I'm super excited to welcome my first guest post! I went to a the Boss Mom Retreat in January (like a conference but so much better), and was uplifted by the amazing community of women that came together there. One of the most exciting things was finding other women with messages that I loved, and that I knew you would love, too! Thanks to Rochelle Bohannon for this great insight on the importance of self care!
SELF-CARE FOR THE SOUL As women (and especially as moms) we tend to do all the things. We spend much of our time caring, planning and implementing for others. We’re inherently good at multitasking, so it only makes sense to embrace this. But often times, we lose sight of something very important in the process: the ability to care deeply and intentionally for ourselves. Many of us are conditioned to believe that anything related to the “self” is, in fact, a selfish act. We are taught that selfishness is a bad thing. It often carries a stigma of greed and narcissism. But this is so far from the truth. Self-care is an act that allows for us to maintain the integrity of our lives. Without it, we aren’t able to feel happy, productive or fulfilled. If we neglect it, we might feel anxious, empty and overwhelmed. Self care helps is to feel grounded and balanced, even when life is not. I think of it like this: You need to put on your oxygen mask before you can put on someone else’s. If you aren’t breathing, there’s no way that you can help anyone else do anything. You are the leader of your life, and you need to exist as the best, well-fed version of yourself. Life is demanding and oftentimes, throwing us many balls from many directions. In order to avoid burn out, we must look inward to think about what it is that we need from ourselves and from the world. There are many facets of self-care: Emotional
Physical
Spiritual
Mental
Social
Practical
Many of these things, like sleep, exercise, affirmations, meditation and chores will be things that you might need to do on a daily basis in order to stay sane. But there are other areas that might only need your attention less often. There are an infinite number of ways to incorporate self-care into your daily life. My favorite method is to think of it this way: What is one thing that you can do today to take care of yourself? Since there are six aspects of self-care, I find it easiest to try and address one area specifically each day of the week, with a “freebie” day thrown in as well. For example: Sunday - Spiritual (church, yoga, a walk in nature, etc.) Monday - Emotional (affirmations for the week) Tuesday - Mental (wake up early to read or journal) Wednesday - Practical (do laundry, get organized) Thursday - Social (coffee date or dinner with friends) Friday - Physical (face mask or a massage) Saturday - Whatever area of your life that needs a little extra love this week! Keep in mind, this is a loose guideline of how it might look. Each week might be different for you, depending on what you have going on. There will be times that life might not allow you as much self-care as you hope for, but that’s okay. Remember that it’s not about being perfect; it’s about being intentional and simply recognizing that you need that extra love. That’s the first step to being able to implement self-care. Ultimately, your personal definition of self-care is what matters. Regardless of what it looks like for you, self-care should involve two things: tuning in (to yourself and your needs) and tuning out (of the outside demands from life and others). Ultimately, by caring for yourself, you are allowing yourself to live authentically, stay engaged and feel productive. So cheers to you, your health and your self! Find Rochelle Bohannon on Facebook.
