We all know that taking the time to focus on self-care can make all the difference in one's mental and physical health. In this article, we are going to explore yet another contributing factor(s): The Four Cs' of Self Care.
This model of self-care encourages people to dig deeper and think about what they need to do to take care of their emotional, mental, and physical health but also provides a framework for developing a self-care plan that is tailored to each individual's needs and circumstances.
The four c’s of Self Care are Connection, Compassion, Courage, and Creativity. In this article I will break each one down, showing what exactly it is how it pertains to self-care, and how to incorporate them into your Self Care routine.
Connection(connect with yourself)
Connection is not only important in understanding your own needs and vulnerabilities but also in finding a supportive network of like-minded people and important for connecting with our values which helps with attempting to understand why it's so hard to prioritize self-care.
Compassion(connecting with others) Compassion for self as well as others is beneficial to the importance of having meaningful relationships and connections with other people. Compassion for self as well as others, but also being cognitive or aware of one's physical, emotional, and mental health, all while taking care of the same needs of others by way of consideration. Compassion is essential for self-care because we often are better at feeling compassion towards others but not to ourselves. Gratitude is also included in the compassion pillar. When we show gratitude to others and ourselves, this gives us the ability to be more compassionate towards ourselves. This allows us to notice and appreciate the things we are grateful for, instead of focusing and judging ourselves about our faults and shortcomings.
Courage(connecting with community)
Courage is not talked about when it comes to self-care, however, it is essential for making permanent and effective changes. Displaying courage can be done with something as simple as putting a halt to your activities by a certain time and getting a decent amount of sleep when it comes to yourself. Courage requires us to be willing to set boundaries, which can make us have difficult conversations and make changes in our lives that we may not be comfortable with but is something that needs to be done. When we apply this element it affects our overall view which helps with our response(s) to different things, which leads to a better connection with ourselves and also the community.
Creativity (create joy and satisfaction) Creativity is important for meaningful self-care because it allows us to engage in activities and hobbies that bring joy and fulfillment, which will help us connect with and to the things that are important to us, and also help us to move from being a “passive recipient” of inputs into producing something that is and will be conducive to our well being which will also allow positive and constructed outputs into other aspects of our day to day lives.
Yaaz, so now we know what the 4 C's of self-care care is, we can now attach this to the Quadrants, Pillars, and known benefits of self-care and begin to structure our pyramids of self-care to enhance our lives vs being “debilitated” by day to day living. See you next month when we will explore yet another contributing factor to Self Care.