Beginning Self Care for Wellness in All PIECES of Your Life

You. Hey there everybody. As I promised during the premiere of the last video, today, we are going to start talking about getting started with self care in all pieces of your life. One of the questions that came up was what exactly is self care? Because I'm supposed to engage in it, but then some people tell me I should feel guilty for engaging in it, but I don't even know what is it is. And that's what we're going to start with today. Self care is anything that uses your energy in a way that will help you move toward your rich and meaningful life. In a few minutes, I'm going to give you some examples in all areas of your life where you may choose to engage in self care. Self care is also about moderation. Not depriving yourself of the things you love, but not overindulging either. Pieces stands for physical, interpersonal, emotional, cognitive, environmental, and spiritual. Sorry, I had to think of the mnemonic. And pieces represents all of the different areas of your life that require some amount of self care. The first one we're going to talk about, because it's first in the mnemonic is physical self care. And this is the one a lot of people think about and a lot of people don't want to do because it's just like, oh, I should eat healthier, but I don't want to. That just sounds dreadful. All right. This is where moderation comes in. Physical self care, nutrition. Should we eat better? Probably. Most people don't have an optimal diet. However, unless there is a medical contraindication, it is often better to allow yourself to have things that you love and eat more healthfully. So having pizza, that's one of my things. I love pizza. Having pizza and making better choices about what I put on the pizza. So substituting pepperoni and sausage for a variety of organic fresh vegetables, whatever it is that you want to do. But then I have my pizza and I don't feel quite so guilty about it. Drinking more water, it's another thing that we're supposed to do for self care and to keep us healthy, but a lot of us don't do it and we don't like it. Okay, well, I need to drink a certain amount of water each day. Fine. And once I've consumed the water that I need to, then allowing myself, or even in between, allowing myself to also drink other things. My husband called me a two fist, two fisted drinker in the morning. And what he means is I have coffee in one hand and water in the other hand and I allow myself to Drink coffee as long as I am also drinking ice water with it. So that's my little compromise in order to engage in self care but also have the things I enjoy. Circadian rhythms. Now this isn't just sleep. Circadian rhythms is represents the, the rhythms of your life, the rhythms of your day. And it is set by your activities, it's set by the daylight, it's set by the temperature outside or you know, in your environment. But managing your circadian rhythms is important because your circadian rhythms regulate your hunger and your satiation hormones. It regulates your cortisol levels, it regulates your gonadal hormones. When those start getting out of whack, it's going to impact your neurotransmitters, which is going to impact every other area of your life. Sleep, physical self care. We need good quality sleep. And this is another one where people will dig their feet in and go, I can get by on five hours. No you can't. Sorry. According to the sleep foundation and lots and lots of peer reviewed research, it's not good for your body. Can you do it? Yes. Is it healthy to do it? No. When you are sleep deprived, it promotes activation of your stress response system, your HPA axis. It promotes inflammation, it reduces immunity. There's a lot of things that go in with it. And when you're sleep deprived, you're actually more foggy headed, you've got more brain fog than you would if you had actually gotten more sleep. So yeah, you may have three extra hours in the day, but it probably takes you three times as long to do anything because you're in this haze all the time. Sleep is one of those things. Yeah. Occasionally you're going to forego your seven to nine hours of sleep to go to a birthday party or stay up for New Year's, whatever it is that you want to do. And that's fine. You don't want to take all the fun out of life in order to be rigid with your self care. Because what you're doing like New Year's Eve may be part of your self care routine. You're just nurturing another aspect. That's fine. It's all about balance and moderation. Medical care. I know there are a lot of people out there who dig their heels in and say, I'm not going to the doctor, I don't need to go to the doctor. My husband's one of them, my daddy was one of them. Actually, most of the men in my life refuse to go to the doctor. But medical care is essential because you can catch problems early and address them so you can eliminate them and prevent future problems. You can also identify things that are not optimal for you, even if they're not really a problem yet, and talk with your doctor about ways to address them so you have more energy so you feel like you're living your optimal