Treating self-care like my JOB
Earlier today I was on a walk and delighted myself with the thought that “it is my professional duty, my job, to take care of myself!” How many other people can say that? Of course, it is everybody’s job to take care of themselves, and we should all treat our self-care with the same necessity that we do our paid work, but many of us do not see if that way. In recent months, I have been greatly expanding my capacity to serve more people, produce more creative work, and connect with more people in my community in a meaningful way. Through this period of stretching myself, I have significantly ramped up my self-care practices, incorporating new things and revisiting old habits that keep me feeling like me.
Self-care practices are absolutely essential and nonnegotiable for me as I do the work I am here to do. I am the leader of myself first. If I do not show up for myself with honor and discipline, then who will? How am I to show up with others if I am not doing all that is in my power to care for myself? Even if I do not feel my best, knowing that I took even one baby step towards showing up for myself is often enough to make me feel so much better. It is foundational. It is me walking my talk, a way that I practice integrity and coherence. It is how I inspire and empower others with my presence and being, which is part of what makes being in a therapeutic or coaching relationship with me so powerful.
I have listed many of my self-care habits in the map I made above. What I want to expand on here is how I create the structure for myself to actually make these habits part of my everyday life, so that I do not have to even think about it, I just do it. One of the ways I ensure self-care is seeped into my life is by scheduling it into my calendar. Tuesdays are my extended self-care days. Every Tuesday morning for the past two semesters (in the summer I stopped doing this because my time was less structured), I wake up and go to the gym. I work out, which I LOVE to do and then I go to the locker room which I pretend is a resort spa, and I go in the sauna and cold shower after. I make sure to keep another day during the week, usually Friday open for more self-care and whatever I want to do.
Boundaries are part of self-care. I take care of myself by saying no to things I do not want to do. Anything that is not a full bodied “hell yeah!!” is a no. It has taken me a while to accept that that means less socializing, but honestly it feels so much better to be actively choosing everything on my schedule instead of agonizing over whether I should cancel this plan because I ignored my initial feeling to say no. I am a very social person and I also love being alone. Knowing when to spend time with just me is key to taking care of myself. Just earlier today on my walk, I felt the impulse to call someone, but then I gave it a second thought and actually the only person I felt like being with in that moment was me and I just needed to accept that and take that walk with myself.
Another magical way I ensure self-care is easy for me to apply to my everyday life is by adjusting the practices I lean on according to my hormone cycle. When I am in follicular and ovulation, I dance and move and run and belt my favorite songs every chance I get. That is what my body craves during those phases. When I am in luteal, I take naps in my self-care time and do yoga Nidra and walk and sky gaze. When I am in the first days of my period, I really focus on resting, heat, and exerting the minimum possible effort while still showing up and being present. It is such a drastic difference from running every day to napping every day that I am laughing about it as I write, but it feels so natural to treat myself this way. I simply honor the phase I am in and adjust my approach to self-care accordingly.
