ep 2: self care - redefining self care in my 20's

In this episode of Growing Pains, Lula discusses redefining self-care in her 20s. She emphasizes the importance of self-care for balancing responsibilities and figuring out one's identity. Lula shares her personal experience of feeling constantly exhausted and overwhelmed until she realized the need to prioritize self-care. She talks about scheduling time for herself, reflecting on her feelings, and saying no to plans when needed. Lula also discusses the misconception that self-care is solely about consumption and buying products. She highlights the importance of emotional, mental, physical, and social self-care and the long-term benefits of practical self-care practices. Lula concludes by emphasizing the significance of self-care in managing the pressures and comparisons faced in one's 20s. Hello, hello, and welcome to Growing Pains. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Lula, and today I'm going to be talking about redefining self-care in my 20s. So self-care is something I think a lot of people have at least a base level of understanding about. It's about, well, self-care. It's about looking after yourself, taking care of yourself. It is something that is so important, particularly in your 20s, I think, when you are at this key stage in your life where you are learning to balance responsibilities and figuring out your identity, because it can be really exhausting. Life, all in all, is really exhausting, and finding a way to look after yourself, to recharge your batteries is so beyond important. It's something that's been a focus of mine, particularly over the past couple of years. I am somebody who struggles with clinical mental illness, and so looking after myself and filling up my own cup has been something that I've been trying to learn to do for years, but it wasn't really until quite recently, when I hit my 20s, when I turned 20, that I kind of started to understand what self-care actually means for me. So a few months back, nearly a year back now, I was trying to juggle work and uni assignments while trying to maintain a social life, trying to maintain my love life with my boyfriend, trying to maintain connections with friends I have back home or friends who live far away, my family. I thought I had everything under control, but I was just constantly exhausted. It made me not a very fun person to be around, in all honesty. And then it all kind of boiled over when I was studying for my exams, and I was just so mentally drained. I was so kind of frozen with this decision paralysis kind of, where I had so many things to do all at once, and I didn't know where to begin. I was so frustrated, and I just remember kind of sitting in my room and just crying. For no particular reason, I was just so done. And so I just sat there crying, and that's when I realised that I couldn't really keep going like this, that if I wanted to maintain healthy relationships, if I wanted to look after myself, then I had to change the ways that I was doing things. And that's when I started to put more emphasis on self-care, and I took a step back to rethink how I was spending my time, and I started trying to schedule in more time for myself. I talked last time about intentionally spending time with yourself, and that's kind of when I started doing it. Whether that was, you know, taking myself out into town and grabbing a coffee, or taking 10 minutes in the morning and reflecting on how I was feeling, or in the evening at the end of the day, or saying no to plans when I needed rest. There is a struggle that comes with starting new habits, particularly when it comes to habits which are built around prioritising yourself. There is a huge amount of guilt, I think, very often that comes with it, because at first I felt very guilty for not being available to everyone, for not being able to go out all the time, or give to people all the time. But as time went on, I realised that even though I was saying no to others and saying yes to myself, I was helping to build myself back up to a point where I could actually be a fun person to be around, somebody who I liked, somebody who I was confident to put out in social settings, and get myself to a point where I knew that I wouldn't just constantly be thinking about how tired I was, or how I wanted to go home. And at the end of the day, having somebody who wants to be there, who wants to be involved is so much more important than having somebody there who clearly isn't really feeling it, because it can bring the mood down, but also you're just expending energy that you don't have. And so by saying no to plans, and maybe changing the way I was doing things, and taking my life more slowly, and making these small changes, I found that I started to have more energy, I felt less stressed, I was more present in my relationships, and I wasn't running on empty anymore. And so I got back into saying yes and doing whatever it was that I was doing, going out, having plans all the time, doing work, doing uni work, and then I hit the same problem where I was overexpending myself. I mean I was bad at the beginning where I was having to say no to things again, and then I felt worse because I felt like I was being flaky. Like half the time I was saying yes, half the time I was saying no, and I realised that I needed to be a bit more productive with the self-care that I was doing, and more specific about the