level of wellness. Exercise. Yeah, we need it. We know that we need to move every day, but that doesn't mean we have to go to the gym. Exercise is important. Moving your muscles, moving your body, getting some oxygen in there, preferably 30 minutes a day, but that can be vigorous house cleaning, that can be playing with the dog, that can be walking through the mall, whatever it is you like to do. Or they say you can even break it up. So a couple of times a day, if you work in an office building where there's stairs, going into the stairwell and walking the stairs, or going outside and walking around the building a few times, as long as it adds up to 30 minutes, you're good. Now yes, you could do a lot more, that's true. But it's all about moderation. What can you do that will enhance your energy, enhance your health, enhance your quality of life? You don't want to start exercising to the point where you're exhausted and sore all the time and just miserable doing anything that that's not self care. Ergonomics, I may could have put that in environmental, but I think I may have. But ergonomics is also important from a physical standpoint. Be ergonomics is how you sit and your chair at work, your seat in your car, your bed, your sofa, wherever you spend a lot of time sitting or standing. It's important that it is conducive to your body type and what works for you. For example, I've got scoliosis pretty significantly, so my spine is different than the quote, normal spine. And I need different pillows when I sleep in order to feel comfortable or a different pillow arrangement in order to feel comfortable than some people do. The way they have the headrest in the car that pushes your head forward. My head doesn't do that. My head actually goes backwards a little bit. So the typical arrangement is very uncomfortable for me in most easy chairs, in most car seats. So I need to be aware of that and figure out what can I do so it fits my body alignment, if you will. And pain management, I think most of us will engage in that. But pain management is also essential for self care. So these are things that are, by anybody's estimation, would probably not be considered self indulgent, but they are forms of self care. Some people may consider them unpleasant, but they are forms of self care. So if you're going to try to integrate some of these things, make it as pleasant as possible, back to that nutrition. If you're going to start eating healthier, start small. Choose to start adding a few more vegetables into your life, for example. Okay, how do you do that? Well, you can throw them in with your pasta or put it on your pizza. Don't eliminate the things that you love, but try to figure out how you can compromise and integrate interpersonal self care. First one Start making sure that you're nurturing your relationship with yourself with mindfulness and positive self talk. I know that sounds kind of odd to most people, but it's important to be authentic, to be consistent, to be responsive, to be validating, encouraging and safe in your own head. And taking time out to check in with yourself and say, how do I feel and what is it that I want to do? And engaging in things just like you would with your best friend. Call them up on Saturday and say, hey, what would you like to do today? Well, occasionally check in with yourself and say, hey self, what would you like to do today? Nurture your relationships with supportive others. And this is important to set boundaries where you're not overextending yourself, but it is important. Just like keeping a plant alive, you've got to water it occasionally. It is important to nurture the relationships with those people who can be supportive and encouraging and helpful and nurturing when you need it. You don't always have to say yes in relationships though. If your friend calls you, I'll exaggerate every day and wants to go out every night to do something. You don't have to say yes all the time. You can nurture that relationship and spend quality time together, but also set boundaries and limits and say, I really need to get some sleep tonight or I've got to do laundry. If you want to spend time with them, you can make the compromise of I've got to do laundry, but you can come over and talk to me while I fold underwear. But the point is, you don't have to always say yes. If you say no. If you don't want to do something occasionally, that's okay. That doesn't mean you're not nurturing the relationship. As a matter of fact, it means maybe it means you are because you're saying, I want to be present for you and in order to do that I can't get worn down. Use energy for the relationship. When you're when you've got energy, invest it in that relationship sometimes. Now, if you've got 15 different relationships, you have to figure out how you're going to parcel out that energy and still make sure that you're giving some back to yourself. And the third one is kind of odd for self care, but ask for help and delegate. This actually nurtures relationships. They've found in social psychology studies that people who are asked to do things, people who are asked to help, often feel closer