Self Care in Everyday Life
Self care is often talked about as something you do occasionally - A break. A treat. A moment to switch of
While those things can be helpful, they’re only one small part of a much bigger picture.
Seeing Self Care Beyond Breaks and Treats
Self-care lives in everyday life.
In how you relate to yourself, how your days are shaped, how your body is treated, how relationships function, and how your surroundings either support you or quietly drain you.
Much of this happens without much attention. Not because people are doing anything wrong, but because life moves quickly and many patterns become normal over time.
The aim here isn’t to measure, fix, or improve yourself.
It’s to notice how different parts of life are interacting, and how that interaction affects how things feel day to day.
A bubble bath can be a good place to start, if that’s what helps in the moment.
On its own, though, it doesn’t explain why some days feel heavier than others, or why rest doesn’t always reach the tiredness underneath.
And it doesn’t explain why things sometimes fall into place, why life feels steady, or why it flows more easily at times.
For that, it can help to look a little wider.
A Way of Seeing the Bigger Picture
Life is experienced as one whole
Thoughts, choices, physical demands, interactions with others, and surroundings all arrive at once, often without clear boundaries between them.
The hand offers a way of temporarily separating that whole, so the interactions between different parts of life can be seen more clearly.
Rather than trying to take everything in at once, experience is viewed through five aspects:
The inner world
Direction
The body
Relationships
Surroundings
Separating them doesn’t divide life. It brings clarity.
It helps show how each aspect influences the others, and how life is quietly shaped across them all, often without being noticed.
The hand doesn’t explain why things happen.
It doesn’t suggest what should change.
It doesn’t tell you what to do.
It offers a way of looking, not a method for fixing.
“So what changes when I can see things this way?
Making What’s Already Happening Easier to See
Because self care often works quietly, it can be hard to see where things are supporting you and where pressure is building.
When everything is felt at once, strain can show up as tiredness, irritability, loss of motivation, or a sense that something is “off”, without it being clear why.
Looking at life through the hand helps make these patterns more visible.
It brings attention to how awareness, responsibility, regulation, and adaptation are operating across different parts of life, rather than focusing on one issue in isolation.
This kind of visibility doesn’t require action.
It allows you to notice where things are working, where demands are accumulating, and where small adjustments might eventually help, without judgement or urgency.
For some people, this makes sense of pressure they’re already feeling.
For others, it highlights patterns they hadn’t named before.
Often, simply seeing where pressure is coming from changes how it’s experienced.
This isn’t about fixing life or improving yourself.
It’s about staying connected to what’s actually happening, so change, when it’s needed, can happen with less strain.
Some people use this to make sense of pressure they’re already feeling.
Others use it to notice patterns they hadn’t named before.
You don’t need to move through the hand in any order.
You don’t need to engage with every aspect.
You can take what’s useful and leave the rest.
This isn’t a system to complete.
It’s a way of seeing life with its parts intact.
Seeing self-care in everyday life
Self care is often talked about as something you do now and then.
A break, a treat, a moment to switch off.
While those moments can be helpful, they are only one part of a much bigger picture.
Self care also lives in ordinary, everyday life.
In how you relate to yourself, how your days are shaped, how your body is treated, how relationships function, and how your surroundings support or drain you.
The aim is not to measure, fix, or improve yourself, but to build awareness of how different areas of life affect one another.
A bubble bath can be a good place to start, if that’s what helps.
The five elements help show what else is quietly at play.
These elements affect one another and change over time. At different points, one area may be carrying more weight than the others.
Noticing these patterns helps you understand what is working and where small adjustments may be helpful.
Understanding these patterns allows for adjustment, not judgement.