self-care that I was doing. The first thing that I kind of had to come to terms with is that self-care isn't selfish, it is essential. If you are feeling like you are constantly running to catch up with everyone, and that you can't keep up no matter what you do, it is okay to take a break and to take care of yourself first. So, what is self-care? I think there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding self-care because of the way it's been portrayed in the media. It's not a new concept, it's been around forever really, but it is something that became massively popularised on social media around 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic. It's understandable why that happened, we were all at home all the time, there was a huge amount of stress going on globally, things were changing so quickly, and we needed to look after ourselves. But we also had, well at least most of us, for a lot of us, had the time for the first time to actually look after ourselves, to take a step back from society and say, oh, okay, well, I'm tired because of X, Y and Z, so here's what I have to do about it, and it gave us a chance to start setting up and maintaining sustainable habits for our mental and physical wellbeing. And it started out really nicely, it started out with journaling and meditation and moving your body, but then self-care kind of became, and has continued to become, about consumption and over-consumption. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with buying yourself a little treat. I myself love buying a little treat, I am a shopping dally, I love going out and treating myself to a coffee or a sweet treat or some new make-up or a body wash or a fancy shampoo to make my shower a bit more luxurious. But slowly over time we started seeing this idea that in order to look after yourself and in order to kind of reach this peak self-care image, you had to be buying new products, you had to be buying silk pillowcases and scrunchies and pyjamas, you had to be buying heatless curling rods, you had to be buying the newest skincare products and face masks, you had to have a fancy yoga mat, you had to have all this active wear, you had to be going to all these classes and everything. But that's just simply not attainable, and also not possible for a lot of people who live in a world where there is a lot of economic stress. And, you know, unless you are somebody who is particularly fortunate with the money that you have, constantly buying things isn't feasible. And while it might give you temporary dopamine, it's not actually going to give you any lasting feeling. Like, just because you have a new thing and you might enjoy it once you have it and you might enjoy using it, you're not actually getting any lasting benefit from it. And once I realised that, and once I kind of came to the understanding that as I scrolled through TikTok and I was seeing people talking about self-care, but in reality they were just talking about consumption, I started to realise that I needed to redefine what self-care meant for me. And that meant I had to kind of start debunking what I saw online. Self-care matters so much at this point in time, when you're 20-something, because you have, I think, more than at any other stage in life, so much to juggle, so much to keep on top of and so much to maintain. And so many social pressures and comparisons, again, especially with social media, it all kind of links back to that, seeing what other people have online and feeling like you have to have that too. It just adds another layer of pressure. And the more the pressure builds, the more you hit exhaustion, you lose touch with yourself and you get burnt out. Burnout isn't fun. Burnout is very difficult to get back from sometimes. And so understanding what self-care is for you beyond just buying a little trinket or buying a little sweet treat is so important. And I am not saying don't go out and buy that coffee, because trust me, I love going out for coffee. Go out and buy that coffee if it makes you happy and it makes you happy. Don't let me stop you by any means. But there are more practical ways of practising self-care that actually have benefits in the long term. Self-care kind of refers to multiple areas of life. You have emotional, mental, physical and social self-care. And each of those different spheres, each of those different areas, have different ways of catering to them and are important in their own ways. So let's start with emotional self-care. So this is obviously regulating your emotions and creating a basis where you can safely explore what you're feeling. Very often when we're not looking after our emotional self-care, we find that boundaries start to slip, we start to feel lost, we start to feel low and hurt. I know I start to feel very anxious and my depressive episodes get worse when I'm at emotional burnout. And I know that I reach emotional burnout when I give more time to other people than I do to myself, because you keep pouring and pouring and pouring from your cup, but there is nobody pouring back into yours. And then you get to a point where you don't have anything left to give to anyone else. And you most certainly do not have anything left to give to yourself. And if you don't have anything left to give to yourself, where are you? Because you can't rely on other people to top you up. Sure, they may here and there, but if not enough, it's not sustainable. You