Your Permission Slip: Care for Yourself the Way You Need, Not the Way You Were Told To

You’ve probably heard it all before:

Take a bath in the evening.
Write your morning pages.
Work out three times a week.
Stretch after waking.
Meditate before bed.
All good advice until it’s not.

Well... self-care is not one-size-fits-all. When we try to follow someone else's prescription it becomes self-don't-care because we aren't actually listening to our bodies and trying yet again to fit ourselves into a box. The more we try to squeeze ourselves into someone else’s rhythm, the more disconnected we feel from our own.

For the longest time, I believed that evening baths were the thing. That’s how you relax, that’s how you wind down. But you know what? It never really worked for me. The best time for me to take a bath… is first thing in the morning. And for a long time, I thought that was weird. However it’s not weird, it’s actually perfect for me. I do a lot of deep work while I sleep. My dreams are active. My body processes through the night. I often wake up feeling wrecked and heavy, as "if" I’ve just traveled through dimensions. So when I jump into warm water with a bunch of salt, candles lit, music playing first thing is a real medicine for me! It's a way for me to give my body space to fully land in this realm.

Same goes for writing. It is an excellent tool that I use for expression and processing. First time I learned it is through Artist's Way book by Julia Cameron. She speaks of Morning pages, three pages of free flow writing. I know that it works for many people to write in the morning because of how it sets the energies for the day. For me, however, it never landed. I spent many months trying to force myself to do it in the morning and I finally give up and write in the evenings these days. That’s when my mind unwinds, the day’s textures have settled, and I can finally see clearly. It feels natural to reflect, to let the insights come, and let the mental residue go.

And exercise? I used to try to follow schedules. Three times a week, specific times, structured plans. That never worked either. I actually don’t work out. I prefer movement. I move when it feels good and in a way my body wants to move: walk, run, dance, an intense vinyasa flow, or slow yin, or even just an hour lying in shavasana and relaxing deeply. Sometimes it’s stretching in bed for five minutes.

So here it is: ✨ Your permission slip. ✨

You are allowed to listen to your body and take care of yourself exactly the way that you need to. You don't have to follow trends, recipes, rules, or anything like that. If it feels right, it's okay to let the structure dissolve and completely trust yourself and your body to speak to you about what it needs. It might feel scary at first because the mind wants to control and take over, but the age of micromanaging yourself is coming to an end, and it's the age of trust, self-trust, and being really present, and knowing that in the present moment you will always have the answer.