Radical Self-Love & Soul-Care

Dericka Canada Cunningham
Apr 27
6 min read

Dericka Canada Cunningham, GBW Founder

April 28, 2025

This Week's Anchor

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—

His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Romans 12: 1-2 (NIV)

In honor of us entering Mental Health Awareness Month this week, I want to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart: self-love and care. “Yes, of course”, you might be thinking. I’m a psychotherapist, so it makes sense that prioritizing caring for oneself is at the heart of what I do. However, let me assure you that my journey to becoming a self-care advocate is anchored in my personal experiences of dealing with the consequences of not caring for myself. Like some of you, I’ve hit places in my life where my body had to force me to care for myself. These cumulative moments eventually led me to a space reflected in our anchor scripture this week—a place where I’m no longer willing to sacrifice my body and mind for the worries of this world, but instead, surrender them to God. I hope you come on this self-and soul-nourishing journey with me because you certainly deserve it.

This week's anchor scripture comes from Paul's wisdom and is nestled in the book of Romans. This chapter and scripture begin with Paul urging us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. In breaking down the meaning of these words, we are encouraged to actively surrender our entire being to God. Western cultural values promote the separation of our mind and our body as if they are not one and the same. Contrarily, our minds are, in fact, a part of “the body” that God’s Word implores us to commit. We are called to surrender our thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and emotions to God. In doing so, we offer true worship—our ministry and service to God. We surrender ourselves to God not because we have to, or because it will influence God’s love for us (because God’s love is truly unconditional), but because we love God, and our worship is an outward expression of that love for Him. Lastly, this scripture challenges us not to conform to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. To transform is to change in condition, nature, or character. When we restore and replenish our minds, we are radically changed. When our minds are renewed, we “Interpret life through the lens of God’s Word and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit rather than through the lens of our experience, woundedness, trauma, preferences, or the opinions of others. It’s a fundamental shift toward seeing the world, ourselves, others, God, and especially what’s possible from a Kingdom perspective. It’s making a daily, moment-by-moment choice to choose the Mind of Christ which lives inside of us as new creations” (Tommey, 2021).

But how do we get to a place where we can interpret our lives and experiences this way? Our ability to renew ourselves is rooted in our willingness to care for our minds and bodies. Navigating the past few years has led many of us to reconsider our quality of life overall, and with this, self-care has sensibly become popularized. While I love that we are collectively challenging ourselves to do what brings us joy, I also realize that we often limit self-care to doing. Alternatively, understanding and transforming how we relate to ourselves is at the core of self-care. It’s reflected in how we talk to and affirm ourselves. It includes showing up for ourselves the same way that we show up for everyone else. It’s represented in having compassion and love for ourselves, like that which we give freely to others. It’s not constantly depleting, and thinking about ourselves last. Amid being pulled in and from every direction, it’s consistently calling ourselves back in and remembering that we matter just as much as anything else in our lives.

Many of us know that we need to treat our minds, bodies, and souls better, but for understandable reasons, we don’t. There is a long list of things, people, and attitudes that easily get in the way. For some of us, it’s our identity as the “strong” Black woman/femme/friend/family member/partner, and our perspective that we must keep it together to support everyone else. It’s an overpowering sense of guilt based in the belief that self-care is selfish and that caring for ourselves prevents us from caring for others, or it’s the long list of tasks and deadlines that are difficult to see ourselves through. For others, it’s our inability to recognize when we need a break or pause. It’s not knowing how to care for ourselves because it’s never been encouraged, prioritized, or modeled in our families or even our faith communities. Or it’s being so exhausted, anxious, depressed, and/or stretched so thin that doing anything, including caring for ourselves, feels overwhelming. Some of you might be reading this thinking, “It’s all of this for me.” Some days it can feel like there is somehow a mountain between us and our own selves, and with the layers of systemic burdens we carry as Black women and folks, that mountain can be massive.

Nonetheless, God has given us the ability to chip away at this mountain, and He longs for us to love ourselves the same way He loves us. I want to offer a simple framework I often share as a mental health professional to challenge ourselves in beginning our journeys of self- and soul-love and care.

It’s what I call developing our Self-Care AAA:

Acknowledge—Recognizing and affirming that you need care. This is where a lot of us get stuck. If you don’t know and/or believe that you need or deserve support, how can you support yourself? We can begin by challenging and addressing the barriers to caring for ourselves. We also need to understand how our unique body tells us we need care. Whether it’s headaches, tension, sleep issues, overeating, feeling overwhelmed, feeling frustrated, or a long list of other symptoms, we all experience the impacts of life stress differently. The key is to evolve into a relationship with ourselves where we keenly understand our bodies and know that we need care before we actually need it. In this space, we are proactive versus reactive with our care, and we are continuously willing to give ourselves support with or without life stressors demanding it.

Assess—Identifying what you need. What you needed last year, last month, or even yesterday may not be what you need today. Our needs are ever-changing as we evolve and experience life. So, as we strengthen our relationship with ourselves, we not only learn how our body tells us that it’s time to care, but we also gain an awareness of what we need in different seasons. Many of us have never really thought about our needs because we’ve been so focused on responding to the needs of others. Take time to consider what works for you. What has worked before and/or what doesn’t work, and how can you be creative in trying something new?

Act—Intentionally moving in the direction of care. Acting requires a willingness to give yourself what you need. It is founded in a love for yourself that says, “I deserve this just as much as anyone else.” It isn’t difficult to generate a list of ways to care for ourselves. From spa days to intentional meditation to affirmation journals, we often know what we need or at least what might be helpful; nonetheless, we simply don’t give it to ourselves. Make a commitment to yourself today that you will act in the moment when you realize you need care. Because caring for yourself is not a luxury; it’s a necessity!

Learning to love ourselves is an ongoing and life-long process. As we enter a new month of honoring our mental health, we can remember that amid moments of feeling overwhelmed with caring for ourselves, if we take one step toward where we want to be, we’ve already changed our position. Lean on God and the Holy Trinity to aid you in renewing your mind, body, and soul, and step into radical and revolutionary self-love this week and month!

Reflection

What resonates for you about this scripture and/or this devotion?
What aspects of your mental health, wellness, and wholeness need tending to? What gets in the way of you practicing self-love and self-soul-care?
What intention(s) do you want to set to connect and/or reconnect with being grounded this week?

Related Scriptures to Ground You Through This Week