30-Day Self-Care Challenge: Done and Dusted

It has been a journey – a beautiful, refreshing 30-day long journey. I have been loving myself so much lately and quite frankly I have never loved myself this much. I am really fighting the urge to get all up in my emotions now. Why haven’t I thought of doing this earlier? Why didn’t I celebrate myself even before I came up with this idea? How did it take me so long to realize that self-love it so crucial?

Nonetheless, I am super proud of myself for finally doing it. It’s all over now, I accepted the challenge I gave myself and I completed it. A few things I did were also on my Bucket List (which I try not to neglect) so I kind of hit a flock birds with one stone. The activities I did required such little effort. Enough talking, go on and read all about it…

Day 1 – Self-Praise

On the first day of the Self-Care challenge I figured it was appropriate to write a post centered around me praising myself – check it out here.

Day 2 – Unfriend and unfollow

This wasn’t difficult for me and long-time overdue, I have seen plenty of accounts that I am still friends with on Facebook and on Instagram but aren’t really active or (the worst) double or triple accounts so I unfollowed away.

I had never watched movies back-to-back because I am not really a movie person but hey I did it and I truly enjoyed my day. I watch 5 cool movies, so that’s like 10 hours of my day I spent just staring at the screen. I am not going to go in depth, otherwise I will go on forever:

• Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a science-fiction movie, not quite my genre but I actually loved it. There were a couple of puns here and there and that’s what I live for.
• Incarnate. This was my favourite one out of the 4 movies I watched, it was more of a horror/thriller kind of movie but it was so tense and sad too.
• Dark Shadows. This was funny, not hilarious but just funny and a very weird love story.
• The Perfect Guy. I only watched this because every female in my life has mentioned it, it wasn’t that bad or good neither. It was just a movie *yawns*.
• The Boss. If Melissa McCarthy is in the movie, you already know you are going to spend 2 hours merely throwing your head back with laughter and for some odd reason, I was sort of inspired by this movie.

Day 4 – Draw

I recently watched a TedTalk on drawing and this guy was saying that most people have fallen into the illusion that they can’t draw and I was sitting here thinking, “What is this dude saying? We really cannot draw!”. Then he went on and demonstrated how one can master the art of drawing. So, I learnt from him and I can draw now!😂

Day 5 – Create Inspiration Board

This was meant to go up my Pinterest account, but me being a newbie at it I really didn’t know how to. 3 weeks later, I finally figured it out. Here are a few pictures I created and you can check the rest of them on Pinterest.

One of the things I am proud of – I drank 5 glasses of water. I know you are probably thinking that’s nothing, to me that’s a lot😂! Plus, its winter here in South Africa so drinking cold water just freezes your internal organs.

Day 7 – Exercise

I always tell myself to exercise every single day but I am terrible at committing myself to activities. But I spent almost the entire day just doing little exercises, mainly just stretching my body while listening to music.

Day 8 – Get a manicure

Day 9 – Go to bed early

When I told my family that the task of the day was to sleep early they had themselves a good laugh because they know that I am hardly ever in bed earlier than 1 or 2am. But hey I got in bed as early as 10pm and I don’t even know when I fell asleep. Cheers to myself.

Day 10 – Learn something new

I have always seen pictures that have text that look as though they are ‘lit’ so I went on YouTube and got myself tutorials on how to do it then later I found myself practising some more.

I read “Yours Until Death” by Gunnar Staalesen and believe it or not 15 chapters later, they still haven’t gotten to the point or even given us a hint on who falls in love with who. I guess I have to read on to find out.

Day 12 – Drown in wine

I didn’t necessarily mean it in a literal sense though hey otherwise my challenge would’ve ended on Day 12. I had myself a glass of Darling Cellars. I dislike red wine but we were out of rosé.

Day 13 – Delete useless pictures

I went from 13 694 pictures to 10 949. Soooo, does this mean I have 10 000 useful pictures? Also, how did I get to 13k pictures?

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Day 15 – Make Origami art

It’s so pretty! I am considering getting another tragus piercing on my left ear too. It isn’t clear here, you will get a better view of it on Day 29.

Day 17 – Go cycling

Went on a cruise cycle around the neighborhood.

Day 18 – Have a date with myself

I went to Lakeside Café and had myself some lovely lemon and herb chicken with chips on the side. My word, the bees decided to keep me company though and I just wanted to cry and the Wi-Fi was so slow. But the food and the venue was lovely.

Lakeside Cafe – Pietermaritzburg

Lakeside Cafe – Pietermaritzburg

I have always had a lot of things, things I don’t even really need. I threw away all the unnecessary stuff I have been keeping and folded away all the clothes I never wear.

Day 20 – Visit Art Gallery

Day 21 – 5 Things I Am Grateful For

1. My mind – my mind is taking me places, it also allows me to write my blogs and it enables me to think things through before I jump into them.
2. Family – I live with clowns so I am forever and always laughing at the silly things they do and say.
3. The gift of life – some people originally had major plans for this day and the future but they did not make it. But here I am, still alive and healthy.
4. Amanda and my partner – my favourite people outside family who make life so bearable. They are such incredible souls.
5. Nature – for making me think that I am a photographer.

Day 22 – Yoga exercise

I did a beginner’s exercise by a lady called Adriene. I have always seen yoga as a little weird and I have never really understood the point of it, until I actually did it. I feel like I want to do more and more yoga exercises now because of how you feel afterwards and I slept like a baby after that 20min exercise.

Day 23 – Relax in face mask

Made a face mask out of 1 tsp of turmeric, 1 tsp of yoghurt and 1 tsp of honey. The turmeric almost dyed the bathroom sink and I was so terrified at the thought that my hands would be yellow forever. Everything turned out well though, I guess I was just being dramatic 😂.

Day 24 – Adopt a new hobby

I love designing things and playing around with Photoshop so the entire day, I just had a date with my laptop and just made whole bunch of logos.

This was so much fun. Also, I don’t know how YouTube came to the conclusion that this thumbnail was the most appropriate one to use 😂.

Day 27 – Indulge in luxury chocolate

Day 28 – Write about Self-love

An Important Lecture on Self-love

Day 29 – Cut hair

Again, this challenge was really refreshing. Never have I ever focussed on myself like this, I found it fun checking my calendar every night before I sleep to see what I will be doing the next day with myself.

There are a few lessons I learnt in these 30 days. One, self-love is your shield – they can try and hurt your feelings or belittle you but that won’t even get to you if you know your worth. Two, you don’t not have to be drastic by spending loads on money on yourself as means of showing appreciation to your soul, a walk to the next neighbourhood and back is efficient too. Three, I am happier on days I go without social media. Also, I realised that I really love the way I am living my life.

I attached the Self-Care Challenge below, so if after all of this you are inspired to get on with the challenge, download the picture and start your adventure. Have fun with yourself and take care of your mind and body.

Until next time,