The Witch's Book of Self-Care: Magical Ways to Pamper, Soothe, and Care for Your Body and Spirit

Don’t procrastinate. Don’t let all the work fall on the shoulders of “Future You.” That’s an abuse of your own energy and disrespect of your future self.

Great Universe, Thank you for my many blessings. I thank you for the food I eat, The roof over my head, The comforts I enjoy, The family that supports me, The friends who love me, And the health I enjoy. May I always be grateful for these blessings and all others.

While it can be therapeutic to put something off, procrastination or ignoring a problem isn’t self-care; in fact, it’s the opposite. Ignoring a problem just makes it more of a problem. Self-care involves scheduling things so that they don’t reach problem status and includes being kind to your future self by not leaving her a mess to handle.

Self-care means considering yourself a worthwhile person and presenting yourself as valuable, capable, and deserving. In other words, self-care seeks to redress an imbalance that develops when you don’t take proper care of yourself, whether by inattention or by choice.

magic is about listening to what’s inside you and the messages the Divine and nature have for you.

Unplugging helps you refocus on yourself instead of being pulled in a zillion different directions. Those directions may all be important, but you are just as important. Unplugging allows you to focus on being in the moment, here and now. It helps you step away from the emotional roller coaster that you ride reacting to a friend’s story, a news article, or outrage over worldwide events. Unplugging gives you the chance to remember who you are at your core.

The fear of failure can paralyze you. The reluctance to make decisions or take steps can often be traced back to the fear of failing in some way. To succeed, however, you have to accept the risk of failure, as well as the risk of success. Sometimes that, too, can be a scary prospect.

Don’t multitask by combining your treats, unless you specifically design one as something stacked (a fancy coffee while reading a good book, for example). If you overload your treat time, you’ll lose out on the full experience of enjoying each aspect, and the self-care might become perfunctory.

Pausing to take a good look at yourself can be intimidating. What if you aren’t the great person you think you are? Sometimes self-care is hard because it means facing things you’d rather pretend aren’t there. Self-examination is uncomfortable. It requires a level of honesty that you may not feel prepared to handle. You may fear admitting that you have been the one sabotaging yourself, knowingly or unknowingly, or you may be terrified of acknowledging that you need to crack down on your self-discipline in order to be your best self. Self-care means recognizing that you’re weak in some areas. It means you have more agency and control over your life than you may be comfortable accepting.

if you pause and allow yourself to acknowledge and connect with that moment, however small, you will realize that every moment can be special just because it’s yours and you’ve recognized it as such.

Self-care involves scheduling things so that they don’t reach problem status and includes being kind to your future self by not leaving her a mess to handle.

to retrain your inner voice to be nurturing. Sometimes thinking of yourself as a child can help. “Did that hurt?” you can ask yourself. “It looks like it did. It’s okay. It hurts, but it will be over soon. Hey, look at that pretty butterfly. I wonder where it’s going right now?” Just as you’d affirm a child’s emotion and then help redirect their attention from the subject that’s upsetting them, you can redirect your own focus too.

Hygge suggests that the living of your life can be an art form, which is an excellent way to look at self-care. It’s not about flashiness; it’s about comfort and expression. It’s about creating a special moment, not special in the out-of-the-ordinary sense, but in the recognition that if you pause and allow yourself to acknowledge and connect with that moment, however small, you will realize that every moment can be special just because it’s yours and you’ve recognized it as such.

cats are my best friend

Part of self-care is allowing yourself the permission to have those moments and to enjoy them. You are encouraged to pause and acknowledge the moment, whether it is good or bad. That moment of acknowledgment reinforces the idea that you are worth the time. It also validates your feelings, which can reduce overall stress.

You may be familiar (unwillingly so) with your mind skittering away from what you should be working on because you don’t want to expend the energy required to bite into it and get it done. When you’re tired—physically or mentally—it’s easier to do superficial stuff. Focused meditation helps us relearn the skill of focusing on the task at hand. It goes hand in hand with the concept of awareness of the moment, which is key to self-care. Focusing your attention on the task at hand—eating, reading, exercising—allows you to be aware of all the sensations that accompany that task and offers you the opportunity to examine how you respond to them.

Food can be tricky. Sometimes we get caught up in using food to reward ourselves or as self-care in a less-than-constructive way, trying to cheer ourselves up with treats that may make us feel good emotionally but that don’t pack as great a reward for our nutritional levels. And sometimes, when you feel like most of your life is out of control, eating food becomes something that you can control. Remember, an extravagant food-based treat once in a while can be indulgent, but indulge too often, and it’s no longer a treat.

As passionate as you are about the causes you support and the freedoms you defend, sometimes trying to stay on top of the news and outreach can exhaust you. Sometimes it’s best for you to step back from it all and heal your stress in order to be in tip-top shape to get back into the fight. But not everyone has the privilege of stepping away, you might say. “How can I take the option to step out of the ring when there are people dying, starving, being oppressed?” you ask. Comparing your personal state to someone else’s is a recipe for ducking out of self-care. Someone will always be worse off. That doesn’t mean you should avoid taking care of yourself right now. Live to fight another day. Take time off to recharge and regroup, and bring your best self back to support your cause.

I release this guilt to the universe. I invite peace and serenity to take its place. Open my heart to the positive energy of this lesson And support me as I learn to care for myself freely. Thank you for your many blessings.