You know I have this thing about self-care.
Self-care means taking the time to understand who you are and do things that help you improve your physical, mental, emotional, and energetic health. In a practical sense, self-care helps you manage stress, which lowers your risk of illness. Self-care helps you know, love, and respect who you are. Small acts of self-care in your daily life can have a big impact on your overall sense of being alive.
When I was growing up, self-care wasn’t a thing that was modeled for children. We were taught compassion and care for others, but not how to have emotional or energetic boundaries. These days, people talk about it, but it’s controversial. As a concept, it takes a lot of heat.
Being a human is not easy. Being in a body is heavy work a lot of the time. Maybe (I hope) we are evolving out of the era of the hyper-individual and into an age focused on the common good. If so, we each have a responsibility to care for ourselves - because that is actually at the root of community care.
If I’m a part of a whole, then I have to show up as my whole part.
So I’m big advocate for self-care with the understanding that I am not the center of the universe. This life isn’t about me, it’s about us, and the best way for me to contribute to us, is to expect my needs to be met and meet them myself.
One of the most important things to understand about self-care is that nothing is one size fits all. My needs may not look like your needs. Our bodies and souls speak different languages.
My body speaks the language of soaking in hot salty water.
My energetic body tells me when it’s time for me to take a bath. It starts to feel staticy and worn thin.
My bathing routine is hot water and Dead Sea salt with other add-ins like flower essences or Florida Water, candle light, aromatherapy…and Ram Dass.
There was a time when my salt baths were a space for guided meditations. Many is the time I’ve envisioned meetings with spirit guides as a floated, or walks in the woods, but these days, I always reach for a Ram Dass lecture.
I love him, you know. Even though we never met, he’s a huge part of my life. We’re like…friends. His brand of wisdom rings a bell deep inside me and I love sitting with his energy, which - since I mostly listen to his voice during salt baths - hovers above my naked body…
and yes, this makes me laugh.
I feel so close to him when I listen to him, almost merged into his energy or his energy merged into mine. It’s beautiful but also absurd.
Imagine Ram Dass on the other side of the veil. He feels a little tug on the edges of his etheric being. Oh, he thinks, there’s that crazy lady again in the bathtub again and so he sends a little fleck of his consciousness to my bathroom in Kentucky to drop some wisdom into my water.
It is not hyperbole to say my bathwater is an oracle.
When I float, I am reset. Re-born.
In these times of high anxiety, self-care is essential.
I’m grateful for my bathtub and the water that flows and salt and wisdom.
And this particular form of self-care that allows disembodied beings to float around in my bathroom, watching me. (And laughing.)
What about you?