Felt compelled to “chat”on this tonight. Too much for a Facebook status for sure.
I suck at self-care. I suspect many of the people who take the time to read this suck at it too!
(For the dirty minded friends of mine- no....not that)
Simply put it is taking care of one’s self- mind, body, and emotionally/spiritually.
It is putting yourself first sometimes. Often we are so busy working, caring for others, and worrying about everyone else we forget about self-care. If you are like me... you feel guilty about it.
I struggle with my weight. No suprise right? Kinda the whole message I founded this blog on right? I surround myself with a great team and have lots of tools at my disposal to help me. But all of this does nothing if I ignore it. My failure to practice self-care is a big hurdle to a healthy weight.
Case in point- each month I pay for one of those “Massage a month plans”. Pretty much every health care provider and my trainer will explain the benefits of Massage....especially if you are like me and like to form trigger points and don’t like to foam roll. I froze it 3 months ago to “catch-up” because I had 9 unused. Well, it unfroze and still had 5. I use up 2 at a time and still can’t seem to take 90 minutes and all I have to do is pay the tip and lay there.
So today I went.... the very nice lady finishes with me and brings up self-care. Was she trying to sell me on coming in more? Nope- I need to stretch more, let go of my stress more, and DRINK MORE WATER. She was so glad I did a 80 minute hot stone because everything was so tight and knotty.
I work too much sometimes. I let worrying about things beyond my control chew me up. I either eat my stress or try to pound it out in the gym. Or both. I don’t sleep enough. Many days I drink more coffee than water. I do not listen to the little signals my body gives me so it has to send MUCH less subtle ones... spike in resting heart rate, illogical jump in the weight and swelling, increased pain, joints so stiff and painful walking down stairs is hard, migraines, inability to concentrate, becoming a very crabby witch.
Now- working out is a form of self-care. But not when you push hard through workouts when you see the warning signs of fatigue and keep pushing.
So.... I am going to work on being better. Hopefully some of you will too?
What are my plans?e
- Learn it is ok to say “no” and not feel guilty (this is a hard one)
- Stop feeling like it is my job to take care of everyone
- Drink more water- goal is 110 ounces a day (take your weight and divide by 2 for approx rule of thumb... being 224 pounds means I need to drink a lot)
- Go to bed on time
- Stretch at least 10 minutes a day
- Meditate 10 minutes a day (not including the yoga nidra for sleep)
- Log my food 5 days a week
- Workout 5 days per week but respect the workout and not use it to punish myself
Hopefully this resonates with some of you and you take time to make yourself as important as everyone else you take care of.
