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Creating a self care emergency kit for yourself can help you deal with one of your more stressful days.
Whether it be through relaxing or getting work done, self care leads to feelings of gratitude, love, peace, and confidence.
But what about those days where all of these feelings are low.
Either through a recent event or just getting caught with life and not keeping up with self care, your feelings of happiness have been shot down.
You know you need to take a step back, relax, and allow yourself to enjoy much needed TLC.
Yet when it comes time to do that, your mind is cluttered and you can’t think of where to even begin.
This is where having your own personalized self care kit can help you try and overcome this miserable time.
What is a Self Care Emergency Kit?
A Self Care Emergency Kit is a box, bag, or well, basically any type of container that holds items personally chosen to help you elevate your mood.
There are two ways you can get your own self care emergency kit!
- Do-It-Yourself
- Subscriptions
Do-It-Yourself
You can build one yourself!
By creating one yourself, you’ll be able to take control of all aspects of your self care emergency kit.
You decide what goes in, you decide how much you’ll spend, and you’ll set intentions with each item based on your own personality.
This kit may typically be filled with items that bring you comfort and familiarity.
When you create this, try to focus on the 5 basic human senses:
Keep in mind, many items can fulfill multiple senses at once!
1. Sight
As I’ve explained in my post on the 8 Elements of Self Care, aesthetics brings calmness and harmony.
You can first satisfy this feeling when you first bring out your emergency self care kit by crafting it in a way where you can enjoy looking at it.
This could be through placing items in a cute bin or only adding aesthetic items in your kit.
You can fill your kit with artwork for artists you enjoy, or you can put in your own artwork!
While your kit can hold your own artwork, you could add some activity items that will allow you to create.
Recently I’ve been painting more often, and it has been bringing me peace. If you’re interested in painting, you can easily find tools for cheap online.
With the amount of joy it has brought me, I say this was a great investment.
While I’m only able to paint based on the number of canvases, the brushes and acrylic paint will last me a long time!
2. Touch
This can be anything that makes you feel warm and cozy!
For example, I would lounge in my cute and fuzzy boba slippers and cuddle with a soft plushie from Smokonow.
For this sense, you can also have Touch be focused on a feeling of refreshment.
Skincare is self care, and with that, I say unwind and relax with a face mask on.
You can buy a bundle for cheap and add a bunch into your self care emergency kit for each grab and easy use.
While these masks will moisturize your face, don’t neglect to moisturize your body!
You can get a scented lotion as well to fulfill the need of both the Touch and Smell senses.
3. Smell
For Smell, you can get a scented lotion as I mention right above. Bath and Body Works has amazing scents, so I definitely recommend checking out some of their products.
The one I use and love is their Eucalyptus + Spearmint Body Lotion. It smells heavenly!
I’m also a fan of essential oils, candles, and incense.
With this, you can fulfill the Smell sense and the Sight sense.
As you enjoy the peaceful scent, you can find pleasure from watching the flames of the candle dance, smoke from the incense rise, and mist from your diffuser form sprinkling clouds.
You can dedicate certain candles, essential oils, or incense for your self care emergency kit.
This way your mind will automatically link the scent with understanding it is time to relax.
4. Taste
Reward your taste buds after a stressful day.
Add some delicious tea to fill you with warmth. I highly recommend Camomille, Hibiscus, and Lavender tea. All of these are calming and bring relaxation.
You can also include a list of your favorite food recipes, and then use this time to cook some of your favorite meals.
Cooking is a great way to shift your focus from everyday stresses onto following recipes.
And after this activity comes a great reward: the meal you can indulge in!
While cooking is a great way to elevate your mood, I understand that we have those days were we just don’t have that type of energy to even try.
And with this, I would also recommend including a list of your favorite dishes from restaurants that do take out and delivery.
Check out your list and reward yourself with something yummy! You deserve it!
5. Hear
You don’t really need to have anything in your emergency self care kit that makes a noise.
Well, maybe if you like wind chimes or want to add a kalimba you like to play when stressed you can.
Here’s my Kalimba by the way. It’s so cute!!
But, all I recommend is creating a playlist dedicated to self care.
Like how I explained with dedicating certain scents, your mind will then associate the songs in your dedicated playlist with time for self care.
Subscription
If you don’t have the time or energy to try and create your own self care emergency kit, you can easily purchase one.
While this may lack familiarity in comparison to creating your own, this will bring you the excitement of trying something new.
By subscribing or simply purchasing a self care emergency kit, you’ll be able to save time and learn new ways to care for yourself.
Although I’ve never purchased one of these boxes YET (I’m still focusing on saving – financial self care), here are some I plan to purchase in the future:
Lunarly
This monthly box subscription includes houseplants, crystals, candles, and more. Each box is crafted to promote mindfulness and intention setting.
Goddess Provisions
The subscription box focuses more on spiritual self care and emphasizes taking care of your inner goddess.
TheraBox
This box includes items carefully chosen by therapists. These items are made to help reduce stress and increase happiness through self love.
Self Care Emergency Kit Overview
Again, having a self care emergency kit prepared can help you easily elevate your mood during a stressful time.
You can either purchase one or create your own!
If you choose to create your own self care emergency kit, remember the 5 senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, and hear.
A comfy bed does it for me. Helps me to unwind and relax. Thanks for sharing this list.
I really like your perspective and take on this. I hadn’t considered a self-care emergency kit with these components. Thanks for sharing. (: – papermintbooks.com
I am a busy mommy of 3 with a full time nursing job, just reading this helps me calm down from my busy life and reflect on myself. Thank you for sharing! I love your insights and creativeness on how we can focus on our selfcare!
You take care of so much, and I bet you’re doing an amazing job! You also deserve to take care of yourself!
I hope this post helped you find some great ideas to enhance your self care!
I love the concept of doing this by senses, that’s creative. I also rather a do it yourself kit as opposed to subscription because it’s more fun and I’m more likely to appreciate it if I made it myself. Thanks so much for yheee suggestions Larissa!
Awesome! I’m glad you like it! I hope you have a fun experience creating your own self care emergency kit! 🙂