Are you failing with self-care? Maybe you really are too busy.
Maybe you are dragging yourself around sick, and emotionally circling the
drain, and having low energy and no inspiration. Nothing is calling you.
First thing is to figure out if you are emotionally plugged
up.
Have you had a loss, or trauma in the last 6 months? Are you
facing some hard things emotionally? It is possible that your draggy feeling
has some grief hidden in there.
Self-care recovery can be done in baby steps. Crawl back
into bed. Take out a journal. Ask yourself about your grief or loss. What has
been emotionally hard? Write about it. Make contact with your feelings. Read
your journal, writing to yourself. You have to get emotionally truthful with
yourself and understand how you are feeling.
When you struggle with self-care, it usually means you are struggling with some other things.
While you are in bed journaling, I want you to recover from
whatever cold or body injury you have. Get more rest. Stop doing. Stop running
around. Stop asking so much of yourself. Your body needs to recover. Rest is
the most underrated medicine. Read a novel, find some interesting music to
listen to. Rest is great for so many
things and is a wonderful self-care tool. Catch up on your sleep.
Getting on track with self-care:
After you have rested, caught up on sleep, eaten well, you
can take baby steps to start moving. This can be walking, going to a gentle
yoga class. Sometimes joining an exercise class is helpful because they give
you the structure. You don’t have to think about it.
Do things that make you happy and give you joy. This is a
journal practice to help you: Make a list of 50 things you like to do. Write it
as fast as you can. It’s ok to repeat yourself on your fast 50 list. Then read
your 50 list and circle only the things that really are self-care just for you - (usually all kinds of to-do stuff pops up, but we are not looking for your to-do
list). Only circle the self-care ideas. Anything surprising pop-up?
Do those circled things that are just for you.
I learned that creativity is an essential part of my
self-care, playing music, writing/ journaling, and knitting. Reading is also an instant
self-care feeder. There are so many choices to read, I keep my kindle loaded at
all times and it is always with me.
Try new things:
If you are not feeling self-care from your old activities, change it up.
Learn something new. Try something outside the box. Just follow your curiosity and
see where your heart leads. My heart led me to 2-stepping, SoulCollage, cross-country skiing, etc.
Self-care is a process of
discovery. Let your self-care surprise you. I look forward to hearing about your
discoveries. Send me an update on what works for you.
By practicing self-care, I have created a sanctuary, that I
am always in. My sanctuary of self-care helps on the hard days.
