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Self care guilt is that feeling of being selfish when you take the time to look after yourself, that you need to say sorry to others for doing so. Self-care guilt is the feeling that taking care of yourself is not as important as other things and so you put it off, claiming you don’t have time for it. Self care guilt has a massive impact on your well-being! It stops you from practicing self care and it genuinely makes you feel bad about yourself. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you address your self care guilt and take steps toward overcoming self care guilt. 

Understand What is Causing Your Self-Care Guilt

Consider the impacts of societal and cultural expectations 

Society has played a large role in creating self care guilt for a lot of people. Society teaches us to put other people’s needs before our own, to appear selfless, and to be compassionate. This might be one of the reasons why you feel guilty when you have to say no to fulfilling someone else’s needs in order to practice self care for yourself. 

Identify personal beliefs and narratives that contribute to guilt

There are a lot of conscious and unconscious beliefs that you may have that contribute to your guilt around self care. The next time you feel guilt when practicing self care, take a moment to analyse where the feeling is coming from and what might be the cause of it. It something that you are quietly saying to yourself? Is it something you are explicitly telling yourself because someone has said it to you before or made you feel a certain way about it?

Examples of personal beliefs and narratives that may be contributing to your self-care guilt:

• “If I practice self care, I will be seen as indulging.”
• “I am selfish if I spend time focusing on myself”
• “I am not worth my time”
• “I have no time in my day as it is”
• “I have to say no to a whole bunch of things if I want to practice self care”
• “I have good well-being, I don’t need to prioritise self care”
• “People are going to think I am self-centred”

You need to start being aware of thoughts like this because they are the ones stopping you from taking care of yourself. They are the ones that make you have uncomfortable and negative emotions. They are the ones that make you feel bad about yourself. Therefore it is essential that you become aware of them so that you can start rewording these thoughts and rewriting the narrative you have about yourself and self care. Once you have identified a thought that is causing you guilt around your self care, I challenge you to try to reword it so it becomes a positive 

Ultimately, you need to make yourself believe that you are worth the investment of time and energy.  

Identify areas where self-care guilt arises

It could be that your perfectionism is making you feel guilty about it. Maybe you have tried self care but didn’t do it well enough to please your perfectionist personalities’ expectations. Maybe you had the perfect plan around self care but when you put it into action you couldn’t stick to it perfectly. Now your perfectionism is causing you to become self critical and feel guilty about your ability to practice self care.

It could be that you are a natural-born people-pleaser. You are used to constantly doing things for others and fulfilling their expectations of you. You are used to putting others needs before your own. You are not used to doing things for yourself and prioritising yourself and your own wants and needs. If this sounds like you, it could mean that your people-pleasing tendencies are causing some of your self care guilt. 

There are many other areas where self care guilt can arise from. Therefore it is important that you practice some self reflection and increase yourself awareness about it so you can identify those guilt triggers sooner and do something about them.

Reframe Self-Care as a Necessity, Not a Luxury

When self care is thought of as a luxury thing, it can be quite easy to start feeling guilt when practicing it. When it is thought of this way, practicing it becomes seen as ‘indulging’, ‘excessive’, or ‘unnecessary’. This is harmful because it surrounds self care with a feeling of guilt that makes you stop engaging in and reaping its benefits. 

Understand that self-care is essential for your overall well-being

 One way to stop feeling that self care guilt is to know how essential self care is for your overall well-being. Yes, self care can occasionally mean doing those “luxurious” things like going for a spa day, treating yourself to getting your nails done, or going for a massage. However, when done on a regular basis, these things do not constitute true self care. True self care is practicing activities that help you maintain areas your health and well being (like making sure to drink enough water in a day, mediating, stretching, getting enough sleep). This makes it an essential practice for living a healthy lifestyle. 

Recognize that taking care of yourself enables you to better care for others

Anyone who has been on a plane will know the emergency procedure of putting on your own mask before helping others. This whole emergency procedure stem from the ideas that you cannot properly help other people if you are struggling yourself.  Well, the same goes for your well being. If you are neglecting your own self care and not looking after your own well-being, your ability to truly help others will be limited. 

Having a clear mental space, allows you to be more present in conversations and be a better listener because you can listen without being distracted by your own thoughts. Looking after your own emotional health helps you be in a better emotional space that allows you to have the capacity take on the emotions of others. when they need you to without the impact of being around their emotions making you crumble. Having clear social boundaries around yourself, your time and your needs allows you to create balanced, respectful friendships. In these friendships, your needs are also met, you are not being used as a doormat and you know you can give your all to helping people who you genuinely care about you too.

