How do you make time for self-care?

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How Do You Make Time for Self-Care?

I’m learning to take time for me.

For so many years, I was busy being a mother, a daughter, a friend, an employee, and the person everybody could count on.

There was always something that needed to be done.

Always somebody who needed something.

And somewhere along the way, I learned to put myself at the bottom of the list.

But I’m in a different season of my life now.

I’m learning that taking care of myself isn’t selfish.

It doesn’t mean I love my family or the people in my life any less.

It simply means I finally understand that I matter too.

Sometimes self-care is sitting quietly with my coffee.

Taking a walk.

Cooking something I enjoy.

Going to the beach.

Writing.

Praying.

Taking myself somewhere simply because I want to go.

And sometimes self-care sounds like:

“No, I can’t do that today.”

I don’t have to explain everything.

I don’t have to feel guilty for needing rest.

And I don’t have to wait until I’m completely exhausted before giving myself permission to slow down.

At 60, I’m learning something I wish I had understood much earlier:

I don’t have to earn the right to take care of me.

So that’s where I am right now.

I’m making time for myself.

Not because I don’t have anything left to give…

but because I still have a lot of living left to do.

Thinking out loud…

Maybe self-care isn’t about finding more time.

Maybe it’s finally deciding that you deserve some of the time you’ve already been giving everybody else.