From glorifying “the grind,” to girl boss, to the self-care It Girl, the crazy standards women are expected to meet never stop. Not only should you be able to push to work all hours of the day, but you have to make time for a 10-step skincare routine and a hot girl walk.
With the ever-constant push of self-care from any and all directions, it can be hard to simply be. Sometimes there are just not enough hours in a day to do whatever the latest self-care trend is. Everyone says social media is fake and you can’t trust what you see, but it feels real. If all you see are influencers showing their beautifully romanticized, stress-free, and self-care-filled lives, what else is a girl to believe?
In reality, self-care is simply that: about yourself. If self-care for today is taking a ten-minute shower and going to sleep, then do it. It’s not this toxic mindset of having to be on your A-game every moment of every day. Some days you might want to do it all and feel like an It Girl for a bit, but it just is not sustainable.
A lot of the time, the self-care advice given by influencers is actually self-destructive. Canceling plans constantly in the name of self-care really just makes someone an unreliable person. The idea of having to constantly be happy or in the best mindset in order to be attracting good things in life is insane. Stifling emotions will actually just make emotional breakdowns worse and more frequent. Taking an entire day off every time you are overwhelmed is just going to make you fall more behind and more stressed in the long run.
Any self-care practices that are based on appearance and not how a person feels inside are toxic. And most important of it all: self-care is not a replacement for therapy. If you are struggling with mental health issues, taking a hot girl walk every day is not going to fix it. “Sucking it up” and just getting things done can worsen fatigue.
Implementing self-care strategies in your daily life can benefit you overall, but make sure to watch out for toxicity in the self-care world.