What Real Self-Care Looks Like: A Whole-Person Approach

Self-care has become a buzzword, often reduced to bubble baths, spa days, or quick fixes. And while those things can be nurturing, they don’t capture the full depth of what real self-care is, especially when it comes to healing from stress, trauma, and emotional exhaustion.

In clinical terms, self-care is the intentional practice of caring for your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual health (if that’s meaningful to you). It’s a way of caring for your nervous system, building internal safety, and reconnecting with the parts of you that are often pushed aside in daily life.

Here are four core parts of real self-care, based on trauma-informed and whole-person approaches to well-being:

1. Listening to What You Need: Building Inner Awareness

Self-care begins with noticing. We often move through our days disconnected from how we’re feeling—distracted, dissociated, or just trying to get through. But sustainable care starts with awareness.

Ask yourself:

• What sensations am I feeling in my body right now?

• What emotion is present?

• Is there a part of me asking for attention—rest, expression, connection?

This kind of checking in is often called interoception—the ability to feel and interpret the signals your body sends. It is also practiced through mindfulness— the practice of being present, focusing on one thing at a time without judgement. Developing these skills help regulate your nervous system and prevents emotional overwhelm from building up unnoticed.

🌿 Therapeutic Insight:
Practices like mindfulness, body scans, and art therapy support this awareness by creating space to pause, feel, and reflect without judgment.

Without listening, self-care risks becoming performative—something we “do” instead of something we feel and need.

2. Responding with Compassion: Interrupting the Inner Critic

Once you’ve tuned in, the next step is how you respond.

It’s easy to notice we’re tired or overwhelmed—and still push ourselves harder. Many of us have internalized beliefs that we must “earn” care through achievement or perfection. In a trauma-informed lens, this often comes from histories where needs were ignored, minimized, or punished.

Self-compassion is a deliberate practice of speaking to yourself with kindness, especially in moments of struggle.

This might sound like:

• “Of course I’m tired. I’ve been carrying a lot.”

• “I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of rest.”

• “This is hard, and I can offer myself care instead of criticism.”

🌿 Clinical Insight:
Research by Dr. Kristin Neff shows that self-compassion is linked to lower levels of anxiety, depression, and shame, and higher levels of resilience and motivation.

Compassion isn’t indulgent—it’s emotionally protective. It helps deactivate the threat response and supports long-term well-being.

3. Creating a Sense of Safety: Grounding in What You Can Control

For many people, especially those with trauma, safety is not a given. Self-care includes identifying what helps you feel emotionally and physically safe in your body, relationships, and environment.

This might include:

• Creating predictable routines

• Using grounding techniques (e.g., deep breathing, sensory tools)

• Setting boundaries with people or technology

• Surrounding yourself with calming environments or objects

Safety doesn’t have to be dramatic. It might be dim lighting, a soft blanket, or knowing you can step outside for fresh air when you feel dysregulated. These are self-regulation strategies that help shift your nervous system from fight-flight into a more settled state.

🌿 Polyvagal Perspective:
According to Dr. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory, feeling safe allows your nervous system to access the “ventral vagal state,” where connection, reflection, and healing can occur.

Without safety, the body stays in a state of survival—and it’s very hard to care for ourselves from there. That’s why this step is foundational.

4. Honoring Your Wholeness: Caring for Every Part of You

You are not just your productivity. You are not just your stress. Self-care means nurturing the full range of who you are:

• Emotional: Processing your feelings through therapy, journaling, or expressive arts

• Physical: Rest, movement, nourishment, hydration

• Mental: Setting limits on overstimulation, choosing restorative activities

• Creative: Making space for art, music, play, or curiosity

• Spiritual (if relevant): Prayer, meditation, nature, rituals, or connecting to meaning

🌿 Whole-Person Framework:
Many holistic therapy models—including integrative psychotherapy, expressive arts therapy, and trauma-informed care—emphasize treating the person as a system of interconnected parts.

When we compartmentalize our needs, we neglect parts of ourselves that deeply matter. True self-care supports the whole person—not just the part that “shows up” or functions well.

Final Thoughts: Self-Care Is Not Selfish

Self-care is not a one-time event. It’s not something to squeeze in after everything else. It’s a daily rhythm of tuning in, showing up, and tending to yourself—even in small, imperfect ways.

And importantly, self-care is not selfish. In fact, it’s what allows you to care for others, work sustainably, and remain emotionally available to the world around you.

You are worthy of care—not because you’ve earned it, but because you are human.