Jasmine Nicole

It’s the time of year again when summer is coming to an end and I use this time to reflect on how I practiced self-care.

To give a little context, summers are hard for me. I teach, and so in the summer I’m completely free to go and do as I please. However, I notice how all the emotional and mental battles that I didn’t have time to deal with during the school year, when I’m at my busiest, come crashing down on me in the summer when I am free to feel and have no distractions to allowing my brain to let me know how things have been affecting me. It’s interesting thing I’ve noticed the past couple of years, but self- awareness is important.

So what have I been doing this summer to stay at peace?

1. Reading

Reading will always be a self-care activity for me. It calms me and it generally puts me in a good mood. This year, I’ve taken my love of reading to social media, and I’ve found that reading has allowed me opportunities to meet new people, learn about new authors, and become part of reader communities that have been a source of happiness for me along with reading this summer. Check back soon for my blog post about my favorite summer reads!

2. Journaling

I always underestimate the power of journaling, which is crazy because I have tons of journals from when I was a kid and I spent most of my free time writing in them. It was a lost art for me for a while, but I find it helps me to center my thoughts. It also is good to get out anything you’re overthinking about. For me, whenever I find my mind coming back to a stressful, anxious, or harmful thought over and over again, I let it out in my journal, and sometimes it is almost like waving a wand and making it disappear.

3. I took up a New Hobby-Skateboarding

It’s been a reoccurring theme to revisit the things I wanted to do as a teenager and skateboarding is one of them. I always wanted to learn to skateboard, but it just never seemed that anyone around me did it, or I was afraid it would make me look even weirder as an already ‘not Black enough’ Black girl. But, I’m 28 now so who gives a fuck? I can do what I want and I’ve been teaching myself to skateboard. I love it and it’s automatically paired with being outside which is always a self care favorite of mine.

I have two days left before I’m back in teacher mode, so let me know what you’ve been doing to practice self-care this summer.