to the person who asked for their help. It's like, I'm honored that you asked for for my help. I'm honored that you need me, if you will. You don't want to do it all the time. Obviously you don't want to burn out the people around you. But occasionally asking for help can actually be seen as a way to nurture and strengthen that relationship. Likewise, again, using energy you can offer to help. And third, setting boundaries with destructive others. Nurture the support of others and set boundaries with destructive others. That doesn't mean necessarily cutting them completely out of your life. You may not be able to if the destructive other is your office mate or if the destructive other happens to be a family member that you are not going to cut out of your life. Okay, that's fine. Figure out how to set emotional and cognitive and physical boundaries as needed with those people in order to not be using a lot of energy, feeling angry, resentful or afraid of them. Emotional self care. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is do things that make you happy. That pleasurable procrastination we talked about in the last video. All right. Well, yes, it is important to do things that make you happy occasionally. And I usually suggest 15 minutes a day. It's helpful when you feel happy. It releases positive chemicals in your body. It actually reduces inflammation. That doesn't mean you should engage in self indulgent behavior all the time. But a good belly laugh or having a few moments of happy contentment can do a lot and be consistently mindful and responsive to your feelings. We're talking about those secure attachments a lot. Consistent awareness, consistent mindfulness, responsiveness, attention, validation, encouragement and safety craves. Remember, that's the mnemonic we use for secure attachments. It's important to be consistently mindful of your own feelings and respond to those feelings. Feelings are important to help motivate you to do something, but they're not always accurate. If you feel anxious, if you feel threatened or angry in some way, all right, that's your brain saying, hey, get up off the couch and figure out if there's a problem. It's not saying, hey, there's definitely a problem. It's saying, get up and figure it out. If you are feeling happy and content, that's your brain saying, hey, keep doing that. We like this thing. So feelings aren't facts. When you're doing something that makes you feel good, you're Again, your brain says, hey, keep doing that. We like that. That's great. But doing pleasurable things to the expense of other things that we need to do, that's not so helpful. Likewise, not all things that make you feel good are good for you. It's important to acknowledge the feelings and respond to them appropriately as needed to move toward your rich and meaningful life. And finally, address don't suppress. Suppressing emotions takes a lot of energy. I came up with the analogy. It's like trying to hide a litter of puppies in your closet to keep your parents from finding out. We've all seen movies where kids have tried to do that. Maybe you tried to do that too. But puppies are noisy, puppies are needy, and puppies are stinky. And suppressing emotions, avoiding dealing with grief or anger or any of those distressful emotions. It's kind of like trying to keep those puppies under wraps. As soon as you start doing something, they're going to scratch at the door or they're going to whine, or they're going to, you know, poop on the floor or something. It's always going to be something that you're trying to bat down instead of just dealing with it. Cognitive Self Care Nurture your interests and talents. Nurture your brain. Address unhelpful thinking patterns that increase your sense of unsafeness and powerlessness. So this is cognitive behavioral therapy, but cognitive self care encourages you to assess and address your schema, your beliefs about the world, to decide if they are accurate or if they are inaccurate, and to address them or modify them as needed. Maybe they're on point. All right, fine. But most of us have at least a few unhelpful thinking patterns that we engage in that if we used our energy to eliminate those cognitive distortions, it would actually help us feel a lot more empowered, a lot more energetic. And it's a form of self care. Taking care of yourself means also helping yourself feel safe and empowered in the world and learn to prioritize to avoid getting overwhelmed. Cognitively. When you start feeling like you've got 60 different things running around in your head, it's exhausting and it will impair your Sleep, it's just, it's a problem. So learn how to prioritize things. So in your mind you think, okay, I've got this. It's a long list, but I've got it. Environmental self care. Pretty straightforward. Create an environment that's relaxing and welcoming to all of your senses. Your sights, your smells, your sounds, your touch. Be willing to accept a partial environment, though. And what I mean by that is if you live in a house with other people, you may not be able to control how everything looks all the time. Probably not going to be able to control