How to Uncover and Honor Your Self Care Language
TL:DR - We are all lovely, unique humans, which means that self care looks different for each of us. Take time to understand your self care language and act on it. Make it easier on yourself by creating a structure or routine around self care.
If you feel you could use some accountability to take better care of yourself, Schedule a Free Discovery Session today and learn more about how coaching can help.
I remember learning about the five love languages (words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch) many years ago and feeling like a certain code was broken within myself and in my relationship. The code was basically awareness and permission to give and receive love differently-- to own that we are each unique and want/need different ways of showing love. My husband Chris and I have very different love languages and understanding those differences has been a game changer for how we communicate our love for each other.
This same awareness and permission rings true for self care. We are all lovely, unique humans, which means that self care looks different for each of us.
I've taken countless personality and strengths tests to know what role I played on a team, but I never thought to take a test that gave me insight on how I could best recharge after a stressful day (... week/month/ year...). The Myers-Briggs helped a little bit, as it offered information on whether I get my energy from people or solitude, but it didn't give me a road map as to how best to take care of myself when I'm feeling exhausted and unmotivated.
We need to think critically about what successful self care looks like for each of us-- not our friends or family-- just us. When we're pouring from an empty cup and desperately need to fill it up, we need to know the best way to do that. We also need to prioritize that plan, which isn't always easy. It can be so easy to give up what we need in order to please others.
To determine your self care language, ask yourself questions like, “how do I enjoy spending time by myself” and “what cheers me up when I’m feeling down”? If you're having trouble figuring out your self care language, consider figuring out your love language and shifting that to your "self love" language. The five love languages, as created by marriage counselor Gary Chapman are listed here. Which of the five speak to you and your preferences? If you’re having difficulty, there’s also an easy quiz that you can take that will not only show you your ideal love language, it will also show you where the others rank. Take the quiz by clicking the link below; https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language.
Once you know your love language, which is how you prefer other people to show you they care, you can shift that to how you show yourself you care.
My love language is acts of service. I prefer my husband, Chris, to make dinner over a cuddle on the couch. I feel most seen and heard in the relationship through service. Thankfully, he knows all of these things and does a great job of showing me love in my preferred language. Acts of service is also my self love language. It feels so refreshing when I clean and organize my living space. I also thrive off of to-do lists and when I’m able to make a big dent in my “personal to-do’s”, I feel energized.
To the right is a chart that shows the five love languages as self love languages. It was created by an artist named Dominee, (whose website and resources I can’t recommend enough as it has amazing self care resources - https://www.blessingmanifesting.com/ ) and it shows the five self love/care languages with examples of activities for self care that align with each.
Take some time to read over a few of them and see what speaks to you. Do you love massages? Do you feel energized after a day of shopping? Or are you like me and feel like a new human when you’ve organized or cleaned a room in the house? What if you love all of these things?!
That’s okay!
Knowing your self care language isn’t about limiting yourself to only one box of activities, it’s about removing the ones that don’t work for you and honoring those that do.
Okay, now that you know your self care language, what happens next?
Once we’re aware of what we need to recharge and take care of ourself, it’s important to prioritize these acts. This might be one small action each day or one big action once a month. For example, if your self care language is physical touch, you might create a routine that prioritizes applying lotion each morning (one small action each day) OR you might sign up for a monthly massage membership (one big action once a month). Knowledge is only powerful if it’s put into action so knowing your self care language is not as helpful as creating time and space to actually give yourself that self care. This becomes slightly easier with structure and accountability.
Below are a few examples of structure you can commit to in order to develop a more consistent self care routine. As for the accountability piece, talking about your goals and self care routine are a great way to gain organic accountability.
If you find that you’re still struggling to set aside time for yourself and honor your self care language, asking for help is an act of self care.
Working with a life coach is a great way to identify your needs, create a plan, and get accountability to see it through. We can see how investing in coaching is helpful when we’re building a new business venture, or when we want to improve our communication with our partner, but it’s harder to rationalize it when the goal is to take care of ourselves. This, in and of itself, is part of the reason that many people today are struggling with burnout and exhaustion. We struggle to realize that investing time and energy (and money) in our wellbeing means that we’ll have more time and energy to give to others. There will always be pressures to work harder, but it falls on us to know when and how to take a break.
