Warning: This sentiment might be controversial: self-care is not about kale juice and bath salts. There, I said it. While those things are wonderful (love me some bath salts!), I believe that self-care goes much deeper.
Truly, it is about our relationship with ourselves. It’s about how we nourish both our bodies and minds through developing self-awareness. It’s about our ability to assess our mindset, through practices like meditation and journaling, so that we can “show up” for ourselves (aka be present) with compassion, acceptance, and support.
Self-care is always changing—as is our relationship with ourselves—and is something to be practiced every single day. It all starts with taking our “internal temperature” (taking the time to become aware of what’s going on inside). Are we more self-critical, judgmental, and impatient today? If so, we might need to go heavier on the yoga or self-massage, for example.
As the Founder of holistic beauty brand Essential Rose Life, it’s very important to me that my community understands the products I create are to be used in tandem with a healthy lifestyle. They are simply tools for transformation. For example, the Sacred Presence Mood Mist is both a skin-cell regenerative and hydrating face toner that also deepens the breath, promotes mindfulness, and assists with our ability to cope with stress. I instruct my clients to not only use it in the morning after cleansing, but before their daily meditation practice (or whatever they do in the morning to get centered), or throughout the day to when they’re feeling thrown off course.
Rose is a particularly beautiful oil for the mind-body approach. Rose is incredibly healing for the skin, which is why it has been prized as the “Queen of Flowers” since ancient mythology. It is hydrating, toning, wound healing, and youth-enhancing. Even more importantly (in my opinion), it mends a broken heart, soothes anxiety, depression, and isolation, and helps us accept more fully ourselves or situations we are facing. It is like the love of the divine, embodied mother that helps us heal.
In the Mist I mentioned above, Bulgarian/Turkish Rose essential oil is one of the featured ingredients (as opposed to “rosewater,” which is not nearly as potent). The properties of Rose span all of its applications, even in other tools such as tea or crystals. Rose Quartz, for example, supports heart-chakra balancing and promotes divine, unconditional compassion, acceptance, and love for self and others.
Ultimately, self-care is about products and experiences (including Kale juice and salt baths) and also is not. It’s about how you use them to transform your relationship with yourself through self-awareness, self-connection, and self-love.