that even if you're the only one living there. But have a place in your house that is your sanctuary. When my kids still lived here, the main part of the house needed to stay in a certain amount of order their rooms. If they wanted to live in squalor, that was up to them. I was not going to tell them how to maintain their rooms. After they got to be a certain age, I allowed them to make that choice. If you live with roommates, it may be the other way around because obviously they're not your children and your room may be the place you have control over. All right, well, that's your place. Make it as wonderful as possible. Do this at home, but also try to do this at work. Wherever work is for you. Try to make your cubicle, your area, your desk, at least partially welcoming. And I say partially because some organizations have a lot of really weird rules about personalization of your space. But do as much as you can so when you walk up to your desk, it feels inviting instead of off putting. And again, pay attention to those ergonomics. Finally, spiritual self care. Spirituality means recognizing your connection to others. I'm not talking about religion here, I'm talking about spirituality. Notice your positive contribution to those important to you and the universe around you. And I always forget the name of this, that movie whenever I start doing a video about this. It's a Wonderful Life. Perfect example of spiritual self care. When he recognizes the influence he had on everybody around him, even if he wasn't directly trying to. And also reflect on how your thoughts and actions are in alignment with your values. When you do things that are in alignment with your values, it's a lot less stressful. When you do things that go against your values, it creates what we call cognitive dissonance and creates a lot of stress. So one form of self care can be regularly reflecting on how am I living my life? Is what I'm doing in alignment with my values. All right, so I went over a Lot of different things. And don't start trying to do all those things at once. Pick one of them. Pick one of them. Any positive move towards self care is going to benefit all pieces of your life. Like your phone. If you run your battery completely down or you overexert yourself, you're going to be good to absolutely nobody. It's important to rest and recharge. It's important to regularly remind yourself how lack of self care keeps you from effectively moving toward your rich and meaningful life. If I get backed up on something and I quit taking care of myself, I quit engaging in my self care. I tend to get sick. When I'm sick, then I'm even less able to get the stuff done that I need to and it starts this negative spiral. Self care is important. Change your language from I can't to I won't. This is something that people who've been my clients before and my friends and definitely my children are aware is one of my sort of pet peeves. Most things, not everything, but most things you can do if you are sufficiently motivated. You may choose not to you but it's important to switch your verb from I can't to I won't do this. You may not be able to go on a weekend retreat. You may not be able to. There's lots of different types of self care and self care activities you may not be able to do. But the question is, okay, if you can't do that one, what can you do instead? And you can do something. Some of those things that I talked about take very little time and effort. It's so if you continue to say I can't, it is your choice not to. So in, in essence you're saying I won't do this. And I know some of you are just gritting your teeth right now. Step back and think about it. Self care doesn't have to take a lot of time. Start small. A simple change in your life. That self care, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It takes maybe an additional minute and a half to get up to your desk. But it's a form of self care. It's exercise. See, you can. Whether you choose to or not, that's on you. Drinking more water. You can if you want to. Or something you can do in 15 to 30 minutes like journaling or meditation or yoga or just watching funny videos on YouTube. Can you? I think most of us have 15 minutes a day when where we're sitting in the car, where we're waiting on something, where we're let's Just face it. Sitting on the toilet where we could do something that engages self care. After you do something that is self beneficial, notice how you feel immediately after, before all those shoulds and guilts and anything else start jumping in. Notice how you feel after you watch 15 minutes of funny videos. Do you feel lighter? Do you feel a little bit recharged? How do you feel? Remind yourself of this feeling and how it helps you move towards those things in your rich and meaningful life and quite honestly, why you deserve it. Examine your current routine for ways you can reduce stress, free up energy and make just a little time for you. I remember when my kids were little, very little, I used to just dream of the day that I'd be able to go to the bathroom by myself without some little hand underneath going, mommy, what you doing? Mommy? And