A Mental Health Day

Self care. We have all heard or read this phrase. We’ve encountered it in the layers of Facebook pop-psych click-bait, also in more clinical settings, and even casually dropped from the lips of a suit in line at the Starbucks around the corner from the office. We are all under societal pressures: we’re Americans, and we do anxiety like no other nation. Self care comes in when you need a day to yourself away from all the anxiety, or even an hour, indulging in hot cocoa, or a pedicure, or a trip to the dollar store for stupid pet costumes. Self care in America, to a certain extent, means consumerism. It means drink more artesian water. It means take a hot yoga class at the studio that just opened. It means gather ye rosebuds from Home Depot. It means spend money. Why? I don’t know.

I am not going to say I have found a new path of self care that involves spending no money, because my self care involves horses, and horses eat gold bullion and crown jewels. They sleep on platinum pharmaceutical patents. We tack them up in rare earth tax returns.

I am going to say, self care sometimes means taking care of something else because doing THAT makes you feel better. Taking care of my horse makes ME feel better, and I would rather this than have a stranger shred my feet with hot bubbling water, emery boards, and orange sticks. My me time is Eli time. He gets apples, grooming, exercise, and a good roll and I feel recharged.

What do you do for self care? Are horses or any animals a part of it?