What Really Grinds My Gears
Welcome back to another “What Really Grinds My Gears” post! I feel like a lot of you enjoy these because it really gets everyone talking which I always love. Today, we’ll be talking about self-care. Now you may say, aren’t you an advocate for this? Aren’t you always talking about how self-care is vital for mental health? Well, to that I say, never let them know your next move. Kidding. I actually love self-care but there are some things I need to get off my chest about it. So just give me a chance before you get outraged and keep reading.
Self-Care
Just to be clear, I love self-care and I think it’s absolutely vital for our mental health. What bugs me about it is what is currently happening and what has been happening for a while. The who idea of taking care of yourself, putting yourself first and loving yourself started because people were suffering by always putting others first. We all need me time as well. And it was created by mental health activists to help those struggling because of not having enough time to take care of themselves.
However, as it got popular, the idea of self-care became more and more commercialised. Influencers picked up on the popularity of self-care and began shoving products in our faces. Acting like the only way to care for yourself is to buy things that are worth thousands of dollars. As though those things will make you happy and make all the bad stuff magically go away. This was also connected to the toxic positivity movement that still reigns supreme on platforms like Instagram. Soon self-care started companies started to market their products towards people looking to indulge in self-care as well.
And that’s what really grinds my gears. Self-care is supposed to be a beautiful thing that helps people. However, now it is often associated with overspending and even wasting ones savings for material things. But it shouldn’t be that way. Self-care can be completely free even if we choose. It can be taking a nap, taking a nice bath, saying no when we need to, eating a delicious home cooked meal etc.
Final Thoughts
I guess what really bugs me about self-care is how commercialised it’s become. And how it has become all about spending money. And not about what it should represent- mental health. It’s frustrating to see one more good thing being exploited for money.
Some of you may not know this and I’m sure most of you do know this, but I’m a social media manage amongst many other things. That means I spend a lot of time on social media. And I constantly see people trying to shove expensive products in their followers faces in the name of self-care and find it absolutely frustrating. It’s okay to share what helps you or even the products you genuinely like. But encouraging your followers to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars when you were probably paid to promote something is never okay. And with Valentines coming up, you see more of these products than usual which drives me nuts.
My final thought is, let’s go back to the idea of self-care being about taking care of oneself. Not wasting money on unnecessary products. Unless you can afford it, if so go right ahead. Although one has to assume there are better things you can spend that money on.
What are your thoughts about the commercialisation of self-care? Let me know in the comments below or simply stop by and say hi!
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