Pampering is not self care.

Blessings Darlings!

Still working on getting the car repaired.  It has to go back in tomorrow, AGAIN.  That will be a full week.  And since June 4 - one week ago - the number of coronavirus deaths IN MY AREA have gone up 300%.  You bet your sweet ass that MY pasty white ass is still in deep social isolation.

Given how much I LOVE my carbs, it's really hard for me to work on my self care with English Muffins and hash browns around the house.  Which brings up a discussion we have had before, but from what I've seen in FB pagan groups (um, specifically in one that I've now been booted and banned from) it needs to be stated again.

Self care and pampering yourself are two different things.  Self care is always a good thing.  Pampering isn't always a good thing, depending on what you are doing, and how.

Self care is ... work.  It's eating right, and the right amounts.  It's making sure you get the sleep you need, the exercise you need, the shadow work you need to do (and that shit can be hard AND terrifying and you will need to push yourself HARD), the counseling you need, the learning to say no - and to say yes - that you need to learn, exercising, etc.  Breaking old patterns, that served you in the past but don't serve you now.

Pampering yourself is a pedicure, the English muffin or dessert or whatever once a week or so, a fancy restaurant, a fancy vacation.

Good knives are self care.  They will hold an edge and make your kitchen work faster and easier.  They will hold a sharp edge, and you are WAY less likely to cut yourself due to that fact.  A knife set that is very pretty but doesn't hold an edge and the pretty shit peels off is NOT self care.  It is pampering.  I'm not trying to sell it to you, but I want to show you this set that a friend bought, and it SUCKS DONKEY DONGS.  https://chefsvisionknives.com/products/cosmos?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5Kbs-8T66QIVlIrICh3SSgz-EAQYBiABEgICPPD_BwE  

Showering and doing a spiritual/emotional cleanse - you doing the work - is 2 minutes deep self care. Four minutes if you're also washing and conditioning your hair. Bath bombs are pampering.  I admit to some attitude towards this one, because I also find that cleaning the damn bathtub after doing on is a pain in the ass and not worth having done the bath bomb. 

Cleaning the house is self care.  Even if  you only have the spoons to do 10 minutes of it.  Learning to ground and center is self care, because then you can do it anywhere, any time, at a moment's notice and IN a moment.  Having to have the right crystal around to be able to ground ... at best that's training wheels.  Having to be outside barefoot on an organic plot of forest to be able to ground is pampering. 

[pardon me while I go do some research - we are suddenly having a discussion about whether crystals of quartz are igneous.  They are, but are a precipitate.  It's very strange to me.]

Things that make your life easier (in the short or long term) are self care.  Buying that 1 pound container of Organic Spring Salad Mix is self care, if that means you'll actually eat salad, while if you buy a head of lettuce that you need to wash and chop means you won't eat salad.  Frozen corn instead of corn on the cob, since you don't have to clean the silk and husks off the cob?  Self care.  Boneless chicken breasts or thighs instead of cheaper chicken leg quarters?  Yup.

It's not that milk shakes, and lots of chocolate, and big bowls of pasta slathered with butter pedicures or fancy vacations or going to Ruth's Chris Steak House are evil.  You just shouldn't mistake them for self care.  Pampering yourself isn't evil (unless you are enslaving someone else to do it, but prison labor, slave labor, etc are issues for another day). 

I'm just saying to not confuse the two.

Frondly, Fern