Hello everyone and welcome back to
Caitlin's Corner. Today, as you can tell
by the title of today's video, I am
sharing some self-care tips! I thought
this would be a really good follow-up to
my study routine video because I know
school is a very stressful time for many
students out there, but I think it's
important to, despite the fact that we're
all busy with tests and assignments,
that we take time for ourselves.
Obviously though I think self-care is
important for everyone to practice,
because I think if you are in a good
headspace and you're taking time for
yourself that it bleeds into all areas
of your life--especially with
relationships! You just become a more
present friend, daughter/son, sibling,
partner, etc. Needless to say, I think it's a really
good habit to get into so the tips I'm
gonna share in today's video-- I'm
pointing to my laptop, you can't
see my laptop, it's not significant to
you, don't know why I'm pointing to it :P --but the tips I'm sharing in today's
video are just a collection of things
that I will do regularly, I usually do
one or two (three if I'm in a particular
crisis mode), and it just helps me stay
motivated and keeping things in
perspective. The rambling has finished,
let's dive into self-care tip numero uno!
Those of you who have been around
Caitlin's Corner for quite some time now
know that one of my favorite things to
do is meditate. I will admit that since
being off of school, I don't feel like
I've been meditating as much--as much as
I should-- because even though I am
sometimes going through stress during
the summer, it's a different kind of
stress... it's related to my business so I
enjoy it a lot more than the stress that
comes with my my grades and exams-- things that make my mind go [insert crazy sound here]!
But now that I'm starting school again, I
definitely am going to be doing it a lot
more regularly because I find that when
I do meditate, I'm a lot more aware of
what's going on in [in my brain]. I almost equate meditating to running a virus scan on
your computer... a meditation session is
like a scan through your brain to see
what thoughts maybe aren't gelling right, if your having any negative emotions or feelings
that are maybe affecting how you operate
in your everyday life, and you can at
least be aware of them so that you can
start working to fix them. As you know I
really love using this app called
Headspace. It has a lot of guided
meditations, and they now have these
packs where you can even do
meditation courses geared to
different things...one of which is
improving self-esteem, and I'm going to
be starting that one really soon! The app
will be linked in the description box
below! I highly recommend giving it a
look...I'm sure there's even a lot of
guided meditations here on YouTube as
well :) My second self-care tip.. ritual...thing that I do? is yoga (and this could
mean any form of exercise)! Yoga for me is my exercise of choice at the moment
because it combines physical exercise
with meditation into one fun, stretching
on-the-floor-thing (that was a great
description for yoga). I definitely still
deal with body image and insecurities
-- I'm human--but I do find that when
I'm being more physical regularly,
I am just a lot kinder to myself, and who
doesn't want to be kind to themselves?!
You don't want to be a bully to
yourself, you want to brighten yourself
up, lift yourself up, you don't want to be
the person that's tearing you down! And I
will definitely have to rewatch this
part of the video when I am back in
school because I know exercise will
definitely be the first thing to go when
I am busy, so we're gonna try not doing
that this year!
My third self-care tip is to get
inspired. I definitely go through slumps
of not being motivated, or just just
feeling sluggish.... like you don't really
have the energy to do something
meaningful with your day. One of the ways I like to get inspired is by reading
self-help books. I touched on this topic
a lot in my "reading routine." Currently I
am listening on audible to the book "The
Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k" and
I'm finding it really interesting right now,
so I will have it linked down below... but
whether you're reading or listening
to self-care books, for me I always try
and choose books that, when I read the
synopsis, it just speaks to me... it clicks
and then those books usually end up being the ones that really strike a chord with my
life. I also like to get inspired by
fuelling my brain with inspirational
content. So one of the ways I like to do
this is through Pinterest. If you follow me
on Pinterest then you've seen all the
boards that I have... and whenever I feel
like I need a little bit of a pick-me-up
I'll go on Pinterest and, again, any
photos that really speak to me, I'll pin
to my boards so that I can always go
back to those boards for inspiration...
whether it's for clothing or for bullet
journaling or decor, you know whatever
area in my life, I have a board for
everything. So I find that really helpful...
A kind of a real life version of the
Pinterest board is a vision board! I
personally have a "vision door"... every once
in a while I print images that reflect
my goals or places I want to go, things
that I want for my life, and it puts my
day off to a really good start! It keeps
me focused and motivated, and just, you
know, hungry to do something today that
gets me closer to what I'm envisioning!
 I find the vision board really great
for me because during times when I feel
uninspired or unmotivated, I find it's
usually the result of losing sight of my
purpose... so if I can be reminded every
day of what the end goal is, I
just find I don't let little things
affect me as much... I hope that makes
sense :)
Another self-care tip (that I probably do
a little too often) is to treat yourself!
This tip is especially important during days when I am feeling kind of down and I
need a pick-me-up, so one of the first
things I do when I feel like I need my
mood to be brightened is go on an
adventure for coffee! It's something so
small, but it brings me so much joy, and
just that alone can sometimes be enough
to--maybe not get rid of what is
bothering me --but at least make it a
little bit better! Sometimes I also go
shopping which, I won't lie, usually leads
to bad decisions so coffee is cheap--cheaper--than you know, doing a little bit
of a shopping spree :P So I try and stick
to the coffee adventure!  I do want to
point out though that there are
definitely times where I myself I'm like,
"You know what, Positive Polly has left
the building today!" and I just allow
myself to be sad or upset...whatever
emotion that I'm feeling... I think it's
completely unrealistic to avoid all
negative emotions, but I definitely don't
think it's good to get in the habit of
letting small things bring you down. And [this is] something even I'm working on
still--my mom would confirm that --she's had
many conversations with me where she
says, "Caitlin, let it go!" My last
self-care tip that I do quite regularly
is, surprise surprise, bullet journaling!
Today I'm not going to focus so much on
the planner aspect of bullet journaling,
I'm gonna focus on the journaling aspect
of bullet journaling. It's really easy to
incorporate a lot of self-care pages
into your spreads... some of my favorites
include a gratitude page---where every day
you write something you're grateful for.
I think this is a great thing to do
every day because you know, you initially
start off saying all the big things
you're grateful for--our family, friends,
health--- and those are so important, but I
find that through doing these pages, I
have begun to become grateful for very
little things. You could also do a goal
tracker page so that you have something
visually pushing you forward to reaching
whatever goal you have, or another page
that I really love is a self love page. I
did this in February, where every day,
like the gratitude page,  I
wrote something --not that I was grateful
for-- but something that I loved about
myself. It was quite emotional to realize
that by day 15, you're like, "Okay, what the
hell else is there to love?!" Again, kind of
like the gratitude page, it ends up
giving you an appreciation for little
things about yourself that you should be
showing love to. And that is all the
self-care tips I have for you today. I
hope there was
something in this video that inspired
you to take a little bit more time out
of your busy day to take care of
yourself, because you are very important!
If you liked this video be sure to give
it a big thumbs up, hit that subscribe
button if you haven't already, and I'd
love to hear in the comments section
down below what are some of your
self-care tips or pieces of advice?
Honestly, I loved in the "study tips" video
how everyone was sharing advice with one another, and helping each other out...it
makes me so happy, so if we could do that again with this video I think that would
be amazing! I will see all of you very
soon with a new video and until then bye
everyone!!
I guess you could say
