In today’s podcast, I’ll be looking at personal self-care, not just as routine but to better understand how to carve out your own kind of self-care.
The best way I like to define self-care is by ‘showing up for yourself’. Respecting your boundaries, thinking about your values and truly bluing them, showing kindness to yourself, and being aware that general self-care routines are not as general as we think if it doesn’t fit into your current life dynamic including family, career, and other aspects of life worthy of consideration. just like every endeavour, we have to learn our needs to be learned and cultivated. You need to create a fitting pattern that your body will benefit from.
Life Brings Uncertainty Sometimes
To start with, if you can agree with me on the fact that uncertain life events have ways of impeding our self-care patterns. Opening the mind up to such realities is number one on my list. I believe I have come to appreciate that life forces will turn up uninvited, what we do and how we go about them are mostly not pre-empted. It depends on what aspect or phase of life you are navigating through. I would like to encourage you to accept that what happens to you is not your fault, if we can, I know we’ll all steer the wheels of life’s challenges the other way, but hey, life must happen, you don’t have to have a hand in it, prepare for it or not. But the more you start to keep an open mind in this regard, the more self-aware you become, and self-awareness can alternate as self-care for me.
For example, I have been challenged in mind-blowing ways in my life in the last year, and I wasn’t prepared for that at all. I am grateful for good support and continuing accountability to people who truly care about me, so when I was questioning myself after having my last baby, because I literally met another mum different from the mum of my other babies, there are people reminding me of who I am, what I like to do, and ensuring that I am not entirely closing myself up due to peri and post-natal depression.
There is this continuing need to over-achieve, so you find lots of people going on and on without any care plan in place. I once read somewhere that if you don’t pick a day to rest, your body will pick a day for you.
Taking care of your emotional bank is also self-care. When things are going South, not as planned and you are finding things overwhelming, that is not the time to start thinking about self-care. Your thought process and brain functioning want to rescue you at that time, what can we do, how can we fix things, should we just give up? etc. Self-care can only happen at such time if it has been a routine, learned, and adapted into your core.
Self-respect is Key
Can I invite you to not make empty promises to yourself? If you promise yourself a massage, try to make it happen. We need to start to accord some respect to our body, mind, and soul- those parts that culminate into ‘Self’, respect them.
There are loads of self-care routines we can outline right now, they are everywhere, on the internet, social media, in our faces really, but we don’t get to stay consistent doing them because, well life happens sometimes, but it is more of something we haven’t cultivated, and we are looking to enjoy the harvest.
Understand your emotional states and triggers and ensure you are not overstimulating your nervous system in a negative way; you are putting your body and mind at risk. That is why therapy is a go-to for some of us because where you leave your pain and who you are leaving them with means you feel safe and covered with your triggers, your story, and your healing. Not re-traumatising yourself, avoiding emotional crises or situations that will bring you there. Personally, abandonment is a huge subject for me, I have and still working my way through it, however, I can easily sense a trigger and I try to avoid it. That is my saving technique until I form something more fitting for my future whole self.
Self-care Rituals
Self-care is faith if you have one. Self-care is flexibility, adapting to the new you, being aware of belief systems that limit your growth or evolution, socialising (as much as that sounds good, it doesn’t look good on me physically, plus my family dynamic. Other activities like running, meditating with body scanning skills; yoga, breath work for self-regulate, structured screen time, and so on. Whatever you come up with, ensure you can stay committed to them. Remember that everything we know was learned, and so is caring for yourself. It has to be an intentional act of kindness to you, so don’t postpone it. When you are well looked after, you will start trusting yourself, your intuition, and your creativity.
I hope you find some helpful tips here on the Self-Exploration Space podcast.
If you need a therapy session that puts your interest in view, click here to check our services
Add Comment