For over a month now, I have been ruminating on a theme to base my blog posts on for the A to Z blogging challenge with Blogchatter. From food, to plants, to fiction to food fiction, I had a 100 themes running through my head. Heck, I even experimented with writing a few posts for some of these themes. But, as they say, “feel nahi aa raha tha!”

So one night last week, as I was poring over my ‘pores’ wondering if one month of consistent care & attention had succeeded in minimizing them and granting me the elusive ‘glass skin’ that everyone from East to West was yearning for – I had my Eureka moment! Self-Care! My theme would be Self-Care. Not just random self-care practices that fit the Alphabet but my tried and tested habits, that I had been indulging in at some point in the recent past and that brought me joy!

Self-Care doesn’t come naturally to me. It took a lot of deliberate effort, some therapy, some group challenges to get me to believe that –

  • Self-care is not selfishness
  • Self-care is not self obsession
  • Self-care does not need to be accompanied with guilt (diversion of resources, time, effort away from my child, family etc.)
  • Self-care does not need to be ostentatious, elaborate, expensive or time consuming

So you see, for me, this journey of SELF CARE has been anything but easy. However, somehow consciously and some what innately, I realized in that Eureka moment that I had come a long way and I was competent enough (hello, imposter syndrome) to talk about 26 Self-Care practices.

So for the month of April 2025, you will find me writing about what I love to include in my self-care routine. I somewhere can’t believe that I can write about 26 unique things. But hey I made the A to Z list and I had to even fight and vote out some aspects, so yes I think I can take this to the end!

Do read on and try some of these and share your experiences too. This is my list and may not fit into a very traditional way of doing things, but these are what I actually do and practice – the glass skin may still be a few weeks away, but I can feel the difference and the journey is what I will write about.

Thanks to team Blogchatter for this challenge and I look forward to actually completing it this time. 🙂