Self-Care as Spiritual Practice

The next Pagan Experience prompt is to write about a particular personal spiritual practice. I’m coming up blank, since for the past several years, I’ve been pretty much an armchair philosophical polytheist with agnostic leanings (or agnostic with polytheist leanings?) I think, and read and write, and rather obsessively collect information about religion but don’t use it! I think the problem is that I’m an extrovert, and I don’t feel very motivated to have a solitary practice.  Introverts get their energy from being alone, while extroverts get their energy from other people.

I have sometimes questioned this, being an Aspie and all, but my partner (himself an introvert) reminded me “Nope, honey you are definitely an extrovert.” I’m just a social butterfly that doesn’t fly straight…that’s OK so are a lot of Pagans! I actually think introverted Pagans might even be in the majority, that may be one reason why there are so many solitaries. Being an autistic extrovert though, means I do need to pace myself and sometimes take breaks from social activity to avoid over-stimulation and potential emotional and sensory burnout. For right now, self-care is my spiritual practice- working through emotional issues and getting it together to be a Healthy & Responsible Adult ™ That does not have to mean being perfect, having The Right Career (if such a thing exists!) Just start with trying as best I can to live a healthy lifestyle, eat, sleep, hygiene, exercise, keeping the house clean, social time.

A writing project I have been working on in relation to this is the Self-Care Virtues series of posts. It started because I felt the Nine Noble Virtues and similar virtue systems with a heroic, warrior focus left out people who need to focus on simply taking care of themselves- folks with disabilities, including mental illness, chronic illnesses, people taking care of loved ones with such issues, people living in poverty, in jail/prison or mental institutions and so forth. Some people need this temporarily, others will need it much of their lives. This is my own project, but if it helps and inspires other people to use it and perhaps write similar posts with other religious or cultural frameworks, I’d really like to hear about it, so please link if you have your own additions or comments.

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