51 Self-Care Ideas To Deal With a Bad Day (2020)

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Today, as the month of April comes to an end, I am sharing with all of you 51 ways of self-care and self-love that will give you a much needed boost a this time. We all have our bad days and good days and these self-care ideas are sure to help you cope whenever you are having a tough time.

2020 is proving to be quite a challenging year and the year of upheavals. So it is quite natural to have bad days and feel low during such a time.

Before I share with all of you these easy and fun ways of self love & care, I want to write something on this topic.

What is Self-Love/Self-Care?

Self- love means doing what is best for yourself. It does NOT mean being too proud or having a superiority complex. Infact, it’s the opposite.

Self-love keeps you humble because you know your own pluses and minuses and acknowledge that you are imperfect. Those who are vain do not love themselves since they seek validation from others & have not yet come to terms with their own imperfections. Those who are self-assured and love themselves, don’t really need any external validation.

The most important thing I have realized is that self love doesn’t mean having no self-accountability and making excuses for yourself. Making excuses also means you don’t love yourself enough to do what is needed. While it is very important to be kind to yourself and compassionate with yourself, it is also important to differentiate between being kind to yourself and making excuses Examples: I’m gonna skip my class/session/work/ meditation/workout today because I don’t feel like it. I’m going to buy myself those expensive shoes even though I know I should save that money, etc. Guys, this is not self- love. I learnt this after making some mistakes, but I have realized that self-love means inclusion of self-accountability as well.

Self love & self accountability go together. Self love and self care mean doing what you NEED and NOT just doing what you WANT. Self love & care mean knowing and doing what is best for yourself, even when it may seem tough to do at the moment. In order to know what is best for you, you need to start self-introspecting. You have to become your own best friend.

For me, self love means being honest with yourself, acknowledging the fact that you are not perfect and striving to improve yourself.

On that note, I am sharing with all of you 51 Simple Ways of Self-Care, to help you during a bad day at home.

Here’s the list:

1. Brew and drink a cup of your favourite beverage
2. Refresh your morning routine
3. Wake up early
4. Watch the sunrise
5. Have a healthy & satisfying breakfast
6. Write down or say a few positive affirmations.
7. Write 10 things you are grateful for
8. Take a detox bath
9. Try a new face mask
10. Breathe deeply
11. Do Yoga
12. Sleep well
13. Exercise often
14. Stretch yourself to relieve tension
15. Meditate daily
16. Order/make your favorite dessert
17. Write 5 things you love about yourself
18. Make a bucket list or vision board
19. De-clutter 10 items
20. Read a personal growth book
21. Skip watching & reading the news
22. Do something that makes you laugh
23. Do a kind deed for others/ help someone/donate to charity
24. Stop comparing yourself with others
25. Watch your favorite show
26. Have a video chat with family & friends
27. Give yourself (or get) a manicure or pedicure at home
28. Give yourself a head massage
29. Light your favorite candle
30. Listen to your favorite podcast
31. Cook your favorite meal
32. Do a digital detox
33. Watch funny YouTube Clips
34. Draw, paint, colour or doodle something
35. Take regular small interval breaks from work
36. Don’t criticise or belittle yourself
37. Dress up as if you are going outside
38. Click some pretty photos of yourself
39. Listen to your favorite music
40. Hug someone/ Tell someone you love them
41. Drink a full glass of water & stay hydrated
42. Read inspirational quotes
43. Watch a motivational Ted Talk
44. Wear your favourite perfume
45. Turn your phone off for a few hours
46. Do a Brain Dump
47. Plan your upcoming week
48. Leave some room for imperfection in your life.
49. Dance like crazy
50. Block/ unfollow people and social media accounts who bring down your self-confidence/ make you feel negative
51. Set an attainable challenge for yourself for the next day

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So here was my list of 51 self-care ideas. Do let me know if you try any of these and feel better!

Take Care of yourself everyone and focus on loving yourself and taking care of your mental and physical health during these crazy Coronavirus Pandemic times.

See you all in my next post,

Till the,

Dream. Imagine. Be Crazy. Be You.

A Letter to My Younger Self; 6 Things I wish I Knew Before

I usually pre-plan my blog posts but sometimes I don’t. This one is completely spontaneous.

As I reach my late twenties this year, I look back and reflect on the younger me who was a teenager & who was in her early twenties.

Truth be told, I am hoping my thirties will turn out to be better than my twenties and unlike some people who make a hue & cry about their twenties being over, I am glad I am turning older & wiser & fast approaching my thirties.

I have gained a lot of perspective in my late twenties and I am much calmer & overall just like this version of myself better than the previous one.

So today, I am writing a letter from the current version of myself to the younger version of me.

Here it goes:

Dear Mini-Manasi,

I am sharing a few things I have learnt as I have reached my late twenties.. I hope you find these points useful in dealing with your life.

1. It’s okay if people don’t understand your journey

You are young and you expect people to understand where you come from. Especially certain people you considered close enough.

