Wellness and Self-Care

“An empty lantern provides no light. Selfcare is the fuel that allows your light to shine brightly.” -Unknown

If these uncertain times that we are all living through have highlighted anything, it is the importance of taking care of our wellbeing and how vital self-care truly is. I wish I could express this idea to you in a way that speaks to your bones and causes an emotional echo that never ends – Wellness is NOT all or nothing!  You don’t have to do it perfectly to get it right, and every little bit can make a huge difference. 

You also do not have to wait for Monday to be well. You do not have to wait for this pandemic to be over to be well again. Wellness is a commitment to your body, mind, and soul that you will take care of you, just as you are – no matter what. It is your vocation of honouring yourself because you matter exactly how you are today. Wellness has nothing to do with fitness or fitting in. You decide once and for all that you are your own defender and the protector of your peace and purpose. How we do this is through developing practices and habits of self-care. This piece is all about these practices. 

Taking care of ourselves is not self-indulgent or selfish - It is straight up science! Self-care is important so that we can stay healthy and strong and be there to support others who need us. We do not have to earn the right to protect our time and take care of ourselves either. We are already worthy of the time and effort it takes to be well. Making a consistent effort towards body kindness and personal peace is crucial for living a good life. Self-care will not necessarily always be convenient, but the cost of neglecting ourselves is too great. The suggestions I offer here are practical, approachable, and I promise – they will lead you to significant improvements in your overall wellness. 

WHOLE PICTURE WELLNESS

Wellness is not only about physical health. I believe that the health industry has commandeered the wellness landscape, so that when people talk about wellness, they are usually talking about the markers of physical health like sleep, nutrition, exercise, and the absence of disease. Of course, physical health is important, but it is only ONE dimension of wellness. To me, in order to be sustainable and joyful, our concept of wellness needs to have more depth and breadth. I like to think of wellness as including psychological safety, physical preparedness, andpurpose. For us to achieve true wellness, we need a multifaceted approach and several entry points. Here are some of the ways in which we can cultivate wellness for ourselves and create more self and community care. Wellness is:

Physical: Sleep, Nutrition, Movement, Disease Management 

Intellectual: Learning, Growing, Perspective Taking, Stimulation, Curiosity, Wonder 

Emotional:  Feelings, Forgiveness, Comfort 

Social: Community, Family, Friends, Altruism, Justice 

Environmental: Safety, Order, Care for the Lands. Future Footprints 

Spiritual: Meaning, Purpose, Vocations, Living Rightly 

Financial: Resources, Needs Met, Security 

Occupational: Capacity, Routines, Engagement, Recognition

Consider Self-care vs. Self-Neglect (This may sting) 

The greatest barrier I see in people who struggle to make time for self-care is the relationship they have with themselves. When we struggle to take care of ourselves, it can be because we do not feel deserving or worthy. It is hard to make self-care part of our everyday life when we simply don’t value ourselves enough to take the time needed. From a psychological and/or spiritual perspective, this is often the ‘mother wound’ made manifest in our lives – the deepest root cause as to why we neglect ourselves and deny ourselves what we most need to be well. My invitation for each of us is to visit this truth. Can we meet our thoughts and feelings around this idea kindly and patiently? It is only through hearing our deepest hurts that we can heal them. 

We have also been conditioned in our culture that neglecting our self-care is heroic, professional, or what true team players do - going above and beyond even if that means beyond what we can reasonably do while also taking care of our wellness. We can strive for such perfection that self-care gets pushed farther down the list. This behaviour becomes a habit. But this is not a character flaw. It is the result of our relationship with ourselves and our conditioning. The good news is that there is always a next-right-decision that we can make to change a pattern, and as we learned last session, we can change our behaviour! 

WELLNESS IS THE THING : SELF-CARE IS THE HOW

Here are my top tips and self-care hacks for cultivating whole picture wellness! 