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There are three kinds of habits. Good habits, bad habits, and plain old habits. Obviously we like our good habits. Let's look at brushing our teeth every night. It takes very little time, effort, and money, makes our breath better, prevents tooth decay. Obviously that is a combo that most people feel is worth continuing the habit. Bad habits on the other hand usually have a short term benefit and long term cost. Surprise surprise I'm going to suggest we take a closer look at sugar. Short term it tastes good, it feels good, and we simply enjoy it. Long term though, it can cause a variety of health problems and weight gain. And even intermediate term, it can cause guilt and shame and regret and a sick feeling tummy. When it comes to bad habits, there is often a period we don't mind paying the price, but usually the long term costs add up and we start to wish to change, but at that point it's a lot HARDER to change. I've been there. Even when I was "being healthy" in my early 20s I binged on an entire bag or prunes and whole pineapple to the point of making myself SICK. Now, however, I've learned from that lesson and can simply tell myself "a handful is enough." But how did I get there? I had to take a BIG picture look at my whole life and all the factors contributing to the extreme consumption of sugar and al the ways to make it "normal." I feel SO GRATEFUL now that when I look back at old journals and read about how I made myself sick on sweets that I literally don't even feel like the same person. It doesn't even seem POSSIBLE that I would do something now. Are you ready to forget that part of you? My program, Love Every Bite, can wash away the guilt and shame and lay a foundation to have a normal relationship with sugar once and for all. Start with learning my 5 secrets to overcoming emotional eating. Here is a note from a client who transformed her guilt and gave up sugar binges...even during some of the most stressful weeks of her life! I'm all about having good intentions. I think it's really important. And yet at the same time intention does no good without action. I have to admit I have these insights as I laid awake worrying about the election results. Whoever you voted for is unimportant. But did you know that 46% of all registered voters did not vote? So I wonder who they wanted to win. Because they might have had a desire or intention but they didn't take action. And I especially wonder who would have won if they had. Now to share with you a little bit about my mind (and my crazy) I have to tell you that while I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about either candidate I have a weird deep-seated fear Donald Trump will get us involved in a war. This is probably not rational. And I've actually seen people say that they were glad Hillary wasn't elected because she would have taken us into World War 3. So obviously people on either side have irrational fears about the opposite candidate. None the less I woke up knowing he had won and felt like instead of working on my business I should move to the woods and become a doomsday prepper. That's not rational. I realize that. And the way that the intention plays in with this is that I'm in a phase in my business where I'm setting up a foundation for further growth. I have my one-on-one clients, but I want to keep growing. I want to add more clients and I want to offer more opportunities to help people change their relationship with food. My next two steps are online group classes and a book. Those are my intentions. And yet as I lay there freaking out thinking I shouldn't work on my business at all, I realized it didn't really make sense. My business is my intention. And instead of getting worried about something un-founded in reality, I need to take action to serve my intention. And this IN TURN, led me to realize that I have certain habits and paths in my day-to-day life that I've set up... and that are NOT serving my intention. Those day to day actions are not in alignment with my intention. Despite that fact that I've actually been WORRIED about my day to day habits... I hadn't actually changed them. Thinking about those people who did not vote and the fact that they probably had an opinion made it really clear to me all of my action needs to be in alignment with my intention. So... I cancelled my gym membership which isn't that close to my house. I printed out a coupon to the gym that is close to my house. I transferred my youngest son from the farther away preschool to the closer preschool. I called that preschool and asked if siblings have priority. (Yes! They said that they would do that for my older son.) This is where all of my actions are now aligning for the intention that I have. Instead of just worrying about how far I"m driving or worrying about which school my kids should be in... I did what I could to start changing things. In one day I did everything in my power to stop myself from driving all around town and to give myself the opportunity to be focused so that my actions can be in alignment with my intention. Can I control everything? No. I still have to wait for my son's name to get called up on the wait list. But I did what I could to ensure that he'll get called on the wait list. My actions are in alignment with my intention. How does this relate to health? It all goes back to this: should have could have would have. Saying that you should lose weight or saying that you should stop eating sugar is an intention. But it's not action. Reading a book about health? That's action. Calling a friend to set a goal to go to the gym together? That's action. Giving yourself an honest assessment of what you actually need to achieve your goals? That's action. And that's really the first step. So often I see people believing the excuses they tell themselves, and believing the stories that justify their current behavior. And that will never align your actions with your intentions. Just like I had to actually CHANGE my gym membership and CHANGE my son's preschool, despite the stories I was telling myself about what I "should" do... you have to CHANGE patterns to CHANGE there results. I could have just focused on the preschool and not changed my gym membership because "I like my friends at the gym." But I still would have been driving all over town and I wouldn't have been achieving my goal. I have to get honest with myself about what would really serve me best in order to achieve my intention. What's your intention? What action will you take to make it reality? |
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