Self Care -A Needed Attitude Shift

When I begin my career as a therapist, I would admire those who were able to implement self-care on a regular basis. I often would think to myself that I would know that I was successful in my career once I was able to afford regular trips to the nail salon or monthly massages. It took me several years, and being close to burnt out a few times, for me to realize that self-care was more about my attitude towards myself and not an call to a spa. I also learned that self-care was not an award that I needed to earn, but an essential part of living. 

Like everything else, self-care takes practice. This new habit takes time and conscious effort to implement. We won’t just stumble into a good self-care routine, we need to be deliberate. Self-care starts with knowing where you are and what your needs are. I usually start with the area that most needs attention or feels the largest amount of ick. This is the area that may be easy to avoid but will have to greatest impact. 

When we are making any changes it is important to explore our roadblocks. I found that my largest roadblock to self-care was my attitude. I often think that I don’t deserve the time, think I haven't earned it, or think that a particular task or person deserves more attention. Any of these thoughts or attitudes are not going to foster positivity or motivation and my self care will remain a goal that I will never reach. If I continue to allow my inner critic to diminish my worth, I won’t have the energy to give love to the world, and I will miss the opportunity to show love to myself. 

You don’t have to be in a “helping profession” to deserve or need self care. This shift in attitude is how we show love to ourselves. How do we determine who warrants compassion and kindness? We are all deserving. Love is not something that we earn. Instead of affirmations, I write down the ways I have shown myself compassion and kindness. What is one way that you can show yourself much deserved compassion and kindness today? 

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

Create a Self Care Plan

"You are a human being and that is enough to warrant compassion and kindness.” Often we talk about change more than we take action. Having a plan or a set goal will helps us to accomplish what is easily verbalized. Self care is showing ourselves compassion and kindness. Do you have a plan? Do you notice when you can use a little self care?

Owning Our Part for Larger Change

Falling in love with Self?

The Importance of Falling in Love with Self

What has been the most profound and healing aspect of being a therapist is the themes that arise in both my personal life and within office walls. I often find, for example, that I will confide in a friend and within a short amount of time, the exact theme, words or expressions seem to perfectly fit when sitting with a client. Certainly, a recent experience and having something on my mind would in itself create a organic focus or theme. But, I would argue that there is something more divine within the pattern. Almost like the Universe needed to show me something or teach something in order to help another. These patterns are also in with what others present to me, almost highlighting how connected we all are. The largest theme that has been present is the idea of Loving Self. And I think I am now, after 8 years, starting to understand what this means for myself and for others. 

We are told that in order to love another we must love ourselves first. But how do we know if we do? Certainly have loved myself enough to gain an education, build relationships, explore and challenge myself. Yet, a few years ago I lay on my bed, sobbing, lonely and depressed. Through this recent journey, I have discovered that yes, through all of my hardships I did love myself but I was not in love with myself. The love I had is what kept me searching for connection and a place to belong. As I laid on that bed feeling empty and the mostly painful loneliness, my focus shifted from my inner child who longed for a loving parent or a lover who would give me the sense of belonging to what was visibly in front of me. My bed was a mess, half full mugs of tea collected on my dresser and my new nightgown with its store tag still attached was careless thrown on the pile of dirty laundry. I decided that since I have spent most of of my life searching for this belonging and yearning to fill this hole I felt inside that I should at least surround myself in comfort, clean up the mess, and sob in my new nightgown. I lit candles and put on music for no other purpose than to fully honor my sorrow of being unloveable. After I lit the candles I went back to laying down only to begin laughing at myself. Who does this?? Well. I do! And this journey was the start of healing and shifting from searching and desperately trying to fill this hole inside my heart to figuring out ways that I can filled it myself. 

Within the past 8 years, I have fallen in love with me. All the crazy things I do, my silly adventures, and my imperfect yet perfect body. The shift that happened was not focusing on what I did not have or searching for what I believed was missing but focusing on the fact that I love myself enough to feel sorrow, to have yearned and searched for love/belonging/family and this only happened because I loved me. And know I am in love with myself because of how I love, cherish, treat, and anticipate the needs of me. I no longer have to justify, prove, or be afraid to say no to anyone. The wholeness that I feel is what I use to wish I could have been given to me. Now, I understand that this type of wholeness I can only give to myself. 

My challenge to you is to really sit with the idea of falling in love with yourself and do something for yourself that you wish another would. Let's be bold, courageous, and reclaim your own wholeness one nightgown and candle at a time.