Start seeing self-care as self-responsible rather than selfish

Another mental shift you need to make is seeing self care as being self-responsible, rather than selfish. In practicing self care, you are showing responsibility for yourself and actually looking after your needs. This stops you from being reliant on others for constantly picking you up mentally and emotionally (that is not to say you shouldn’t seek help from others when you need it). This helps you balance the mental, emotional, or social load you place on others because it allows them to have more moments in your company when you are in a good state. 

It is also self-responsible because you lessen the risk of becoming resentful toward others. If you are constantly going out of your way to do things for others and not attending to your own needs you run the risk of becoming bitter and resentful. This is because you start to see everyone else’s needs being met and not your own. You might be tempted then to make comments about how much you sacrificed for them or sigh and make comments that cause them to feel guilty or bad. This is not fun for either party and can really harm the relationship over time. Avoid this potential and keep your relationships functioning by looking after yourself and stopping yourself from over-giving or overdoing things for others.

Set Boundaries and Prioritize Your Needs 

Establishing clear boundaries with others to protect self-care time

A great way to overcome self care guilt associated with having to prioritise it over other things is establishing clear boundaries with people around you. Choose the times that you are going to practice self care and block them out in your schedule. Then let people know that you won’t be free in those times. If they know you are unavailable at those specified times then they will respect this and will hopefully remember to take this into account when making plans with you (they may need small reminders from time to time). 

Creating clear boundaries also helps you mentally establish that this is your time for self care. You have allocated this time to look after yourself. Therefore should not feel guilty about it because you have decided to make this commitment to yourself for yourself.

Learning to say no without guilt when your needs require it

As much as one can plan and make people aware of plans, things do pop up. This is when you need to assess your personal needs and decide whether the thing that has popped up is more important that practicing your self care. If that things is a once in a blue moon, I 100% want to do this and I will regret this so much if I don’t kind of thing or a this is so important, I can’t possibly not kind of thing, then by all means prioritise it. However, if it is not those kind of thing and your deem self care to be more important, then you need to learn to say no. Having the ability to say no is going to be a real asset to overcoming the guilt associated with committing to your self care.

Learn to say no without feeling guilty, You have analysed the situation and you know that in this instance your self care needs are more important. You have made the decision to prioritise them and that is great! Now you need to accept that decision, try not think more about it and just move on (I know, easier said than done).

Prioritizing self-care activities that nourish and rejuvenate you

There are so many different self care activities out there to choose from. That means you have plenty of options that allow you to create a self care routine full of self care activities tailored to your needs. For example, if you already have great habits that protect your physical health, you can maybe turn your attention to your emotional health. 

Find the activities that nourish and rejuvenate you. Self care should be something that you enjoy doing, rather than just another task to tick off of the list. So try a range of self care activities and find the ones that feed your soul, or adapt them to work better for you. For example, if you don’t like writing but still like the idea of journalling you could rather spend 10 minutes on an app like Daily Bean (IOS, Android). Apps like this allow you to quickly select from a range of options and customised activities, allowing you to get a visual representation of your moods and what went on in your day.

It might takes some time and effort finding the right activities will make you want to actually practice self care. This helps you overcome any guilt associated with knowing you should practice self care but not wanting to, or being uncommitted to your self care routine because you don’t enjoy it.

Practice Self-Compassion and Let Go of Perfectionism

Cultivating self-compassion as a counter to self-criticism

Is your guilt stemming from critical thoughts about yourself? You need to combat these self-criticisms by developing your self-compassion. Compassion is being aware of and sympathetic towards the distress of others, coupled with the feeling of wanting to reduce it for them. Being self-compassionate, it turning that compassion inwards and recognising and being sympathetic to your own distresses and focusing on improving them. Try to look at yourself with a sympathetic mindset and look for where you can help yourself and build yourself up rather than critique and break yourself down. Focus on those areas where you are in need and let that drive your self care. Doing this will allow you to work on and improve those areas in a kinder way, reducing the need for them to be self-critiqued.

Also when it comes to self care itself, notice when you are struggling and be kind to yourself rather than critique yourself and fill yourself with the guilt of not being good enough. Allow yourself to know that it is okay, be sympathetic toward your own emotions and circumstances and try to help yourself out as you would a friend.

Embracing imperfections and accepting that self-care doesn’t have to be perfect

There is no set way self care has to be done. There is no perfect template for you to follow. Self care can be completely individualised and is therefore perfectly imperfect. Embrace this!

