When Self-Care Is Self-Sabotage

What will your future self say?

Karen Worsfold
2 min readApr 10, 2023
Photo by Karolina Grabowska: https://www.pexels.com

Will your future self be annoyed that you wasted an evening watching crap on TV instead of writing those 3 pages. Will they snarl at you because you wasted money on take out when you had a fridge full of perfectly good food to cook? Self care isn’t always self care — it can be self sabotage.

Self-care is supposed to be good for us, right? We’re told that it’s important to take a break, that we should indulge in a bit of pampering, and all that jazz. But sometimes, our efforts to care for ourselves can backfire spectacularly because they do us more harm than good.

The image of eating a whole pint of ice cream looks great on TV until you realise you’re lactose intolerant, and now you’re bloated and gassy.

We get home from work and feel exhausted; this can encourage us to binge-watch our favourite show, which is a great way to unwind until we stay up all night and feel like a zombie the next day.

Taking care of our skin is also vital — we only get one face! Splurging on a fancy new skincare product is also a form of self-care, but not when it gives you a raging allergic reaction, leaving your face looking like a tomato and your bank balance aching from the cost.

So, remember to practice self-care in moderation, or else it might just become self-sabotage. If your future self would regret the time and money spent, think again. And if all else fails, just stick to a good old-fashioned bubble bath (but don’t forget the bubbles!).

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Karen Worsfold
Karen Worsfold

Written by Karen Worsfold

Self-published author, dreamer and eternal optimist. Finding my way though, one step at a time. Reach me at kworsfoldauthor@gmail.com

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