Ok my advice on overcoming self-rejection: Based on your comments, it seems like you would really benefit from brainstorming some lists - what are the things that give you energy or clarity? What things are a waste of time and energy? Is there stuff on that list that you feel you 'can't' or 'shouldn't' do? That if only you had the time or energy, you'd do it? Why don't you do these things? (asking non-judgementally) And gather up those reasons. There will probably be a lot of stuff on the list that IS helpful but seems unrealistic, and some that's more realistic, and doesn't have much benefit, but don't be discouraged yet. It might be, I feel energized after doing yoga, but tbh I never actually THINK to take out my yoga mat and do it, I just forget. I remember I promised myself I'd do it, and then later feel a twinge of emotional pain. Why don't I do the things I know I should? Do I just deep down, hate myself and nothing I can ever do will fix me?

Well okay, gotta recognize that framing the problem in that way, I can never solve it. Depression loves these impossible binds and will put on the 'greatest hits' of your worst moments just to prove them. What a dick. So, let's explore alternatives... Drill down, really get into specifics of that 'why' like an annoying 5 year old on a car ride. Why do I ACTUALLY forget that yoga exists, if it's not that I have an immutable character flaw?? It might be as simple as, okay, I forget because my yoga mat is under my bed. I'm going to put the yoga mat by the door where I see it. I'll do a quick session before my morning coffee. I'm not going to mentally beat myself to death because I forgot to do yoga one day- thereby conditioning myself to avoid thinking about yoga because every time that I do.. Shame! Shame! You habit-avoiding fool! Lol okay that one was a little too real..

You want to avoid ruminating on not 'doing self-care right'. That actually just gets in the way. It's easier said than done and you might not even realize you're doing it. So journaling comes in. It's a way to start seeing the thought process patterns and identify what are the things ACTUALLY in your way of vs. the 'impossible to fix' problem that you think is in the way. The more you do it, the easier it will be to realize this stuff in the moment. You might think you know but once it's on paper staring back at you, it's like ohhh it seemed so much bigger in my head. Which is not to say these problems are easy to overcome, but it is also not insurmountable if you're willing to change your perspective a little. And you seem to be so I'm buying yes. Good luck dude

What are you already doing in terms of self care? (I'm assuming you wouldn't consider that you adopted a suggestion if you were already doing it beforehand?)

What standard self-care advice have you already thoroughly considered or tried? (getting a better sense of what sort of suggestions you're open to is helpful).

Personally I find the thing that works best for me is exercise - hard enough cardio that I'm out of breath and tired at the end of it, and sleep well that night.

That's a good question. I just realized that my concept of self-care is very preconceived yet the way I phrased it is rather vague. The basis of this market may be flawed.

Of course, exercise and discipline (to a healthy degree) are a form of self-care. But that's not what I was getting at, or it could be, but if you do sport one day, for example, even though it goes against your true needs on that day, for some reason, then it's not an act of self-care. To apply self-care you need to be flexible and I don't know how to do it justice in this format, because personal goals markets usually aren't very flexible. What I'm looking for is a way to support myself in applying self-care in a broader sense, not one specific routine that is good for me on most days. I'm talking about practicing a kind of mindful self-acceptance and self-love as a counterpart to the self-rejecting behavior and thinking that many depressed people exhibit.

Now that I think about it, I realize that because of my depression, I am incredibly bad at practicing self-care intuitively. I often don't do what is good for me on my own, on the contrary, I do things that I know are harmful to me. In a way, I substitute my lack of intuition with personal goals markets, which in turn is an act of self-care because I am trying to compensate for my weakness.

But the markets based on routines are very rigid. They lead me to do things to fulfill the conditions of the market, which usually happens to be good for me. But they don't lead me to go into myself when I'm feeling bad, find out what I need and then do something good for myself based on that introspection. Most of the time, when I'm feeling bad, I already know exactly what would be good for me, yet I deliberately don't do it. It's almost as if I don't want to feel good at all. I don't respect my own needs in a situation like that, which is the opposite of self-care.

To summarize, I am looking for ways to support myself in integrating self-care thinking and action in a broader sense into my everyday life. I am not so much looking for individual measures of self-care.

Hmmm... I'm still not 100% sure I have a clear understanding of what you mean when you say "self-care". At times it seems like you mean something I would name "self-compassion" - treating yourself kindly, being towards yourself how a good friend would be, rather than how an abusive a**hole would be, akin to self-acceptance, but moreso. What I would consider "self care" is doing specific things to meet your own needs. Like, I would help someone if they were sick or injured, by doing things like bringing them soup or a blanket or other things to make sure they had what they needed to heal. Being compassionate to someone is saying nice things instead of mean things, understanding their perspective and showing that you understand, saying things that affirm their worth as a person, etc. Both are important, but they are different. Mentally I was thinking of "self-care" as aligned with the suggestions I'd heard to give to people while in crisis (I once spent some time as a responder on a suicide hotline). Such as, ask if they've eaten or slept, and suggest (carefully, so as not to sound condescending) that before making any big decisions, it's probably not going to hurt to have a sandwich and a rest - our physical bodies affect our mental state, and sometimes when we're not thinking clearly we can forget this, forget to take care of ourselves physically, and that makes it harder to think clearly, which makes it harder to remember that taking care of ourselves physically helps us to think clearly, and it snowballs into "no I haven't eaten or slept in several days to a week, but that's not important right now!" And the positive side of "eat a sandwich and take a nap to get out of problem territory" is "take a walk in nature, or exercise, or listen to some nice music, to remind yourself that positive experiences exist".

But it sounds like maybe what you're looking for is less my notion of "self care" and maybe closer to "self-compassion". Maybe?

An aside: I note a conflict in your message above. On the one hand you say you have "incredibly bad intuition", implying that you don't know things to do for your own self-care. But you also say "most of the time, when I'm feeling bad, I already know exactly what would be good for me, yet I don't do it".

Those are two different problems, with different solutions. If it's the former (you don't know what to do when you're feeling bad) I could come up with suggestions for that of the form "here's a thing people often do to turn their mood or outlook more towards the positive". If it's the latter (you stop yourself from doing something that would be good for you, despite knowing what you could do) then keeping a journal is a thing I'd suggest. Get good at noticing when you're doing something that's going to harm you, and do the other thing that would be good for you instead. Each time you do that, you get a tickmark in the journal, or some other form of reward, something viscerally positive, that causes your brain to associate noticing when you're doing something harmful and self-correcting with reward. Possibly in past when you've noticed this happening, it makes you feel bad about yourself, which is not conducive to doing more of the noticing and correcting?

Basically this, but with you rewarding yourself and keeping a journal: Sheldon Shaping Penny in Big Bang Theory (youtube.com)

And also, I'm stuck on "I'm not so much looking for individual measures, I'm looking for ways to support myself in integrating self-care thinking and action in a broader sense into my everyday life." (I know, I switched it around). How my mind works is, individual actions build up into the broader sense of my life. A day is made of moments, and a life is made of days, and what I choose to do with the moments becomes my life more broadly, is the answer my mind gives to how to change the broad sweep of my life. I know that some other people think the other way around, and possibly that would be more helpful to you. This is to say, the fact that I gave you micro-suggestions rather than a macro-approach is a result of the way my mind works, I was actually listening when you said "not that please". I just, couldn't come up with suggestions integrating things in a broader sense, so I gave you what I could even though it wasn't what you asked for.

It's late where I live, I'll reply tomorrow.

No rush and no pressure, feel free to take as much time as you want and only reply if you feel like doing so. :)

... well, if this doesn't get any traction it's an easy NO.