You aren’t very vocal about it, but you expect people to understand. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s okay for people to not understand you and your problems. Even if you understand people, you cannot expect the same understanding from them in return, since they are not obliged to do so. Each individual is different & has different ways of perceiving things.

2. Ignore the body-shamers & stay confident.

While you have never been obese, you have been overweight for quite some time, especially when you were a teenager & in your early twenties. You have been healthy & have made efforts to keep yourself in shape. Yet, you have been body shamed to be a certain ‘size’ by many people including extended family & friends circle. I know that you have received lots of unsolicited advice by people who themselves are not perfect and try to portay themselves as being so. You have gone through hurt and periods of depression because of certain comments & have felt underconfident of yourself.

This is a recent realisation and although your approach towards dealing with such people has evolved through the years, it was not until recently that you had the complete realisation of all these things.

I hope you realise that just because someone calls you their ‘friend’ or is in familial relation with you, does not automatically change the basic character & nature of that person. If a certain person is spiteful, jealous or hateful, they will remain so, irrespective of how close to you they appear to be.

To be fair, you have also received a lot of good comments and many people, even strangers have complimented you and called you ‘pretty’, ‘beautiful’ and the likes..

Also, you are lucky to be surrounded by certain good friends & your parents as well, who have been your pillar of support, especially your mother.

You are someone who has never body shamed people or tried to put others down to make yourself feel better. Unfortunately, I have often come across people who are like this and I have realised there is little you can do about such people.

Dear younger self, don’t get bothered about comments from other people. Just stay confident & do your thing. Be grateful for all the positivity you have recieved till date & ignore the negative.

After all, “What people say about you is a reflection of what they are, not what you are.”

3. It is okay to say ‘No’ sometimes & have boundaries.

As a young girl, you did so much for everyone, you listened to people’s problems, became an agony aunt for your friends, gave relationship advice to your peers and in general you were the typical introverted teenager who listened to people but kept her own issues to herself.

You have been kind, caring, loving and compassionate to the point of exhausting your energy and saving none of it for yourself.

It’s good to be compassionate & the world definitely needs a lot of it, but save some of it for yourself too.

Dear younger self- Its okay to create boundaries & speak up and do things you like and stay away from toxic people & situations.

After all, an empty cup can offer nothing. A cup filled with self-care & love, will offer good things to others as well, right?

4. Don’t try to downplay & undervalue yourself

As a teenager & in your early twenties, you have always tried to downplay your talents & worth. You felt you that you were worthless and you worked on low salaries for a long period of time when you started out. You never went out and asked for more and because you tricked yourself into believing that you weren’t good enough.

You also downplayed your degrees,your education & your qualifications because if you spoke about yourself when people asked you to, they seemed intimidated by you, or acted cold towards you.

You then started downplaying yourself to win the affection of people. You did it to a point that you started believing you are a loser. You started to not be yourself and you became someone else altogether. Of course, being vain is not the answer, but having a basic belief in yourself is vital for your sanity.

Dear mini-me, it’s okay to be yourself. Just acknowledge who you are and stay self-assured. Don’t underestimate or overestimate yourself.

5. Don’t get swayed away by emotions & be more practical

You have always been someone who is extremely emotional (I know, you’ll say most women are), but you have been just too emotional in your dealings with people & you have been swinging from one emotion to the other.

I know now, that your emotional side helps you to be more sensitive towards other people and care for them. but if you don’t watch yourself, you can take certain decisions based on emotions rather than logic and it can be deterimental.

Dear younger self, while it’s okay to be emotional, you need a practical view towards life as well, in order to live a well balanced life.

6. Don’t take everything so seriously, have more fun!

I have realised that you took a lot of things too seriously in life. Every comment, every assignment, every task. Oh my goodness!

While this seriousness & sincerity has definitely helped you professionally, in your personal life, having a great sense of humour can change the way you see things.

Dear Mini-Manasi. just lighten up and take things easy. Don’t be so serious all the time! Enjoy and have fun and learn to see humour in the toughest times, it wil make things easier for you!

I hope you found this letter useful,

Yours Lovingly,

Manasi.

…………………………………………………………………………………

To sum it all up, I would just simply wish that my younger self knew all the things I know now, that is, to be more carefree & have fun, to strive to be healthy and to ignore the haters & not let negative comments get under my skin and to set boundaries & realise everyone is wired differenly & not to expect people around me to understand me.

I still struggle with certain things that I have said above and many other things as well, but I have realised that I have come a long way in acknowledging certain things & that I am not perfect, I have my flaws & that itis absolutely fine to be imperfect as long as I am true to myself!

No one owes anything to anyone in this life, we all are free to make choices, it’s upto us to make the one’s we feel are right for us and for the poeple around us.

Also, it’s okay to make mistakes, because, otherwise, how will we learn??

Every step of life brings out a different & upgraded version of ourselves, doesn’t it?

So, I hope you enjoyed this article and maybe some points hit home for you and were applicable to you too!

What kind of letter would you write to your younger self?

