Self-Care: Towards an Inclusive Definition

A Step Towards Oneself

As a caregiver, actions related to caregiving undoubtedly play a significant role in your daily life: the concern for others, the attention to the needs and feelings of others, the support and care you provide to the person being helped are concrete manifestations of the role of caregiving in your life.

Paradoxically, caregiving can lead to a loss of understanding regarding acts of care directed toward oneself. Are you perhaps prioritizing the needs of the person being helped over your own? Do you feel too rushed by events to take time for yourself? Or do you feel selfish when you take care of yourself?

Taking care of oneself is, however, essential to maintaining a healthy life balance and allows us to "recharge our batteries" in order to provide support to the person we are helping. By exploring the theme of self-care, GASO aims to make this often narrowly defined concept more accessible in our current discourse. We wish to demystify what taking care of yourself means so that we can offer you an inclusive perspective on this type of care and invite you to explore self-care practices that suit you. Taking care of oneself can thus take a variety of accessible forms that we invite you to discover at your own pace...

An Exercise in Rebalancing

The abundance of spa advertisements or hotel stays often leads us to believe that taking care of oneself involves indulging in expensive goods and experiences. Such products may indeed be a way to take care of oneself, but in reality, self-care practices can take on a multitude of varied and accessible forms. To reclaim the meaning of this often-used term, let us start with the idea that taking care of oneself can take as many forms as there are people on Earth.

Expanding Our Beliefs

Contrary to what one might think, taking care of oneself does not necessarily involve individual actions. On the contrary, many self-care activities can be carried out with the accompaniment, help, support, or presence of a trusted person.

Additionally, taking care of oneself can be a challenging and non-intuitive act. Some self-care practices may even require practice and discipline. A person may have been conditioned to care for others their entire life without listening to their own needs. This prioritization of others' needs is common in caregiving and can sometimes lead to self-neglect. In such situations, taking a step towards oneself may require adjustments.

And More Specifically, What Does Taking Care of Oneself Mean?

You have undoubtedly already performed acts of self-care without even realizing it. Taking care of oneself means "prioritizing one's own mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health"[1]. Since doing things that make us feel good is an extremely personal matter, self-care is a concept that comes to life in various forms that reflect our personality.

[1] https://jeunessejecoute.ca/information/prendre-soin-de-soi-cest-plus-quun-bain-moussant-voici-notre-guide/#:~:text=Prendre%20soin%20de%20soi%20implique,%C3%A0%20demander%20du%20soutien%2C%20etc.