Magic and self-care

Self-care has become a buzzword nowadays, but what does it mean to care for yourself? On social media, it seems like self-care is running baths at the end of the week, jade rolling and skincare, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality, caring for the self is essentially listening to your own body, mind and spirit. It’s fulfilling your needs, it’s advocating for yourself, sometimes it’s also removing yourself from certain situations. In short, self-care has three goals: a healthy body, a healthy mind and a healthy spirit, and of course, considering that the three of them are completely connected.

     The journey of self-care starts in the basic premise of prioritizing the self. Mind you, this doesn’t mean running away every time things get complicated with someone or to stop giving your best to others, what it means is that no matter what you do, you won’t abandon yourself for other people. Essentially, prioritizing yourself usually relies on two things: understanding and putting your boundaries. Setting boundaries is the biggest act of self-love (and love to others) you can do, because it takes off the weight of your shoulders before it gets put. This avoids bigger conflicts, it teaches people how you want to be treated and therefore it avoids a lot of drama later on. But first, you need to understand what your boundaries are.

     We live in a world where we are constantly asked to ignore our needs. If you’re sick, you still have to show up to work or else you won’t get paid, and in this economy who can afford to be sick? If it’s an emotional distress it gets even worse, you rarely are understood if you’re having a burnout, a panic attack or depression. Sometimes these things are unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to actually listen to our body and respect it, this is where understanding your boundaries comes in. A simple exercise is to sit with your journal in a relaxed moment and make three columns: green, yellow and red. In the green section you put things that you feel okay if someone does it to you. This may include changing plans or communicating when they want some time alone, anything that you feel it’s understandable. On the yellow section you put things that bother you, but not enough to cut them off immediately and you give them a good talk. It can be being angry at you, maybe talking about you behind your back or being annoyed and getting cold. Finally in the red section, you put things you find inexcusable, for example being constantly rude with you or others, making jokes that makes you feel humiliated, or anything that immediately goes past the point of no return. Mind you, this exercise will change constantly, feel free to go back to it any time you feel the need.

     Now that you understand your own boundaries, it’s time to set them. This practice is not as hard as it seems, and if you tend to be a people pleaser, this may be hard at first, but there’s nothing you can’t learn to do! A good way to implement those things is to learn the rule of intensity, frequency and duration. How frequently do you need to check in with this issue? How intense this conversation needs to be? How long will this conversation take? This will help to prepare the other person and yourself for what is about to come, because setting a boundary doesn’t need to be explosive, it can and should be a gentle reminder of what your needs are and how the other person should treat you, so it’s also good to keep in mind that this is not a fight, this is just two people getting to know each other with kindness and mutual respect, and that’s how it should be. Mind you, don’t expect it to be perfect, such things as the Prince Charming who knows exactly what you need are not real, so that’s why it’s important to teach others how they should treat you.

     And finally, how does magic take place in self-care? Well, self-care is the basis of any magic you want to do! If you can’t properly understand your needs, how will you know what to do if you feel the need of a spell? And of course, there is magic in practicing self-care. For me, it looks like veiling and shielding, because protection is self-care. Sometimes it will look like divining on certain situations to understand how to restore balance, other times it may be running a bath to recharge yourself. If you’re doing it to honor your body, mind or spirit, this act can be magical! All because magic is nothing supernatural, it’s something that runs in our veins all the time.

     To conclude this, it’s important to remind you that if you feel yourself struggling in any way, please seek professional help. Magic is not a miracle, it surely is real and can bring you a lot of benefits, but it does not substitute medical assistance. If you feel you can’t handle it alone, please know that there’s nothing wrong with you, and most importantly there’s nothing wrong in looking for help. I hope this article can shine a light on what self-care looks like!