In all the ways.
Before we dive into this week’s topic, I was recently a guest on a podcast and I’m sharing the episode here if you’d like to check it out!
Now, on to this week’s topic!
Self-care is holistic. The term self-care has gotten a lot of buzz in the past few years, and rightfully so. It’s important for us to know that it’s okay to care for ourselves, that it’s vital to care for ourselves.
But how much of that is marketing? We hear about getting a frothy, sugary drink as “self-care”; we know that a massage is some good self-care; we can think of hair appointments and nail appointments as self-care.
And these things can definitely be part of self-care. What else is part of self-care?
We can consider how we care for ourselves around:
- – Creative expression
- – Money and finances
- – Time
- – Career and work
- – Nutrition and health
- – Hydration
- – Physical movement and flexibility
- – Sexual expression
- – Play and rest
- – Mindful breathing
- – Skincare and bodycare
- – Mind and mental health care
- – Sleep
- – Relationships
- – Connection with nature
- – Self (e.g. worth, value, respect, esteem)
All of these aspects are part of who we are as whole people. Sometimes we can get more focused on a couple aspects over others – and at times, it’s necessary to do so. But when we stray away too long from any one of these aspects, we can feel misaligned with ourselves and our lives, which can affect how we show up for ourselves and for others.
The good news is that we can get realigned by considering where we want to consciously focus more of our energy.
Do we want to focus on drinking enough water each day? Do we want to focus on getting enough sleep each night? Do we want to focus on connecting with our relationships more?
When we decide which 1-2 areas (at a time) we’d like to consciously put more of our energy towards, we can then ask ourselves, “How can I make sure I _______?” – drink enough water, get enough sleep, get in touch with what I’m thinking and feeling, be out in nature at least twice a week, connect with someone close to me today, eat healthy meals at least once a day, take deep breaths during the day.
And the brain, in its powerful way, will get to work on finding the answers and figuring it out so we can focus our energy on caring for ourselves in a holistic way.
(Note: It’s helpful to constrain at first to focus on 1-2 areas. If we try to focus on more than that at one time, we might end up feeling overwhelmed and not doing anything for ourselves in any of the areas. Once we get good with those 1-2 areas, we can move on to 1-2 others.)
Your turn: Are you feeling misaligned with how you want to show up and how you are showing up? Which 1-2 areas in your life can you holistically focus on right now to feel more aligned with how you want to show up in the world? What are you willing to do in order to allocate your energy where you want it to go?
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What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.
The Healing Modalities 