Give Yourself the Gift of Time for: Self Care

The following is adapted from my new book, Boot Straps & Bra Straps: The Formula to Go from Rock Bottom Back into Action in Any Situation

When you’re truly at rock bottom, all you’re trying to do is survive. But once you’re ready to come up for air, how do you shift back out of survival mode?

Relearning self-care can be difficult, but it will make your recovery from rock bottom much swifter and easier than if you fight your own body by neglecting yourself.

In this article, I’ll share how you can work self-care back into your day one step at a time so you can become healthier and happier as you continue to improve yourself.

What Is Self-Care and Why Is It Important?

When we’re at rock bottom, we’re so busy making ends meet, struggling with grief, loss, and pain, and dealing with whatever is going on, that we don’t have a choice but to eliminate some of the things we usually do. Often, the first thing to fall by the wayside is self-care.

What do I mean by self-care? Self-care encompasses all of the activities and tasks that keep you healthy and well-balanced; things like cooking dinner, maintaining a certain level of cleanliness, practicing good hygiene, taking time to relax, or going to the gym.

Neglecting self-care can easily sneak up on you when you’re in survival mode. “It’s just today,” you tell yourself as you skip the gym. But then tomorrow comes and goes, and another day and another. The next thing you know, it’s been a month or two, and then you really start to notice the difference. One day, you wake up and you’re not who you used to be.

The Effects of Neglecting Self-Care

When you aren’t practicing self-care, it shows up all over. Maybe you’re exhausted and not sleeping right. Maybe you’re off your healthy diet. Perhaps you’ve pushed your meditation practice, and it’s showing up at work or with relationships. You start snapping at people you would usually treat with patience.

When you’re already at rock bottom with one situation and then you realize how many of your healthy habits went in the fallout, it can be overwhelming. The areas of your life where you’re falling short start piling up, making everything more difficult. Perhaps your self-esteem starts to decline or you become more withdrawn. Your work performance may suffer because you can’t concentrate with a mountain of chores snowballing into bigger problems at home.

Eventually, you’ve hit another rock bottom, and you may be looking around and thinking, “How do I get from here back to where I was?”

You start over.

Take Self-Care One Step at a Time

Starting over sounds scary, but there is good news. Your muscles have memory. Your body remembers healthy eating. And you can catch up on your sleep. But it’s not going to happen in one day.

It took you more than a day to reach this rock-bottom place. One day of not cleaning doesn’t bring a mess into your life. One day of extra spending doesn’t necessarily lead to a negative cash-flow situation. So it’s going to take a few days — or even weeks — to get back to where you were.

The fastest way to start climbing up from rock bottom is to take small steps and focus on little wins. Do one small chore you’ve been neglecting, and then give one reward to yourself and perform one small act of personal hygiene, too. As you do one, the other becomes easier and you climb back up from your rock bottom.

Once you’ve taken that first step and have that first little win, you can take another. Maybe tomorrow you’ll clean one part of your house or deal with one bill that got thrown into a pile. Set a goal or a timer, and once you reach that number or that time, stop and take some time to reward yourself for the progress you’ve made.

Keep the Ball Rolling

Once you build up some self-care momentum, don’t let it stop! Keep doing your chores, tasks, and routines one step at a time. Setbacks are normal, so don’t beat yourself up if you slide backward for a day or two.

Simply start again. Think back to when you were at rock bottom and remember that you owe it to yourself to be healthy and happy, and self-care is a key ingredient to making that happen.

For more advice on recovering from rock bottom, you can find Boot Straps & Bra Straps: The Formula to Go from Rock Bottom Back into Action in Any Situation on Amazon.

About the Author: ❤️ Sheila guides entrepreneurs and working professionals through the profitable steps of building a business: creation of expansion; marketing from planning to implementation; wealth building and preservation through real estate investing; and strategic planning all so that you can get back to the business of living your best life.

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