then seeing that little eye peer under the door, mommy what you doing? And I used to be very thankful when my husband would get home from work and I had that 15 minutes where I could take a shower by myself. That was my self care, you know, Granted I needed to shower anyway, but I had 15 minutes of uninterrupted time and I was just like oh my gosh. When my kids started to get older, we had a rule and I had my self care time where I would go back and take my shower or whatever it was I was doing for like 30 minutes. And we had this rule, if someone is not bleeding or dying, it can wait. And you know, obviously they didn't take that super literally, but they knew that this was not the time to come knock on the door, mommy, when are you going to make dinner? Mommy I want this. They knew that that needed to wait until the timer went off. So back to looking at your day. What can be eliminated? What things in your day take your time and energy and don't move you toward your rich and meaningful life. Forever scrolling on social media, is that helping you move toward your rich and meaningful life? How could you use that in time differently? Yeah, there are people on my Facebook feed, for example, that I really enjoy and I really enjoy seeing and learning about and connecting with. Okay, well instead of just persistently scrolling my feed, I started going to Facebook and I would go directly to those people's profiles that I really wanted to engage with and then I'd get off, you know, I'd comment on their posts or whatever and then I would be done and I wouldn't be getting sucked into whatever other drama that was going on playing video games. I used that example in another video. But Yeah, I love playing video games and I can get sucked into them sometimes if I'm not careful. So it's important for me to set time limits and I'm still going to allow myself to play them. But I need to set a timer so I don't look up three hours later and go, oh my gosh, I had so much else I was supposed to do. So some things can be eliminated or limited in order to free up time. What can be simplified? Some things we make too darn hard. What can you simplify? Can you and well, I'll get down there in a minute. You can make spaghetti, you can make casseroles, you can pre make your meals on Sunday, for example. Because cooking takes a lot of time. What is it that you can simplify in your life for clothing. I'll be honest. I have a rule. When I get clothes, it has to be wrinkle free. I am not going to iron. I just, I know myself, I hate ironing. I have like four things in my closet that need to be ironed. A friend of mine has, the only thing that she buys is stuff that needs to be dry cleaned because she knows she's not going to go to the laundromat very often or do laundry very often. Whatever, it works for you. How can you simplify things? What can be delegated? Carpool. If you're running kids around here, there and everywhere every day, that's exhausting and it takes a lot of time. I remember sitting in those school pickup lines. So can you carpool where somebody will pick your kids up a couple of days a week and you pick their kids up a couple of days a week so you're trading off. So each of you frees up some self care time. Things like click and pull and grocery delivery have been a godsend because you save so much time. Even if you've got to drive out to the store and pick it up, the amount of time you don't waste going through the aisles and checking out and then loading up your bags and everything else. It saves a ton of time. And that time can be redirected to what? Self care. Now some people have difficulty with self care because of guilt. Remember, guilt is anger at yourself for something you've been told or you believe that you should do that you're not doing or you should have done that you didn't do. Okay. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. We don't like those words. It's important in order to handle guilt. Help others how. Understand. Help others understand how your self care is in their best interest. If mommy has her time to decompress, I will be a lot more fun to play with when I finish, you know, this evening or whatever. Remember, you're being a good role model by practicing self care. Your kids and your friends and your family, they take cues from you, but especially your kids. And if they see you running yourself into the ground, then they're going to develop the belief that they're supposed to run themselves into the ground. Prepare people for the change. This is so important. A lot of people just get up one morning and go, I'm going to start taking care of myself. And it's a shock to the whole family system. It is important to prepare them and say, I am going to start taking care of myself. I'm going to start taking 30 minutes in the evening or whatever it is you're going to do if it impacts them. If it doesn't, then you can choose to or not to have this conversation. But if you choose to have this conversation, let them know, you know, I want to be here for you. I want to be of service to you. I want to really nurture this relationship and I need to start taking care of me so I