we’re letting the negative pervade our minds through the bombardment of unwanted information. Social gatherings can also be stressful because they call for certain standards that need to be met. Also, lack of acceptance in a social setting can lead to a feeling of worthlessness. Even though meeting people socially is important, we need to be mindful about choosing (choosing is self-care) the right person to meet, and deciding how much time and energy to invest in them. Not everyone will uplift our emotional energy. Making sure that we’re emotionally and mentally uplifted is important, and not selfish. We always have a choice. We’re never bound. This applies even for our family members and relatives. I want to stress here that you have a choice of whom you want to interact with, why you want to interact and how much you want to interact. Even if we don’t want to disconnect with someone fully, we can maintain a healthy distance from them by forming boundaries. This is self-care. We’re all different, even if we have the same blood running through our veins. It’s okay to make different choices. Sometimes taking care of hygiene helps us pick up our lives from the rut, and gets us to a better state of mind. But it is not a fix or a solution. As a concept, self-care has evolved with time, and now it is not just about external hygiene, but also relates to internal and mental hygiene.
Insights into who we’re, how we feel, how we react, and what we like and dislike help us know ourselves better and help us make better life choices. These days a big hurdle in self-care is multitasking, which has become a part of everyone’s life. We’re constantly switching from one role to another without giving it a thought. A person who is multitasking can’t be mindful of his actions, and often triggers a chain reaction. Consider that you’re sitting in office and are stretched too thin. Your spouse calls you to talk about something. Most likely you won’t be able to have a mindful conversation with her, leaving her feeling disgruntled. With this mood, she won’t be able to attend to her work or to the kids properly. This can quickly become a culture in the family where everyone feels disconnected from each other. Had either of them exercised self-care, the chain reaction could have been broken. Like everything else, we learn the concept of self-care from our families while growing up. As kids, we emulate our parents and caregivers in almost everything. If they came back home from work after a busy day, kicked off their shoes, and sat in front of the idiot box, more likely than not, we would end up doing the same thing to cope with a busy day. Alternatively, if we had seen them meditating, spending quality time with the family,
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