The need for self-care...
What lies beneath.
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” - Stephen Covey
I can remember when my self care strategies were being able to get up in time, having a wash, cleaning my teeth and actually being at work with a coffee in hand.
If I decided on a day off I would lie in bed with a cup of instant coffee with masses of sugar and whitener with a Danielle Steele. Or I'd be out shopping, in the pub generally numbing out or in front of the telly smoking.
It seems weird to say it now. My life looks nothing like that. In general life has changed so much, but that was my normal and for most of my peers. Self-care was not even a concept that I knew of at that time in my life.
I had no connection to my body. After leaving school I had an aversion to learning anything and I don't think I believed I had a Soul!
There weren't any infrared sauna blankets, beach saunas, back garden ice baths or 9D meditations. Gym, yoga or pilates were rarely spoken of.
Obviously when I lived that way I was low, depressed, disconnected and had no purpose or joy. And even when you have access to the good things you can still feel that way.
My only self- care was an escape from a life that didn't really feel like living at all. I searched for things that "picked me up" and it had to be fast. Food, alcohol, work and TV. Anything that stopped me from feeling the low moods and anxiety that I lived with daily.
Even the word self-care would have had me barfing at one point. Because the other side to self - care was that I didn't feel I even deserved it. Or that I had to just toughen up and suck it up.
Self-care has been defined as "a multidimensional, multifaceted process of purposeful engagement in strategies that promote healthy functioning and enhance well-being." In short, self-care is all about caring for yourself—as the name suggests—to ensure your physical and emotional needs are met.
Many of us view self-care as a luxury rather than a priority. Consequently, we're left feeling overwhelmed, tired, and ill-equipped to handle life's inevitable challenges. It's important to assess how you're caring for yourself in several different domains so you can ensure you're caring for your mind, body, and spirit.
It is vital for building resilience toward life's stressors that we can't eliminate. When we have taken steps to care for our mind and body, we become better equipped to live a better and more fulfilling life.
For some of my clients beginning their journey, giving themselves this much needed time and attention feels difficult and often uncomfortable. They feel they don't deserve it at all or that they must give everything of themselves in order to receive.
Often underlying beliefs of being unworthy or underserving, or of life being about working hard to get anything at all can be affecting their daily actions and habits. I was the same.
Self-care when you are low and have no nourishment in your life can simply look like getting up, looking at yourself in the mirror and saying "you're doing alright" And that is enough in those moments.
Personal care. Clean clothes. Routine. Home cooked food. Healthy sleep. Connection. All keep you going in times of growing, healing and changing. The basics are still self-care.
But to fully reconnect to a life of connection, joy, awareness, ease and empowerment, diving deeper into these core beliefs is necessary.
In many of my sessions and at the start of my programmes I use Integral Eye Movement Therapy to address these underlying beliefs.
Our past experiences can create patterns of thinking and behaviour that persist into adulthood and contribute to emotional distress and beliefs of being undeserving or unworthy of the care our body's minds and Souls so desperately need to function and thrive.
IEMT works by using eye movements to stimulate the brain and create new neural connections that allow for the processing and release of negative emotions and beliefs.
“If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self.” — Wayne Dyer