Self-Care: What does it mean to me these days?
Well, it’s been another rough period! In my weekly newsletter, I talked all about what it was like to live in Texas last week (Spoiler Alert: not fun). (As a side note, if you want to donate, I recommend Beto’s organization: Powered by the People.) All of the difficulty of the past week has me thinking about the importance of self-care for myself and others.
I feel like self-care has such a watered-down connotation. Even for myself, I’ve referenced pedicures as self-care, for example. And while I still believe getting an hour away from my family while getting physical touch from a professional is helpful, it’s not sufficient.
We need self-care to build our resilience. We need self-care to heal our past traumas so we are stronger when the future traumas come.
Here are the things I currently do that contribute the most to my self-care:
- Therapy every other week
- Leadership coaching every other week
- Reiki every other week
Those are the things that help take care of myself by processing my emotions.
But then this article got me thinking even more deeply about the concept of self-care. The author wrote:
But what can you experience today that is going to fill you with the positive emotions you need to do the most important things in your life? It’s about refueling yourself in order to engage with life.
The article continues:
Give the best hours of your day to yourself: Dr. Groppel often advises clients to map out a typical day, from dawn until bedtime. You probably spend about eight hours sleeping — but how do you spend the other 16 hours? Write down the time you spend preparing meals, doing your job, shopping, watching television, doing laundry, helping children with homework, caring for an aging parent, catching up on emails
Next, Dr. Groppel asks: What one- or two-hour period in each day do you feel your best? Your most energetic? Your most productive? Now look at your list, he says. Who gets those hours? Try giving that time to yourself instead.
I really want to spend time thinking about these concepts. Which parts of my day are helping me feel energized? Which ones are sapping me of my energy? And why?
How do we structure our lives so that we are filling up our buckets? I’m eager to dig into this concept more!