Rising like the Phoenix..

As we are towards the end of this year, let us take a moment to review how the year was. I guess everyone has had his or her own experiences of good and bad during the year. Personally for me, it was a tough year, where I went through many changes, ups and downs, highs and lows, many changes and many harsh realities to face. I moved back from Mumbai to Pune. Had some changes related to my career, faced lows in my personal life like mourning the loss of my grandfather, facing criticism from people when it was not my fault, being judged for what I do and where I come from, etc etc. I ended up feeling low for quite sometime.

But as I look back, I just see how far I have come. I see how this year has changed me for the good, for the better and made me more resilient, more practical, more proactive and more accepting of people and situations. I see how going through the things I went through, has made me more positive, more compassionate and more careful of how I react to situations. I see how wise and thoughtful this year has made me and I feel thankful. As I write this, I have a smile on my face. As I write this, I am reminded of the Phoenix.

If you are a Harry Potter Fan like me and remember Fawkes the Phoenix bird from the book (or the movies) or if you just believe in or love the bird Phoenix, then you know what I am talking about. For those who don’t know the Phoenix is a mythologically magical creature, originating from ancient Greece, who rises from the ashes and get’s reborn once he is burnt. It has many references in many books, poems and literature.

So here’s a poem from me, for all of you.

RISING LIKE THE PHOENIX..

The fire which burns the Phoenix

is hot, scalding and terrifying

yet the phoenix faces it’s fate

burning in flames

with courage and bravery

It goes through the painful transformation

The ashes from the fire scatter all around

and just when you think the Phoenix has given up

just when you think it is no more

It peeks and looks up at you

alive and thriving..

 

That Phoenix

Get’s up in resolve

and Rises

It’s new birth has just begun..

It spreads it’s glorious wings to fly

It soars high and above

Shining in it’s all glory

 beaming in it’s beauty

and soaking all happiness

It flies up and above

never to look back again…

So rise just like the Phoenix,

From the ashes of pain

the ashes of guilt

the ashes of blame

and the

ashes of hurt

Rise like the Phoenix

from the ashes of the past

from the ashes of yesterday

from the ashes of sorrow

and the worries of tomorrow

For every end

marks a new beginning

for every night

is followed by dawn

Rise and spread your wings

of joy and happiness

of positivity and courage

of ambition and action

Soar high into the sky

of your hopes and dreams

of your desires and wishes

and never look back again

For inside you

lies the Phoenix

who can transform itself

Always and forever…

Thank You.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this post. Do enjoy the last few days of this year and soar into the new year like a just reborn Phoenix bird full of joy and happiness. Catch you all soon.

Till then

Dream. Imagine. Be Crazy. Be You.

Au Revoir.

Of Angels and Demons.

Jannat (Heaven) and Jahannum (Hell) Achchai (Good) and Burai (Evil) These are common phrases we utter everyday.
Infact, we often categorize people mentally as “good” or “bad” based upon what we think, feel, act or react.

The latest news going on, about Indrani Mukerjea who killed her own daughter, or about Jasleen Kaur from Delhi, who framed an innocent man wrongly and accused him of eve-teasing her and about Hardik Patel who is fighting for the so-called rights of the Patidars and is demanding reservation and has created a ruckus in the state of Gujarat leading to riots at places. All these current happenings ponder me to think on this ever controversial topic.

What prompted these people to do the horrendous things they did?

In today’s media world, negative sells. News channels and newspapers are filled with updates on cases like these and we all seem to lap it up. Aren’t we all intrigued to know more about the cases I just mentioned above? Why? Isn’t it something to wonder? Maybe we are just curious or is there something more to it?

The reason could be because there are two faces to each one of us. Heaven and hell, both reside within us.
We ourselves are responsible for either making or breaking our own lives. We may blame and criticize the entire world, our circumstances and the environment around us, but these external factors affect us only to an extent.

The thing is- both  the Satan and Divine, Heaven and Hell, reside within us.

We carry the Angels and Demons within us, at each moment. They co-exist. They fight with each other

They are present in us, every time, every second,

What we chose, whom do we listen to, depends on us.

When we chose to ignore the inner voice which tells us what is wrong, what is right- The thing which we call our subconscious, our inner consciousness or our inner god or our Angel, then we turn towards the darker side.

The people who chose to ignore the inner voice inside them, who subdue that voice, turn towards the negative side, like the people in the examples I cited above. Most of them, regret it at some point of their lives.

The hero and the villain, the devil and the angel, the good and the bad, both are two sides of the same coin. The angel won’t be an angel without the demon and the demon won’t be a demon without the angel. They have to co-exist; but yes, one is always more powerful than the other.

The choice is ours. We are What we chose. Hope we all chose the angel within us and let the demon remain in the closet. 

Dream. Imagine. Be Crazy. Be You.

Au Revoir!

P.S- Do read one of my most popular posts- Villains- Exploring the Darker Side- http://www.manasiwrites.com/2013/06/villains-exploring-darker-side.html