It's your best friend's birthday. You're baking a cake for them. You've got all the ingredients ready: the cake mix, the powdered sugar, the eggs and the milk which expired three weeks ago. No big deal, right? You can still make the cake. Whoever eats it may not be too happy the next couple of days, but it's still been made so what's the damage, right?

Wrong. If you're going to make a cake, you have to make sure all of the ingredients are right before you can make your cake. The end product has the potential to be absolutely amazing, but it's not going to be top notch unless the products you put into it are in good shape as well. If we wouldn't feed our loved ones a tainted cake, why are we giving so much of ourselves away when we have yet to make sure WE are taken care of first.

Picture this: you're the cake. Your loved ones enjoy your advice, your jokes, your overall existence. Would these said loved ones still enjoy what you're putting out if they knew the ingredients weren't at their absolute best? Probably not.

It's time to start viewing yourself as a cake you want to share with those you love the most. You cannot keep giving away parts of yourself that are not the finest of ingredients. Self-care is an essential part of the human existence, yet it's a concept many of us forget to indulge in.

Taking care of yourself is not a selfish act. It is arguably the most generous thing that you can partake in. Self-care can be the thing that saves you when you are at the absolute lowest. When you take time to make sure your ingredients (your own well-being, mental health, etc) are taken care of, you can avoid giving away parts of you that aren't at their absolute best.

As human beings, it is more than easy to get lost in taking care of everyone else but ourselves. However, instead of giving slice after slice of ourselves away, it is time for us to start working on ourselves. Rather than losing parts of a not so desirable cake, we need to work on bettering the ingredients that we give out to others.

I am in no way saying that it is a crime to be there for others. I am no stranger to losing myself in order to help others. Instead, I am just encouraging you to make sure you and the beautiful cake that you are at an okay place to be giving so much of yourself away.

When we put others needs before ourselves, it can often times leave us in shambles. Sure, it’s pretty easy to forget about your own struggles while helping someone with theirs. But at the end of the day, when said person is no longer around, you’re still left with the bad ingredients that you have failed to take care of. Self-care can present itself differently for different people. For some, self-care may be a night in with Netflix and wine. For others, it might be a night out on the town with friends. No matter how your self-care looks, it’s important to take care of you. Make sure that your cake is in its finest shape before you give slices away to those you care about. Not only does your cake need to have the right ingredients, but you also have to make sure that once the day is done, you still need a slice or two for yourself.

I will say it one last time: self-care is not selfish! It is a necessity. You are a beautiful cake, full of love, happiness, joy and selflessness. If you do not start putting the right ingredients into it, your cake will turn into those nasty fruit cakes (they aren’t even real cake, come on) that people eat at Christmas time. It is not selfish to allow yourself time for you. It is not selfish to help you before others. After all, you wouldn’t give your best friend a cake made from spoiled milk, would you?