For the past two years I’ve scheduled an hour-long massage every Friday. Except for the odd event that kept me from going, I haven’t missed one single session.
You might think I’m lucky for having a massage every week. In fact, this is the comment I get most when I tell women about this self-care habit. Of course, luck has nothing to do with it. It’s not like I magically land on a massage table every Friday. Or that I can wish my way onto one (although that would be awesome, now wouldn’t it?). In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Making this self-care practice a mandatory part of my life has not been easy.
Like many women I was raised to be a good girl, and taught to care for others before caring for herself. For a long time this was my life. But making sure everyone around me was well, and happy made me forget to look after myself. After a long day of work, and taking care of others, there wasn’t any time left to worry about my own wellbeing. So I always came last. And although it’s great to be of service to others, it’s so easy to forget being of service to ourselves - for women especially.
I believe the underlying issue is a lack of self-love, brought on by a culture in which women are not only taught to care for others first, but are also bombarded with negative messages reflected back upon themselves.
The world is not telling women they are great from the get-go, perfect just the way they are. Unfortunately, the world makes women believe they have to earn love, work hard for it. That they’re flawed, and need fixing. It’s easy to see then why so many women are unhappy about themselves, feel unlovable, fall prey to over exhaustion, or try to do it all at the detriment of their own health. It would take Superwoman to not feel the pressure, and even she suffers from double standards.
As I went on my journey of personal discovery, I realized how badly I had been treating myself.
I had felt, and experienced everything a good girl goes through when she tries to live up to society's’ expectations. I was an overachiever, a perfectionist, a people-pleaser. Always ready to help, doing way more than my fair share. I wasn’t happy with how I looked, I was very hard on myself. At times it seemed that everything about me was wrong.
The funny thing is that, even though I was always busy trying to fix one of my flaws, I never actively chose to live a healthy, and fulfilling life. I was at the gym exercising, or trying out the latest diet, or putting the latest body firming cream on my body but never did it occur to me to ask myself what my body really needed - what I really needed to be happy. Coming to this conclusion was a pivotal moment in my life. And the result of me learning how to love myself.
Instead of exercising at the gym like a madwoman to fix an imaginary flaw, I started to listen to my body so I could give it what it wanted: gentle movement, yoga, core strength training, long walks in nature.
Instead of trying out the latest diet to get the scale down to a totally arbitrary number, I started to learn about nutrition so I could give my body what it needed: natural food, and nutrients.
Instead of putting the latest body firming cream on my body to conform to beauty standards, I started to investigate the content of cosmetic products to make sure they were safe for my body in the first place.
And guess what? Most of them weren’t.
By: Murielle Marie
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