Self care. The real deal.
Episode 20: Do You Have The Guts?
What does it mean to incorporate self love or self care into our daily routine? Why do we resist the notion of self care? And…how to tell if you don’t really like yourself…
My history with self care was relatively non-existent until the last few years. I suppose it really began in 2019 with consistently taking care of my body…by late 2020 I was 100% committed (vs 98% committed which we will discuss in a later episode!!!)
Getting to the point of wellness where I was able to consistently take care of my body was a huge journey in my pursuit of self care. The realiziation that consistency wasn’t all will power and that discipline actually created freedom
I also needed a dream team which I cultivated first with a chiro and acupuncturist. Those two steps were all about physical self care and having feedback when my body was hurt or incapable of something. BUT - it took me taking care of myself and finding a way to make these things happen regularly to support my transformation. 5 years ago I’d not have given myself such an expensive support system.
What does it matter if we like or love ourselves anyway? I’ve been in that self loathing place too. The one that lasts for years and has begun again so many times you cannot tell the end from the beginning…How hard is it to take time for someone you don’t like? How difficult is it to show up for someone you don’t love? Especially when showing up is challenging mentally and or physically…
I thought about quitting all the time and I thought about doing better, but never really asked myself why I was sabotaging myself personally day in and day out. Why did I continue to go through this two week cycle of ‘being good’ and then ‘falling off the wagon’ or getting hurt, sick, discouraged to the point of quitting or micro quitting.
Looking back over my lifetime, I’ve now got the wisdom to see that all of the ways I believed I was taking care of myself were bogus. They were band-aids.
I had no idea how to feel or process the feelings that were jumbled up and shoved down inside of me. No idea. So I kept them at bay where I didn’t need to think about them, and I had no idea to release those negative thoughts.…I had no idea that was even a thing until age 29.
Why isn’t it a regular practice to teach our kiddos how to feel feelings that are uncomfortable.
Those thoughts stayed and festered and morphed into anger, resentment, shame and weight gain.
My self care centered around new clothes or something I bought to feel better. Pedicures. Manicures. Massages. Getting my hair done…Exercise - I did serious yoga in my 30’s. I focused 100% of my self care attention on how I looked on the outside. These practices felt indulgent or decadent, and they were. But they didn’t help me like myself at all. These things only felt good in the moment- they didn’t last.
Because feeling good because you look good is fleeting. You look good and all the same monsters are still in your mind.
Self care is about releasing those monsters. Releasing everything that is holding you back. That is real self care. And how scary does that sound? What was holding me back is what I held on to the tightest because those things helped me feel better in the moment, but the good feeling was fleeting.
I was also focused 100% on other people and my career. That is what I was taught to do my entire life. In school, at home and throughout life in general, my focus was always pointed away from me. I was a work-a-holic because i found ALL of my identity in my work. That was the only part of my life I was confident about and happy about.
It didn’t occur to me, at all, that I didn’t like myself until I was about 30 years old and I hired a health coach. I wanted to LOSE all the weight I’d been packing on since college. Her approach baffled and delighted me and I began to cultivate an awareness of myself that I’d never understood before. She was the first person to help me understand that my mindset was a huge part of self care.
She taught me about negative thought loops and that they could be released. This was pure gold to me.
Then one day she asked me to write down 10 traits that I liked about myself…Week after week I failed…
“Heather, this tells me that you do not consider yourself important. You will not take the time to think about yourself for even 5 minutes to come up with a few things you like about yourself. This tells me that you don’t like yourself. What? That was like a wake up call for me because she was vexed with me. Her frustration was ‘how am I going to help you if you won’t do the work…?”
I spent zero time thinking about me personally. My entire focus and life was built around the people in it and my work. We live from this place without understanding.
I had no idea then, but not liking yourself creates a physiology in your body. It creates a stress in your body that feels more like depression, anxiety, fear, worry doubt and other low level emotions. It seeps into your everyday unnoticed. All those thoughts we carry around that are negative
Now LIKING yourself creates a physiology too. It feels good - like laughter or a great sweat from exercise…Life in general feels a lot better a lot more when you like yourself. 50/50 element…Liking yourself offers a ver very different quality of life.
Now, Even when I discovered I didn’t like myself, I didn’t invoke personal change. AS i mentioned before, that meant leaving people and habits behind in which i found major comfort.
HOW could I do that?
So self care became stupid in my opinion. To me, feeling good came from avoiding shame, indulging in anything that took my mind off my lack or unworthiness, and keeping my fears and anger buried. I found refuge in punishing my body with exercise, drinking vats of delicious wine, and eating a very unhealthy diet that offered a lot of sugar and processed foods and were savory and satisfying in the moment.
