Sustainable Self Care.
With the start of a new year, we often tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make big lifestyle changes with the hope of becoming a healthier, happier version of ourselves.
For me, prioritising self care and holistic health has allowed me sustain my goals in a much more nourishing way. Prioritising self care has been incredibly powerful, as it allowed me to move away from individualised goals, and the pressure that comes with them, and rather focus on my health holistically. Often the changes we are wanting to make are a little too drastic to be sustainable in the long term. Sometimes, we focus on one single goal such as losing weight, and neglect other aspects of our health in order to achieve that goal. This makes it hard to sustain the goal over longer periods of time.
In order to avoid the disappointment many people will feel by the time February comes around, for not keeping up with all the intentions we set at the start of the year, I thought I would do a little post on what health and self care are for me, and some of the tools that helped me create and maintain a more sustainable self care practice.
What is health?
Health is a state of overall wellness – physical, emotional and mental. It is a journey, and not a destination, and requires self care and self love. In order to be healthy, you need to take regard for what your body needs. Health is not just what we eat and how are bodies look, but is comprised of many other domains, sometimes referred to as our primary food.
Primary and Secondary Food: What are they and how do they affect our lives?
For a long time I believed that what I ate was the most important aspect of my health. I put a lot of energy into my diet, often at the expense of other aspects of my health. Over the past year I have learned that the food that is on our plates is, in fact, secondary food. Even though what we eat plays a massive role in our health, it is not the most important aspect of our health.
Our primary food is our relationships, our career, our spirituality and the physical activity we partake in, and these all have massive impacts on our overall health and wellbeing. I have learned, through my own experience, that even if the food I am eating is in alignment with my health goals, being out of alignment in elements of my primary food results in me not being the happiest, healthiest version of myself. You can eat all the kale and broccoli in the world, but if you are in a toxic relationship, or doing a job you hate, you will not be the healthiest version of yourself.
On my journey to health, I am always asking myself the questions:
“What does my body need to heal?”
“What is my body saying ‘no’ to?”
By asking these questions, you can start to feel into what it is your body needs to regain optimum health. Often the answers will come quicker than you think. Sometimes the answers may involve making drastic changes to your life, and this can feel daunting. So start small, and take baby steps. Take some time to evaluate these four aspects of your life (relationships, career, spirituality, physical activity) and see where you are fulfilled, and see what areas you could improve on. Be honest with yourself.
Based on this, create a self care plan. Implement small changes, to move towards a healthier, happier version of yourself. Below are some examples.
Physical self-care.
Activities that help you to stay fit and healthy, and with enough energy to get through your work and personal commitments.
Develop a regular sleep routine.
Aim for a healthy diet.
Take lunch breaks.
Go for a walk at lunchtime.
Take your dog for a walk after work.
Use your sick leave.
Get some exercise before/after work regularly.
Psychological self-care.
Activities that help you to feel clear-headed and able to intellectually engage with the professional challenges that are found in your work and personal life.
Keep a reflective journal.
Make time for relaxation.
Make time to engage with positive friends and family.
Seek and engage in external supervision or regularly consult with a more experienced colleague.
Engage with a non-work hobby.
Turn off your email and work phone outside of work hours.
Emotional self-care.
Allowing yourself to safely experience your full range of emotions.
Develop friendships that are supportive.
Write three good things that you did each day.
Play a sport and have a coffee together after training.
Go to the movies or do something else you enjoy.
Keep meeting with your parents' group or other social group.
Talk to you friend about how you are coping with work and life demands.
Spiritual self-care.
This involves having a sense of perspective beyond the day-to-day of life.
Engage in reflective practices like meditation - head to my Youtube for some free daily meditations to try.
Go on bush walks.
Go to church/mosque/temple.
Do yoga.
Reflect with a close friend for support.
Relationship self-care.
This is about maintaining healthy, supportive relationships, and ensuring you have diversity in your relationships so that you are not only connected to work people.
Prioritise close relationships in your life e.g. with partners, family and children.
Attend the special events of your family and friends.
Arrive to work and leave on time every day.
Workplace or professional self-care.
This involves activities that help you to work consistently at the professional level expected of you. For example:
Engage in regular supervision or consulting with a more experienced colleague.
Set up a peer-support group.
Be strict with boundaries between clients/students and staff.
Read professional journals.
Attend professional development programs.
Create your own self care plan.
For each category above, select at least one strategy or activity that you can undertake and start implementing as soon as possible. You might notice areas of overlap between these categories. It is important to develop a self care plan that is holistic and individual to you.
Fill your self-care plan with activities that you enjoy and that support your wellbeing.
Keep this in a place where you can see it every day. Keeping it visible will help you to think about and commit to the strategies in your plan. You can also share it with your supervisor, colleagues friends and family so they can support you in your actions.
Stick to your plan and practice the activities regularly. Just like an athlete doesn’t become fit by merely ‘thinking’ about fitness, as a worker you can’t expect to perform effectively without putting into practice a holistic plan for your wellbeing.
Re-assess how you are going at the end of one month and then three months. Plans can take over a month to become habits, so check-in and be realistic about your own self care plan. After a while, come back and complete the self care assessment again to find out how you are going with your new habits.
A word of caution.
Once you have created a self care plan it is important to ask yourself, “what might get in the way?” What can you do to remove these barriers? If you can’t remove them you might want to adjust your strategies. Think honestly about whether any of your strategies are negative and how you can adjust your plan to avoid or minimise their impact.
It can be challenging if your workplace is not supportive of self care activities, but you can still do things outside of work to help yourself. It is import that your plan resonates for you and that you put it in to action starting now.
Implementing a sustainable self care routine can have profound long term impacts on all aspects of your life. So move with compassion and clarity. Allow yourself to experience the benefits of seeing health as being a holistic concept, and not solely physical.
I would love to hear about your experiences implementing a sustainable self-care routine, so if you would like to share, or have any questions, please reach out to me via email!
All love
x