don't get completely burned out. Starting next week, this is what I need you to do. Instead of telling me on the day of that you have an away game in Ex and so Town, let me know at the beginning of the season what your schedule is or instead of dropping it on me Friday night that you have told your friends that they can come over for a slumber party on Saturday. Yeah, let me know ahead of time. And you may need to pitch in by delegating. Remember, you are empowering others to take some responsibility. A lot of times, I won't say all the time, but a lot of times people will guilt you for or try to make you feel guilty for taking care of yourself because they're not getting something they want, they're throwing a tantrum. Let's face it, let's call it what it is. I've been sick for a couple of weeks and I'm getting over it now. But there was a few days there where I was just really sick. And not only did I not feel like cooking, I didn't think it was probably in anybody's best interest for me to be spreading my germs around the house. So I told my husband, you're on your own to fend for yourself for food. And he did fine the first week. But once I started getting better and I was up in in the dining room and around him, he'd be like, well, there's nothing to eat. I'm like, the pantries are full. He's like, there's no food. There's only stuff to make food. Quoting Homer Simpson. And it's important to empower people to help them recognize, hey, you can cook for yourself. Believe it or not, you can do it. And, you know, I'd remind him, hey, there's stuff in there. You can make spaghetti. There's stuff in there. I have frozen pizzas. Not that I think it's the best for him to eat all the time, but it was there, and I reminded him of things that were there that I know good and well. He knows how to cook. But, mom, I have no clean underwear. My response sounds like, you better do some laundry. It's not your job to be doing things for people that they can do for themselves. People need to start being empowered to do for themselves what they can. And guess what? That frees up a lot of energy for everybody else. Yeah. If they have less free time to play video games because they've actually got to start adulting. Oh, my gosh. It is what it is. And then the slumber party or whatever the case is. But I had this experience happen to. I want to have a slumber party this weekend. And my thought is, well, that's great, but I ain't got time to clean the house and get everything ready, so you're gonna have to help me. I have. I'll pitch in and I'll help. But these things need to be done if you want your friends to come over this weekend. So it's important to compromise. It's important to empower, and it's important to recognize what people actually can do for themselves. Yeah, they may do it grudgingly at first because they don't want to do it. Let's see. Play video games, do my laundry. Which am I going to choose? But it's important for people to learn from a young age not only that they can do it, but it's important to ultimately learn how to do the things you have to do, even if you don't want to recognize frustration and recondition both yourself and others, saying something like, I hear your frustration that I won't do this for you, but I have other commitments. You can propose additional options. All right, I can't make dinner for everybody tonight, but you can order in. You can go out to eat. There is. There are frozen pizzas in the freezer. There's soup in the cabinet. What is it that you want? Or in terms of the laundry, I don't have time to do your laundry for you. You can do it. But if you need advice on what you're doing, if you need me to help walk you through it, you can always text me. Or in the future if you give me more lead time, then we can do this. But I can't just turn on a dime. It is important to compromise and avoid being too rigid. So for example, if you need to go to a 12 step meeting or if there's something that a particular class that you want to enroll in, great. But it's important to look at the other people in your life and how that's going to impact them and pick a class time that's not going to cause undue hardship on them. Or if something comes up, you know, we don't want to be too rigid with our self care. We don't want to give it up. But maybe if it's a one off that somebody really needs you, maybe your spouse has to work late and so you need to stay home with the kids even though you were supposed to go to yoga class. All right, well what can you do? Kids are still home. Sounds like everybody's going to be doing yoga. Everyone can engage in self care. You may not be able to engage in all of the types of fantastical retreat oriented self care that you can dream up, but you can engage in self care. Getting started can be difficult because of what you've been taught about self care or demands from your significant others. Just recognize initially. Even if you prepare them initially, tantrums are normal because it's a change. It involves peop other people changing their beliefs and behaviors. Recognize your value and worth and the benefits of self care for you and those around you.