have to learn to fill your own cup before you can fill other people's. And some of the ways that I have felt that have been the most effective when it comes to my emotional self-care are things like channeling. So keeping track of how I'm feeling, where I'm at, how I felt throughout the day, gratitude, you know, things that I'm enjoying, but also things that are challenging me. Having them written out in paper, I find help me to contextualize them. I am an overthinker to the extreme, and I find that putting pen to paper, when I read things back, I can kind of identify where I'm overthinking, and it can very often put my mind at ease, because I might read something back and think, oh, wait, I don't actually need to worry about that. That isn't a big deal. Why was I stressing so much? So that's a fantastic place to start. I spoke in last week's episode about having two separate journals, one for keeping track of my emotions, and one that's more creative, where I like to doodle and keep note of things I find interesting. Both of those I have found massively helpful for regulating my emotions and for taking care of my emotions, my emotional self. Another one is setting boundaries in relationships. I said earlier about the guilt that comes with saying no. That's okay. It's okay to feel guilty, but learning how to say no without guilt and setting those boundaries in your life is so important. And in terms of setting boundaries in relationships, what that means to you is going to be different from what it means to me. For me, setting boundaries in relationships means having clear distinction between my social and personal life and my work life. I like to maintain a balance. I am lucky enough that I am a uni student. I do have a part-time job, but it's very flexible. So I don't really have a huge amount of overlap. When I leave work, I leave work. None of it comes home with me. It's not necessarily the same for uni. Obviously, I have to research things. I have to study. But I have in the past had jobs where the two have kind of overlapped and I haven't been able to prioritize certain personal relationships and aspects of my life because I've been having to prioritize my workload and vice versa. But setting boundaries in all forms of relationships can really help boost your emotional well-being. So, for instance, if I find there is a period in my life where there are a lot of social interactions going on, parties going out, clubbing at uni, of course, that happens a lot, but I'm not really feeling it, I will quite simply say no. And that's it. That really sounds easier and more simple than it really is. A couple months ago, a year ago, if you said to me, say no to going out tonight because you don't feel like it, I would say absolutely not. I'm not doing that. I can't do that. I have to say yes, because if I don't go, people aren't going to like me. You know, I want people to like me, so it doesn't matter how tired I am, I'm just going to go anyway. And then I'd go. I wouldn't have fun. I'd feel overwhelmed. I'd go home feeling drained and very often end up having an anxiety attack because I was so tired. And, you know, I wasn't fun to be around during those moments. But now that I've learned how to say no, it means that I can set limits, I can set boundaries and I can take time when I'm not feeling it. It means that I can recognize, I can look internally and see when I feel socializing is going to benefit me and see when it's not. And if it's not going to benefit me, then I will stay in. I will take time for myself. I will do things that fill up my cup rather than pushing myself to do something that really isn't going to help. The final practical self-care tip I have for emotional well-being is therapy. Now, that is a lot easier said than done. Therapy is a privilege, realistically. Having access to a therapist and having that at your fingertips is something that a lot of people don't have access to. I'm very lucky to have the resources that I need and the health care that I need to be able to get therapy that I need. That's not available for everyone. I completely recognize that. There are many charities and many companies that are helping to provide affordable therapy, but, you know, it's still got a long way to go. But if you are somebody who has access to those resources and you are not using them, I implore you to please use them. Therapy is intimidating. It really is the thought of being honest with somebody else and being honest with yourself is terrifying, but my God does it help. The biggest steps forward I've made have been thanks to my therapist. I really, I cannot recommend it enough. So please, please, please, if you have access to resources, don't let them go to waste. Please use them. I see mental self-care as slightly different to emotional self-care. I see emotional self-care, as I said, about emotional regulation. Mental self-care I think is more about mentality. It's about making your mind a peaceful place to be in. And the ways I like to take care of my mind is through mindfulness and meditation and taking breaks from things that make my mind feel messy. Mindfulness, again, that's something that I used to kind of struggle with. I used to think it was all kind of nonsense. It's not. Being mindful is not nonsense. I was just being stubborn, as I am one to do. But really thinking about what you want from your life, what you want your life to be, being mindful