I Struggled with Self-Care Until…. What About You?

I have taken care of plenty in my life – two children plus a (step)son, multiple homes, clients, aging parents, classrooms of children, various pets including several dogs, mice, a bird, and a friend’s cat, the grocery list, fancy dinner parties, friends in need…

And yet I struggled with taking care of myself – until life became so demanding I had to make myself a priority to support and sustain all the people and projects in it.

Don’t get me wrong, I can be magnificent at splurging – a trip to the pyramids in Mexico? I’m there. A once-in-a-lifetime spa weekend with my best friend? In a heartbeat.

I’m also great at big intentions. I’ll go on a yoga kick and religiously attend class for months, only to stop cold turkey for a year. I’ve promised myself that I’d meditate for a chunk of time daily, only to go for days or weeks without sitting my bottom down in a chair.

Yet making the time and space for regular, ongoing self-care is my biggest challenge. It’s also the core reason why most of my clients come to see me. Because, as women, we are typically really good at nurturing others – and also really bad at including ourselves in that care.

Ironically many of us think that taking care of ourselves is “selfish.” After all, in our busy lives, making time to do an activity for ourselves generally means taking time away from our families, jobs, partner or home.

But when we don’t lavish some of our love on ourselves, we start to wither. When I don’t make the time to sit quietly with myself, I have less patience with my children. I’m more judgmental of my hubby (sorry honey) and myself. Tears and crankiness rise, as do my shoulders. I start to feel disconnected from who I really am, what makes me happy, and my connection to Source.

The saying “You can only give what you have” should be tattooed on our foreheads since it is definitely true about our self-love and energy.

So why the lack of self-care?

I’ll go right to the taproot: We don’t value ourselves enough.

Deep, deep down in the murkiness of our subconscious, we all have some story that sounds like…

I’m not adequate enough.

No one will love me if I don’t do more.

It’s not that hard to take care of (kids, shopping, the house), so what’s my problem? I used to (insert past accomplishments here). Why do I need a break? 

Until we see, embrace and heal this “not good enough” thinking, it’s a struggle to deeply feel, believe and take action on “Yes, my wants, needs and desires are important. They are vital to my health and wellbeing and to the health and wellbeing of my loved ones. I’m carving out the time to take care of me without permission, apology or excuses.”

Once you have that foundation laid and it’s a biggie, then there’s the issue of re-vamping our expectations to fit current reality so we don’t continuously sabotage our self-care.

Here’s how to re-vamp your self-care so that it’s realistic and do-able:

1. Write down the self-care activities you love. For me, and most of the women who come to see me, they are:

• Massage
• Dancing
• Painting/Artistic Endeavor
• Writing
• Taking a bath
• Journaling
• Hiking
• Yoga
• Meditating
• Getting together with girlfriends

2. Now jot down how you would ideally do each activity, like this:

• Massage – Schedule an appointment
• Dancing – Go to a Class
• Painting/Artistic Endeavor – Pull out my supplies
• Writing – Hour on my computer without interruption
• Taking a bath – At night after kids are in bed
• Journaling – After sleeping in on the weekend
• Hiking – In the mountains
• Yoga – Class or Retreat
• Meditating – Group or Retreat
• Getting together with girlfriends – Driving/flying to see them, or planning girls night out

3. Finally re-vamp your expectations so that self-care is easy, possible and requires little effort on your part. Write down your STRESS FREE PLAN B ideas.

• Massage – Give myself a hand or foot rub with the massage oil in my cabinet
• Dancing – In the kitchen with the baby. After dinner, with my hubby. For one song.
• Painting/Artistic Endeavor – Grab some colored pencils and paper.
• Writing – Take notes on ideas as they come to me. Next time I have childcare, write first.
• Taking a bath – With the baby. Add lavender salt next time by myself.
• Journaling – A few minutes at night.
• Hiking – Talk a walk in the woods with the kids.
• Yoga – On the mat in the morning, 5 minutes.
• Meditating – 12 minutes, in my Healing Space. Every other day or as I can.
• Getting together with girlfriends – Text a few. Talk on the way to school pickup.

4. Finally commit to doing at least one within the next week. Tell me what that will be below and then I want to hear all about it!

As for me? For the first time since Téa was born (that would be 9 months), I went to a yoga class – and plan to keep going weekly. I had a massage this week. I’m even planning on going to a dance gathering with a friend on Friday night. Ooo la la. It’s been quite the grand week for me given my current life.

While I’m so grateful for all of my outings, I’m not fooled. As a working mama, they qualify as splurges and big intentions. *

Next week I’ll be back to jotting notes for blogs on the back of the grocery list, meditating for a few minutes at a time and boogieing around the kitchen with a baby on my hip cause I know this amount of big-time self-care just isn’t sustainable.

And that’s a-okay with me since I have my stress free Plan B ideas in place. That makes me – and my family – happy.

Tell me how you can revamp your self-care so that it’s doable. Extra credit for actually doing it. Comment below please!

* Update, I’ve made it to yoga class two weeks in a row but missed out on dancing due to a storm.