If you don’t manage to do that one self care activity you said you’d do in the mornings, try squeeze it in later in the day. If you only manage to do 5 out of your 10 minutes of meditation that you told yourself you were going to do, then that is all you were able to handle for the day and that is completely okay. You are in control of how you feel about your self care so start creating more of an accepting and understanding approach to it.

Celebrating small acts of self-care

Self care is essential to your overall well being, therefore any steps towards practicing self care should be celebrated. You don’t need to celebrate in an extravagant way, but it is important to recognise your efforts and give yourself a pat on the back when you deserve it. It is a great way to keep yourself motivated and generate positive feelings toward engaging in self care. 

Seek Support and Accountability

Reach out to friends, family, or support groups for understanding and validation

There are many support systems around you that you can reach out to if you are struggling with your guilt around self care. It can seriously help to talk things through with someone you trust and receive input from them. It might help reassure you that there is no need to feel guilt about engaging in self care practices. They might also provide you with the encouragement that you need to overcome your feelings or just be there for you when you need a boost of reassurance. 

Enlisting an accountability partner to encourage and remind you to prioritize self-care

Nobody said self care had to be a solo journey. Find someone that wants to work on their self care too and do it together. This is great because you can hold each other accountable and help each other prioritise self care. It also helps because you have someone that understands what you are doing and are subsequently going through. This means you have an understanding person to talk through any struggles with as well as share successes and triumphs with. 

Exploring therapy or counseling as a resource for addressing deeper emotional blocks

Sometimes your self care guilt might have roots that need deeper exploration and greater work in order to be resolved. This is where it might be a good idea for you to seek therapy or counselling. Seeking professional assistance is good way to explore deeper feelings. It allows you to feel more open and be more vulnerable because you are working in confidence with a professional who is unbiased and removed from your life. Seeking professional advice is also a great way to gather personalised strategies that will help you deal with your particular circumstances. 

Start Small and Build Consistent Habits 

Using the concepts micro habits to create self care practices is a surefire way to helping them become an automatic behaviour. When your self care activities become engrained in you as a behaviour, you will start doing them without thinking- which can help minimise some of your guilt. 

Use this post about micro habits to help you start creating a bunch of micro self cares that will help you lead a healthier lifestyle. Don’t forgot to celebrate your progress along the way and acknowledge the positive impact of consistent self-care is having on you. This can be a great motivator and a great way to combat any guilt you might feel.

Embrace Flexibility and Adaptation

Overcome that self care guilt caused by perfectionist tendencies by embracing flexibility and adaptation.

Allow yourself to adjust self-care routines as needed- be flexible

Having a daily self care routine is great! It allows you to know that you are spending a bit of time prioritising your health and well being every day. However, as much as a routine can look brilliant on paper, when put into practice it might look quite different. Activities may take you longer than expected, things might appear and get in the way. Therefore, having the mental flexibility to allow yourself to adjust your self care routine is one of the ways to create a self care routine you actually want to stick to.  Don’t be afraid to keep altering it until it becomes a routine that properly fits into your life. 

Be flexible with your expectations and finding what works best for you. Practicing self care can involve a bit of trial and error when trying to find activities that suit you. Also, some activities might involve learning a new skill or take a bit of time for you to be habitually good at. It will take some time to also figure out what kinds and how many self care activities you can fit into your allocated self care time. Having intense/high expectations is one way to start on the self critical, self guilt cycle, so please be careful when setting expectations for yourself.

If you are wanting more information about creating a self care routine that you will actually stick to, check out this post. 

Let go of guilt when circumstances require adaptations to your self-care practice

There are going to be times when your self care routine does not go to plan for circumstances outside of your control. This is when you need to be kind toward yourself rather than being critical. Recognise that you cannot control everything, and that it is going to be okay. Also, be sure to show yourself some compassion and allow yourself to be flexible. A change of circumstances does not mean you have to give up and abandon your plan or routine. Allow yourself the opportunity to get creative and see how you can adapt your self care plan/routine to your new circumstances.

Self care is a non-negotiable and essential part of living a healthy fulfilling life and something you definitely should not feel guilty about engaging in. If you are struggling with your self care guilt then I encourage you to try to implement the strategies listed in this post and start combating your guilt so that you can prioritize your well-being, A wee reminder if you are feeling self care guilt, you are not alone. Self care guilt is a common thing and it can be resolved overtime with practice and lots of self compassion.