about the things that you have in your life and your privilege and where you are in that moment, really enjoying the moment you're living in can make a huge difference. And meditation is a fantastic way of doing that. And again, meditation seems really intimidating. But if you sort of set five, ten minutes aside a day, if you can set that time aside a day to really just reflect on what's going on in your life, about, you know, directly your surroundings, about what's next for you, about the things that are bothering you. And spending time grounding yourself can be so beneficial and it can really help to quiet your mind. That's something that I really struggled for a long time with, was having a very busy mind. And I still do. My mind is usually going a million miles an hour, but taking care of my mental self-care really helps to make my mind a slightly quieter place. One of the ways I like to do that is by reducing my social media usage, which I... I am a social media addict. I will say it. I will put my hands up. I have scrolled for hours mindlessly through TikTok and Instagram. And sometimes I'm kind of actively engaged with it and actually taking in what I'm watching. Usually I'm not. I am just scrolling for the sake of scrolling. My attention span was shot to hell for a while and it took me a while to build that back up. But one of the best ways I find to make my mind a more present place is to take a step back from social media from time to time to regulate my usage of it and instead replace it with practicing gratitude and being mindful and taking time to do things that I actually enjoy doing and that stimulate my brain because those things are a lot more pleasurable at the end of the day than a temporary dopamine hit I get from some weird TikTok video. That being said, the current TikTok trend going around that led to the olive oil story being put out there. Nothing has ever made me laugh harder. So social media in moderation, I think, is kind of what I'm trying to get at. In terms of physical self-care, the main sort of takeaways are sleep, balanced eating and movement. I am not a very good sleeper. I have struggled with bouts of insomnia my entire life. I get really bad bouts of paradoxical insomnia, which is where you are lying awake, your brain is sleeping, sort of, but your body's not. Sleeping has been a struggle for me my entire life, but I've been putting a lot of effort into sleep hygiene recently and it does make a huge difference. I know it makes a huge difference. So I try and reduce times of, like, pulling all night for work. I try and do that as little as physically possible. It's something I'm still figuring out actually, my sleep pattern, but trying to make my room as peaceful as possible and keeping screens out of it wherever I can, things like that, to help with sleep. I don't really have a lot to take on it because it's something I am still learning about myself. Same goes for balanced eating. Balanced eating is something that is easier said than done and is, again, it's a privilege to be able to eat well. Particularly in this economy, it's often easier to buy processed foods and it can be, you know, it's time consuming and sometimes expensive to maintain a balanced diet, but it is so important to look after your body and to feed it the things that it needs and to have a nutrient-rich diet. I'm a student. Is my eating always balanced? No, it's not, but it is something I'm working on because my body and then my mind in turn feel so much better when I'm looking after myself and when I'm looking after my gut. There's a huge link between gut health and mental health and so, you know, your physical self is so important to look after. You get one body. It is your vessel. It is your home. So looking after it by eating properly and by moving it really just makes such a huge difference. When I talk about movement and moving the body, I'm not the sportiest person. I used to be. I used to play a lot of sports when I was in secondary school. I did rugby, hockey, tennis, cricket, football, all these things, but now that's kind of not a reality for me. I don't have the time for it that I did when I was in school, but I don't move my body enough. I should move it more. Again, it is a privilege to be able to move my body. So I've been trying to get more into that. I've really been enjoying going on morning walks or walks in the afternoon. I'll go around town just by my lonesome, sometimes with some friends, having a little chat and just sort of do a 45-minute walk, a brisk walk. I love it when it's this time of year and the air is cold. It's my favourite. I'm a big yoga fan as well. I really enjoy yoga. I'm moving my body that way. I'm looking into getting into Pilates because that's another way that is really good to engage your mind and body in one. And then finally, in terms of physical self-care, I have social self-care, which is spending time building your relationships, particularly spending time with people who uplift you. I have fallen victim in the past to relationships that did not uplift me, to spending my time with people who didn't make me feel good about myself, who didn't make me feel good about the world, people who didn't challenge me in the right ways, people who didn't have my best interests at heart. And those relationships really drain you. They really, truly do. So finding people who uplift you and spending time to cultivate those relationships