Halloween is history, but the candy’s not.

Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash

Anyone else groan when you saw Christmas decor displays in August?

If we live our lives at the pace advertising dictates we’ll be into 2018 without having taken a breath!

I want to do something counter cultural. I want to focus on embracing self-care for the next 30 Days. I want to see if there are ways I can slow down, look around, acknowledge and appreciate creation, books, food and most of all people.

I know a lot of us come up against the No Time for Me monster. Or maybe you do ok with taking care of yourself but have people who lob criticism at you for making time for self-care. Either way those are extremes and I believe there is a middle ground. My goal with this personal challenge is to find that middle space and try to walk it everyday.

Where do we start?

Step 1: Define what self-care is

According to Raphailia Michael, MA in her article on psychcentral.com :

Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self-care is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety. It’s also key to a good relationship with oneself and others.

Step 2: Define what it is not

Knowing what self-care is not might be even more important. It is not something that we force ourselves to do, or something we don’t enjoy doing. As Agnes Wainman explained, self-care is “something that refuels us, rather than takes from us.”

Self-care isn’t a selfish act either. It is not only about considering our needs; it is rather about knowing what we need to do in order to take care of ourselves, being subsequently, able to take care of others as well. That is, if I don’t take enough care of myself, I won’t be in the place to give to my loved ones either.

In a few words, self-care is the key to living a balanced life

As a coach I hear many women trying to find balance between all the competing voices. Something I’ve come to realize is that we will be searching forever.

Balance isn’t the goal. But it is a direction that can inform our choices. Balance itself isn’t bad.

Even when hormones start raging and you don’t make sense to yourself or anybody else, if you’ve developed a few self-care practices you can minimize those out of control-I’m going to kill someone-feelings.

Developing small daily practices that help body, mind and spirit learn to relax, experience joy, rest & peace AS WELL AS work hard are truly the goals.

I’m giving myself a pass as a way of taking the first step. I am going to TRY to do these things and if I don’t one day, I’m going to BE NICE to myself and try again the next day. That’s called GRACE. 

I’m trying to develop important safe guards for taking care of me. I don’t want anyone to wait until they’re 60 to start figuring this out. So while I’m learning & practicing I want to invite you to come along.

For the next 30 days, I’m going to  challenge myself to make time to practice self-care DAILY.  I’ll share encouragement to try these ideas and ask you for your ideas too.

We can do this! Bring along a friend. Ask for accountability. That’s what I’m doing by inviting you to take this challenge with me. It will be fun and informative. Cuz that’s just how I roll!