Self-Care All Day Every Day!

What’s the first thing you think about when you think about self-care? Is it a manicure? Bubble baths? A week by yourself on a remote island?

These things are nice, but to me, self-care is about what you do every single day. You pour out your energy for your clients and your families all day every day, so in order to stay healthy, you need to take care of yourself all day every day. Fill your own cup first, so that you have something to give.

In order to truly care for ourselves, we need to focus on our whole selves with the five pillars of self-care. 

1: Physical Self-Care

It’s an undeniable fact that physical, mental and emotional health are all connected. So caring for your physical self is a great place to start. This includes healthy food and hydration, getting enough sleep, getting some exercise and movement, and even taking care of your preventative healthcare. In Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs, physical needs are on the bottom rung for a reason. Nothing else can function without them.👟

2: Mental Self-Care

There are many things we can do to take care of our mental health, our mindset and our cognitive function. Mental self-care includes things you can do to organize your thoughts, calm your chattering mind and strengthen your memory. This includes things like puzzles, lists, learning new things, and taking regular breaks. 🧠

3: Emotional Self-Care

Emotional self-care refers to taking care of our emotions, feelings and inner world. This can include activities that make us laugh, help us relax, or allow us to feel inspired or hopeful. Some things that help include journaling, connecting with others and being careful with the media you take in and how it affects your emotional health. 💖

4: Spiritual Self-Care

Spiritual does not have to mean religious, but it certainly can if this is something that is important to you. Spiritual self-care means connecting with something bigger than yourself. This could be your religious beliefs, higher power, nature, science, art, or history. Seek out things that inspire you and give you a sense of joy and wonder! ✨

5: Social Self-Care

Humans are social beings, and we crave connection. Even if you consider yourself an introvert, it’s easy to become isolated and feel disconnected from others. I believe that a sense of belonging and community is absolutely critical to your self-care. So things like coffee with a friend, getting together with family, and making time for date nights and girls nights out are imperative. I believe that many of us were already struggling with isolation and disconnection before the pandemic, and the pandemic has only made it worse. 

Being a therapist can be an isolating job because we can’t talk about our work.

So it’s also important to seek out consultation and connection with peers to understand what you are going through. You’re not built to do this alone!

We will be covering all of these pillars of self-care, along with strategies for how to fit them in to the chaotic summer days in the Free Summertime Self-Care Challenge for Therapist Moms. 

This is your last chance to sign up. We start Monday May 30th! 

See you in there! 

SIGN UP HERE!