Recently Ive thought a lot about self-care and pleasure.
Self-care for me used to mean pedicures, massages and weekends with friends.
Self-care was defined as ‘things which made me feel nurtured‘ and which relaxed me.
Not all of these activities co$t money (an afternoon spent reading was as decadent as a fancy night out), yet they had one thing in common.
They weren’t productive.
They didn’t move me forward.
They were, in essence, activities about pleasure.
As crazy as it sounds this ‘pause and treat myself with love’ approach to self-care was not what my current life demanded.
I needed self-care in the truest sense of the word. Care which would help me create optimal physical, emotional and mental health.
Self-care, for me, needed to look like creating a budget.
It needed to look like making appointments with a financial planner and starting conversations about retirement I’d rather avoid.
All of this made sense (and felt great!) except for the fact:
If that was self-care then where did pleasure come from?!
And it dawned on me.
(WaitForIt)
From pleasure.
From acknowledging “pleasure is the ultimate self care” while concurrently removing the word self-care from the equation.
(bear with me)
It became all pleasure—-prioritized.
And Your Box Box was born.
An endeavor which grants women permission to pursue pleasure for its own sake.
A monthly reminder self-care may look like scheduling that check up we’ve been avoiding, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have pleasurable experiences before…AND after.
Ephemeral (but daily!) experiences with no focus other than feeling good.
And at least I need both in my life right now.
And you?
Have you paused to tease apart the notions of self-care and pleasure?
Do they have different roles in your life right now?