WHY would I bother leaving behind these comforts I was trained to seek my whole life in avoidance of stress? Why would I leave people behind that I thought I couldn’t live without? Why would I leave a job I didn’t like very much when it made me great money.
Taking care of myself by ditching this stuff to feel better and even happy or joyful wasn’t even an idea.
For one, I had no idea how bad I felt on a daily basis.
I also had chronic stress building and growing inside of me from not approving of myself personally and stress from life being 100% about work… without enough sleep and nutrition…
Back to the health coach story. We cut the list down to 5. 4 weeks in I finally came up with the 5. She made me email her 5 things I liked about myself weekly for a year.
It was such a learning experience because I had to dig deep for qualities I liked about me. I ended up cultivating new interests from that experience that led me to this very day. All of this new awareness and the beginning of change came from curiosity…Probably the best mindset tip I’ve ever received and that I give.
Once I figured out that I basically hated myself…I became kinder to myself. I began working to release those negative thought loops. I bought a book about meditation. LOL. That was about as far as I got on meditation. I still have the book, I think. I’ve never read it. I got to go to a Deepak Chopra speaking event once and he had us meditate in our seats. That was my very first experience with meditation and I never would have done it without Deepak Chopra walking me through it live!
I began eating better, but I didn’t really dedicate myself to eating clean until the thyroid debacle after Jack was born.
The self love came over time with tiny steps taken consistently.
I had to work at liking myself and knowing myself. I died to many versions of me to become who I am today, and I am still growing into a new version of myself.
The love evolved over time. I’m hoping some of my experience resonates with you today so we can clear your path forward a bit. If taking care of your self is your one thing to improve, you are in for a treat.
So self care is really a combination of liking and loving yourself, and having a discipline in life that makes you feel free.
3 Tips for Understanding True Self Care
1. Your starting point. Do you like yourself? Can you write down 10 things right now that you like about yourself? If not, get to work. Start trying.
2. Understand this comes in stages.
There are stages to liking yourself and the evolve into self love once you’ve been consistent for a while.
3. Stages of loving me
· High 5 habit
· Letting go of vices
· Learning to feel feelings and to trust myself in knowing they will pass. It’s a stage that I’ve gone throught that’s made me love myself more.
· Rituals and systems vs self parenting
· Unconditional compassion for me
Steps to take towards self care - Here’s how to get going. Start by starting.
Celebrate Your Wins!
If we never take time to celebrate the small wins AND the big wins, life is just a never ending to do list.
That is not rewarding or uplifting.
Taking even a minute to say “I did it!” and bask in that feeling so you can remember it! Even call upon it to know how good you are going to feel in the future is so dang important.
Get familiar with feeling GOOD! The feeling of celebration is GOOD!
WHY KEEP GOING if there is no good point, no celebration point, nothing to look forward to…
Rewards and self indulgences when you accomplish something for ourselves are fun and exciting. They don’t have to be big or expensive, but a celebration of the win is critical to stay motivated and appreciate and be kind to yourself…
A Self Care Gift you might give yourself is a new self worth story.
Now I never have been one to sit around and say I’m not worthy or I’m not enough…But I’ve often thought ‘I could never spend that on myself…’ and I’ve thought…If I could just lose 5 more lbs I’d be skinny…enough…Take time to really get aware of what you think about your worthiness and enoughness. Do you realize what your thoughts around these topics?
Here is why I ask. The longest relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself.
Who determines this for you? Does society or the media play a big role in who you think you should be or how you think you should look?
What do you think makes you worthy?
· Showing up for yourself?
· Taking care of yourself nutritionally?
· Showing kindness to others?
These are things that have become staples in my life that make me feel worthy. This is a really good exercise to get out of your head and create your own belief system around how you value yourself and how you are able and willing to care for others...journal about it and get it out onto paper so you can see your value and worthiness and what you believe about yourself.
Do you have the guts to change how you approach self care? None of what we’ve discussed to day is easy, but it is 1000% worth it because you are worth it. The lives you’ll change by making true self care a priority
Examples of self care to get you started
· Self awareness is #1- understanding the thoughts you focus on most of the time is self awareness 101
· Breathwork - taking time to breath in
· Food that heals, nutrition that builds your body
· Allowing yourself to feel emotions and process through them without hiding
· Showing up for your daily walk or exercise
· Understanding your inner critic
· Meditation & releasing negative thoughts
· Letting go of vices like alcohol to deal with stress
· Letting go of habits that cost you - if a habit leads to a shame spiral, focus on how you can let that go
· Journaling - getting the feelings and thoughts OUT of your head
· Managing and planning your time so there is time for you to be still, think, or let go of those thoughts through meditation, exercise or journaling!
· Talking to a therapist
· Living from the present and future vs the past
Do you have the guts to love yourself deeply? That’s what self care can lead to when done well.
Stay curious!
