Small acts of self-care: Green tea refills are required
Small acts of self-care:
Green tea refills are required
Self-care can be seen as a repertoire of practices – different things you can do that help you care for you, no matter how small. It is proactive. What you engage in facilitates taking care of yourself. Small acts can be as powerful as practices or strategies that you engage with over longer periods of time.
Our proactive self-care involves steps to develop, protect, maintain and improve health, wellbeing or wellness. It is about meeting ourself each day, learning who we really are and continuing to be present with our needs to help us be the best version of ourself today. It's a process of self-discovery, not perfectionism or comparing ourself to others. I think about it as tuning into what is right for me right now. Listening and noticing what my mind, body and heart require.
Self-care requires time. However, time is a variable that utilises micro-moments right through to lengthy practices or strategies. We can engage in daily activities, or strategies once a week, once a month, once a year for example. What is crucial is that a variety of strategies and practices are engaged with intentionality across a variety of time periods.
There is value in a self-care strategy that empowers you and that may take a few minutes, such as a short breathing practice, just as much as a practice that takes slightly longer, such as a a meaningful connection with a friend or a walk in a park and just as much as something that takes longer, such as sleep or a strategy that has you connected back to what is meaningful you.
One of my small acts of self-care is having a green tea.
I’ve been documenting this small act of self-care since 2017 on Instagram through the hashtag #greentearefillsarerequired. I enjoy a green tea, sometimes at home, sometimes at a cafe (well often at a cafe), sometimes with others, but often by myself. My green tea self-care is a mini tea ceremony, a mindful moment.
It is a moment of savouring. From making the tea or appreciating a tea being made for me at a cafe where they pride themselves in the tea making process. This in itself is a mindful moment - appreciating the smell of the tea, opening the tea tin, the sensation of touching the leaves, appreciating the plant from which they came, the patience of waiting for water to boil to a temperature that brings out the best in the tea leaves (PS: 80 degrees is great for green tea), and pouring the water over the tea leaves watching the steep.
The teapot and cup are a part of the tea ceremony. A cup that is lovely to hold, a tea pot that is weighted just right for ease of pour are much appreciated. Both are sculptures in themselves - the shape, textures, colour - important to this mindful moment. Tea pots collected together form a gaggle as I call them - something that often happens if I spend a few hours in a cafe writing with my green tea accompanying me.
But my self-care through green tea is more than savouring, it is an act that is connected to being present. Being in the moment, aware and slowing down. Being in the moment of enjoying the green tea. It allows me to slow down and be present with my breath, I slow down. It is a part of my me time.
What you will notice with my green tea refills required hashtag is that my academic work features - writing, journaling, and sometimes meeting with others. My first cup of green tea is for me. This is my mindful moment. I ground and become centred. Then I pair this moment with specific work moments, not all, but especially those that are connected to creative thinking. Green tea usually accompanies me with my writing. It is a joy to write and drink tea. Sometimes it is paired with journaling my ideas as this is a strategy in itself that helps me process ideas. And sometimes I embrace that self-care is also relational, and that a cup of tea with others helps - writing retreats, research team meetings or conversations where there is a deep listening required (a savouring of ideas).
Self-care can be seen as a repertoire of practices – different things you can do that help you care for you, no matter how small. It is those small acts, often that we forget about or dismiss, that can be incredibly powerful. Repeated over time they become a habit that is empowering for you. So as you ponder my green tea ritual, I invite you to think about your equivalent small act of self-care that helps you as a PhD student or scholar.
What is your small self-care ritual?
What does it mean to you?
What does it bring/offer to you?
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Listen to me talk about my green tea self-care ritual as an academic here as part of the American Educational Research Association (AREA) Holistic Education Special Interest Group in April 2021 [you can find me at time point 55:00 however my colleagues Marni Binder, Catherine Hoyser and Michelle Tichy beforehand also each talk about their acts of self-care in academia that you will love as well, and Joanna Higgins follows as discussant]
Reframing how my days look: Screen, green, me and down time
Questions to think about: Screen time, green time, down time and me time