapist and coach in Minneapolis is dropping the mic on that one! I hope these self-care routines, self-care types, and tips were helpful. Remember, self-care relates to our mental health, take care of you!! There is no shame on the self-care game!
Stay Shameless
If you are looking for help with Sex Therapy, Couples Therapy, & Self-Esteem, you can read more about how I can help on those pages. If you are seeking Sexual Wellness Coaching Services or Holistic Healing Services, click on those links! If you are a therapist in Minneapolis or outside of Minnesota and seeking Consultation Services, Pick Your Brain 1:1 Consultation, or a Speaker or Trainer for Your Next Workshop, I can help here too! Let’s get started on your Shameless Goals in Minneapolis, MN today!