and to grow those relationships is so important. I am not always the best at doing this. I'm not always the best at keeping in contact. It is something that I'm trying actively to work on. I am someone who kind of falls victim to, if you are not right in front of me, sometimes I can kind of, I don't forget about you. I remember you exist. I think about you all the time, but I forget to pick up the phone. That's something I am trying to work on because it's so important to make sure the people in your life who you appreciate know that you appreciate them. And also in terms of social self-care is knowing when to take space for yourself. Again, it all comes back to knowing when to say no, knowing how to say no, and deciding when you need some space for yourself because, again, at the end of the day, the only person you are ever with 100% of the time is yourself. So it's all I'm good at spending time with other people who uplift you, but if you can't do that, if you can't uplift yourself, then nothing that other people are going to do is really going to get you very far. So working on finding a way to uplift yourself and for taking time to learn how to do that is vital. Sometimes there can be self-care missteps. I talked a little bit earlier about social media and this idea that it is a push of what self-care is and indulgence and over-consuming. And I have definitely fallen victim to this in the past. I used to do these ridiculously complex 15-step skincare, I'm not even kidding, it was 15 steps, skincare routines. God, I feel ridiculous saying that now. And buying all these little kind of like trinkets and knick-knacks, what a great phrase that is, all these little things that I saw on social media that all these wellness galleys and influencers had, feeling like I constantly needed the new thing in order to actually actively practice self-care. So whether that was the newest water bottle or some fancy face mask or a silk pillowcase or a hair towel or a new robe or whatever it was that I was seeing on social media, I was like, oh, okay, well, you know, if I buy that, then I'm doing self-care right. And it's just a waste of money. It was just a waste of money. I was overindulging in things rather than investing in myself. I've also gone too far the other way where I have over-isolated and sort of over-corrected when I have been saying no to plans and been saying that it's, you know, oh, I need my space, I need my time to myself, but then I've ended up pushing myself into a position where I don't see anyone and that's miserable in and of itself as well. Finding balance is really difficult. I am still learning to find balance with self-care and with responsibilities and relationships, and I have fallen victim in the past to using self-care kind of as an excuse for if that balance has been out of kilter, if I've been out of touch and distant with a friend, if I've maybe been not putting the time into responsibilities that I really should be, or if I've gone the other way completely and I'm not giving myself enough time and respect that I deserve, I very often use self-care as the excuse. And it's not an excuse. It is a tool and it's something to learn how to use and to use with care. But it can, it can go wrong. And I think it's very easy to look at what other people do on the internet or to listen to other people and what they do in terms of self-care and assume those things will work for you. They won't. Some of them might do, yeah, sure, but we are all different people. We all work in different ways. So one thing is not going to work for everyone. This isn't a one size fits all type situation. So, you know, the things that I have suggested, my all sorts of tips and tricks that I use for self-care are all well and good, but they might not work for you. You might find doing a 15-step skincare routine is fruitful and that it gives you time to think and process. If it does, fantastic. And I'm mildly envious of you because I just don't have the patience and energy for that. If you find that self-care is going to a Pilates class, yoga class, a spin class every week and buying the new most expensive face cream, that is chill. You absolutely 100% go for it. What works for me won't necessarily work for you. You might be able to find bits and sort of pick and mix it a little bit to find what works for you. But you do have to do a lot of internal work to figure out what self-care is when it comes to self-care for you. So what I am going to suggest is that you ask yourself, what does self-care mean to me? What is one way that I can prioritise myself this week without putting my responsibilities and my relationships on the back burner? If you have any advice on self-care tips or stories that you would like to share, please do send them my way. I always love hearing those things. And remember, creating healthy habits and building up self-care is about curating a way of life that nourishes you, not just about indulgence. And it's okay to take small steps towards prioritising yourself. It doesn't come in these huge life-altering changes. It's not like you're going to practice one form of self-care and wake up tomorrow and everything's going to be okay. There are little steps that need to be put into practice with other things to help you get to where you would like to be. Thank you so, so much for listening. Remember to keep growing and to keep learning. And I will see you all next time.