These days, self-care has taken over our mindsets and social media feeds. It’s so helpful to have these acknowledgements and reminders to look after ourselves. Normalising this is important in a world where productivity is often given centre-stage and valued as the best evidence of success or self-worth.
Speech-Language Pathology, in particular, seems to be a profession full of conscientious individuals who try very hard at their jobs - and anything else they put their minds to. Because Speech Pathologists are in a caring profession, sometimes our day job (whilst rewarding) can be fatiguing and lead to burnout or feelings of anxiety and self-doubt.
However, when you're tired and full of big feelings, it can be draining to hear these messages about self-care, can’t it? Because it becomes another ‘job’ on your to-do list. I actually often feel guilty about not "taking care of myself" enough..!
An Occupational Therapy colleague quoted this to me a while ago: “Self-compassion over self-care”. I repeat this to myself regularly, to remember to practice acceptance of where I'm at on any given day. So if I didn’t fit yoga into my morning, or I didn’t get quite enough sleep last night… that’s also okay. I haven’t “failed” at self-care.
We need both self-care and self-compassion.
And guess what, being more compassionate towards myself has led to me taking better care of myself. Hope this is useful for you too, wherever you are in your day or week.
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