Boundaries: We must protect our body and our life. We all need boundaries, and for most of us, we need help learning how to establish and maintain them. This is a practice, so be gentle with yourself. Instead of making hard and fast rules, however, like ‘ absolutely no emails after 6 pm’, which is not practical or possible in many cases, decide on your top 3 non-negotiables. For example – 1. One day of the week is sacred and will not have work of any kind; 2. I will not break a promise or commitment to my family; 3) I will not read email in bed. 

Bookend Your Day: This is one of the most important self-care practices for cultivating wellness. Protect one hour at the start and another at the end of your day. Bookending our day enables us to be intentional in setting the right tone so that we can start the day feeling creative, purposeful, and optimistic and go to bed feeling satisfied, with a sense of accomplishment. Morning routines that nourish us with pre-loaded self-care practices before we need to recover from our day are crucial.

Movement Practices: Our bodies are designed to be in motion. We need movement and experiences outside of our intellectual selves. Our bodies are not meant to just carry around our brains. They allow us to connect with and savour the world around us. Even 10 minutes can have a profound impact on the way we experience our day. 

Schedule It: We need to schedule self-care and keep it in our calendar as if we are meeting with the most important person in the world. Even 10-15 minute blocks of rest, reflection, self-compassion, and active recovery will change your life. 

Protect Your Peace: When we feel triggered by external events, we can remember that peace is within us. It is a place we can go to ground ourselves and it is always available to us. Meditation is a good way to tap into this inner peace. If meditation is new for you, start with just a few minutes a day. Do not judge your efforts; just focus on your breathing to bring you back when your mind wanders. There are great free apps that assist with guided meditation such as Insight Timer, Buddhify, and more. 

Breathing: Breathing is a vital stress-release mechanism. When we take a deep inhalation, it actually sends a signal to our brain to say, “we are safe.” Conversely, when we take short, shallow breaths, we signal our brain that there is danger, and this exacerbates negative feelings and frustration. Focus on lengthening the exhale, following the breath all the way out, and rest in the peace and stillness at the end of the exhale. Notice how the inbreath comes naturally. 

Connect with Nature: Find a safe way to get outside and connect with nature. Simply standing in the outdoors and getting a dose of fresh air or taking a quick walk can clear the mind and help us reframe obstacles or challenges we are facing. Trees, water, sky, animals – they are all there to hold us and to teach us something if we are willing to listen. 

Write your own self-care play book: For some of us, it can be an early bedtime, a book, a massage (touch is so important), or it could be a car wash, or a coffee in the shower! Self-care is whatever makes us feel regulated and restored. The more unique and personalized the better. Self-care can also be saying NO, doing less, listening to music, playing video games, dancing silly, shopping, planning, imagining and dreaming. The options are limitless. Do whatever feels good and helps you decompress. 

Go for the FEELINGS: Often with self-care we are trying to do the ‘thing’. My invitation is to go for the feeling! And remember, part of self-care is community-care. We are part of a larger web of life and we can only be truly well when we are all thriving. Sometimes the very thing we need to feel good is to help someone else. 

FINAL NOTE: I BELIEVE IN YOU

I want you to know that I appreciate that this isn’t easy. I have lived (and am still living) my own journey with learning and re-learning how to care for myself when times get tough. Over the past few years, I started seeing the effects of my neglect of self-care on the people I love the most. I witnessed our teenagers picking up extra work shifts, juggling conflicting demands, pulling 14 hours days, training relentlessly, never have down time, doing the grab and go snacks as meals until it became a pattern. And this realization stopped me in my tracks. Exhaustion is not a marker of success. The pace society sets for us is not a pace that leads to a high of quality of life. Anxd so, I stopped. I acknowledged what I was seeing, and I humbly asked my children to let me show them another way. Working remotely during COVID has allowed me to grow through my own edges and learn to model self-care for my family. It is not easy to put ourselves, our wellness, and our self-care practices above the hustle and bustle and demands of life. But it is so worth it – it is the kind of investment that pays infinite dividends. So, let us take up this most precious of responsibilities now. Let us care for ourselves and gift the next generation with the permission to never question their worthiness for wellness. 

Dr. Robyne