Prioritising Self care

A few weeks ago I received a notification from Spotify ‘your self-care soundtrack - perfect your practice with music made for yoga, meditation and mindfulness.’ Must admit this came at the perfect moment as like many of us, my wellbeing has taken a bit of a hit lately, and I haven’t been prioritising self care as much as I should. I'm writing this as our two children come in and out of the office, and I'm sitting with this feeling of guilt whether I'm working or with the children, my own wellbeing gets put to one side....

It still feels like self-care can often be regarded as a selfish act, but I always think of it as the airplane oxygen mask analogy. Flight attendants during their pre-flight safety instructions say that in the case of a change in cabin pressure, put your oxygen mask on first before assisting anyone else, even your own children. This is to ensure you are then able to help your children/others. Say if you put your childrens’ masks on them first you may then pass out, and you won’t be available to help them with the next steps to safety.

This is an important analogy to remember for people who run around taking care of everything and everyone except themselves. OK, my hand is in the air, I do this too.  If we don’t prioritise self care we will burn out and then we won’t be use to anyone.

Listening to music can be a great way to reconnect with ourselves, whether that’s listening to familiar music which removes us from the situation to a place, figuratively speaking, which is more conducive to our wellbeing (more on this read Tia DeNora’s work on Musical Asylums), or losing ourselves in new music. As a side note, this is a great workout for the brain as it works to process the new music considering 'what is this like' in terms of music you have heard before, and creating memories associated with this new music

We often think of self-care in terms of relaxation and unwinding, but of course self-care can also encompass workouts (high and low intensity), doing activities that thrill and excite us, and exploring things outside of our comfort zone. Self-care is subjective, do what makes you feel good.

Likewise, music is also subjective, a topic I'm very passionate about sharing, it isn’t something that should be prescriptive. That said, we can all have mental blocks when it comes to choosing music for certain activities, and so Spotify’s wellness section is a great starter for getting inspiration, whether to listen to their pre-made playlists for certain activities (they have categorised playlists to match certain activities such as yoga, workout, mindfulness etc), or to inspire your own personal playlists, add the pieces into your own playlists. I often chose the latter as my musical taste is eclectic!

Thanks Spotify for creating this at a time when we could all do with reconnecting with ourselves. Take care of you first, and you’ll find taking care of everyone else that little bit easier.

What is /what would be on your self-care playlist and for what purpose?